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Comment by mcherm | Hacker News Reader

> Not any more than you'll find idiots in any movement.

Perhaps. But I am have been involved in (for example) movements around agile development, the Python programming language, and the need to hire more women in programming and other technical positions. None of these movements have, that I am aware of, generated fringe movements that have threatened people so they had to leave their homes, nor have they caused universities to cancel lectures over safety concerns.

If this "GamerGate" movement is, indeed, level-headed and respectful, then could we arrange for leaders of the movement to publicly and forcefully denounce the threats of violence? For instance, GamerGate leaders could organize a fund-raiser to provide a forum for Anita Sarkeesian to present her talk.

Any behavior like this would significantly increase my opinion of the movement -- of which I presently have an extremely low opinion.

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then could we arrange for leaders of the movement

There are no "leaders of the movement". There are a few Twitter/YouTube personalities that are popular and have been rallied around, but they don't control anything.

Most of the GG organizing takes place on anonymous imageboards and IRC, and most of it is through consensus along the lines of: "Hey, we should do X!" "That sounds like a good idea!"

..could organize a fund-raiser to provide a forum for Anita Sarkeesian to present her talk.

Counterproductive at best, considering that GG takes issue with Sarkeesian's presentation of the facts. Now, if she would agree to a moderated debate about same, that would be just about perfect. I would personally contribute resources to making that happen.

If there are no leaders and no control, then surely the GG movement can only be defined by what it does under it's banner and it can't in any sane way be called "level headed" or "balanced"? If there's no way to moderate the GG members beyond consensus then there isn't any organisation or even a coherent goal beyond attacking perceived threats.

I'm not even sure what GG is trying to do by sending death threats to Anita and harassing Zoe Quinn. It just looks like they are doing it for it's own sake.

Your first mistake is assuming that "GG is sending death threats".

That is false.

People are doxing, harassing, and sending threats of various sorts in GG's name. All the cries of "false flag" are just making the movement look worse.

It doesn't even need to be a false flag. All it takes is one un-hinged idiot who thinks they're Doing The Right Thing, and by the standards that HN users apparently have, that's enough to discard the entire movement. Because, yknow, a group's most unhinged members only stand for the movement when it's GG, even when those members are denounced by everyone else, but that same standard doesn't apply to people on the other side because reasons.

You'll pardon me for refusing to take this kind of lazy, hypocritical, dishonest viewpoint seriously.

I fully expect this post to receive un-rebutted downvotes, too.

You write (sarcastically): > a group's most unhinged members only stand for the movement when it's GG, even when those members are denounced by everyone else

I have missed the part where those members sending threats were "denounced by everyone else". (Certainly they have been denounced by a few.) Where are you seeing that?

By that logic, you can't judge any group in any way for doing anything because anything anyone does can be reduced to being an "un-hinged idiot".

Not at all. I can show you on pretty much every organizing point for GamerGate where there are rules in place about sexist or nasty comments, where people have been massively reported for trying to organize an invasion (on a chan board no less!) and so on.

Those leading the outrage train against gamergate are doing a fantastic job of cherry picking while ignoring this larger trend.

And by the way, lest you think that the concerns about "false flags" are just paranoid rantings, it is a thing that has happened before.

[1] http://gamergate.giz.moe/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/faking-h...

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