Gamergate Shows Tech Needs Far Better Algorithms

No, you are the one saying he's saying that. And it's a subtle and dishonest, not to mention rude way of shifting the goalposts.

There's this narrative that Zoe Quinn was attacked for being a female game developer just for being a female in the games industry oh the horror you better not be a female in the games industry or you are gonna get death threats to from angry male gamers in the gaming community for nothing but being a female trying to make games. Misogyny is everywhere especially in gaming.

To counter that narrative, people point out that she got a lot of negative attention for what she did, or was alleged to have done, and the most extreme negative backlash was reprehensible. In other words, it wasn't because she was a woman. That she was female may have influenced the nature of some of the backlash, but not the backlash itself or how extreme they got.

Idiots say "well I guess she deserved the death threats then?" No, the point was to debunk the stupid narrative about how women aren't safe on the internet or in the gaming community, not to discuss the finer points of what consequences Zoe did or didn't deserve for what she has done.

Note how Phil Fish quickly faded into the background, even though he was harassed as badly as Quinn. That's because he doesn't fit the poor victimized women story.

The _leaked emails_ of the Game Journo Pros mailing list, not the list itself. That's what I said. In them you can see Ben Kuchera putting pressure on other members to remove mentions of ZQ, Kyle Orland saying he would love to use his platform to support ZQ, Jason Schreier defending Nathan Grayson and so on and so forth. Then, starting August the 28th, a dozen major gaming sites put out almost exactly the same story that "Gamers are dead" in a 24-hour period basically telling their readers to get lost. Collusion and corruption exemplified. The Escapist is not at all comfortable with this and rewrites its policies and fesses up. Good on them. By the way, linking to articles written by members of this list and their sympathisers isn't going to impress me. It's what we have a problem with in the first place: biased, inaccurate coverage.

"Moderators deleting threads that go against the terms of service sounds pretty typical. What makes this any different?"

a) that they weren't anything to do with terms of service and b) the vastness of the scope. Examples: a thread on Reddit with 20 000 comments was deleted. 4chan suffered a mass exodus to 8chan because of deletions. Kotaku, RPS and Polygon refuse to allow any sort of discussion at ALL of this. This is what GamerGate supporters have a problem with.

"You seem to be claiming that a messy breakup justifies sending death threats to completely unrelated people. Perhaps you'd like to clarify?"

Certainly. For a start, let me say again: there is NO evidence connecting GamerGate supporters to death threats. None. The threats that were sent to Anita Sarkeesian? No evidence of links to GamerGate. The threats sent to Brianna Wu? No evidence of links to GamerGate. In fact, she was the one that made the connection (on national TV no less) where there wasn't one. A big fight on Twitter always attracts malicious third parties and we have STRONG evidence that Something Awful and GNAA have been trolling BOTH sides with threats. It's what they do. Both Nero and KingofPol have received physical items in the mail: a syringe and a knife, and have laughed them off. But the professional victims of the other side immediately publicise them and say 'see? see? Look at these GamerGaters!'

As I write this, a prominent defender of GamerGate has just been SWATted. He's immediately reported it to the FBI. That's what you do when you get harassed. You go straight to the authorities. You don't go on tour about it.