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2014

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expectmore HOME SPORTS PROGR WEATHER NEWS PHOTOS Why #Gamergate won't die Pasted: Oct 19, 2014 11:11 AM PST Updated Oct 19, 2014 11:11 AM PST By David Weinberger Editor's note: David Weinberger is a senior researcher at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet & Society and author of "Too Big to Know" (Basic Books). The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author (CNN) It began as an attempt to shut up one woman - a video-game developer who had criticized the entrenched sexism and misogyny in her industry-by "slut-shaming" her and then threatening As other women entered the conversation that was spreading across the Web, male gamer bullies organized to stamp them down as well, some of them adopting Gamergate as the rubric for their "movement." When the argument finally caught the attention of mainstream media, the controversy was no longer only about the original issues. It had also become about who gets to determine the real meaning of Gamergate So, what is Gamergate? Explaining it makes Watergate look like a piece of cake. ("You see, kids burglars broke into Democratic Party offices, and the Republican president tried to cover it up." Easy!) Not Gamergate. For one thing, unraveling the truth about the 1972 breakin at the Democratic National Committee offices fell to professional journalists and the legal system. For Gamergate -now a catchall term for a kind of culture war sprung from the gaming world, taking in issues of sexism, free speech, journalistic ethics, identity and more - the most timely and thoughtful coverage is coming from people who are affected by it. And now that we get to hear every person's voice, online, there is no single national narrato That means how you explain Gamergate depends on why you think it's worth explaining. For example, just calling it by that name implies that it's about some type of scurrilous behavior, in this case a breach of journalistic ethics (which we'll get to in a minute). Yet, if that's all it were about, it would have sunk without a ripple. After all, there's no evidence that there was any breach, and even if there were, why go after a woman who is a tiny indie game developer instead of the $100 billion mainstream industry that dwarfs Hollywood in its ability to unduly influence society and the media? So, if it's not about that, then what is it about? Here are the facts, but they don't tell the whole story. Zoe Quinn is one of the creators of "Depression Quest," an award-winning indie game released in 2013 that, unlike the typical run-and-gun games puts the player in the text-based shoes of a depressed teenager. About a month ago, an ex-boyfriend claimed the game had gotten a particular good review on a gaming news site only because (the angry ex-boyfriend claimed) Quinn had had sex with the reviewer which Quinn denies. Even though the journalist hadn't actually written a review, and the gaming news site found no wrongdoing, this triggered an avalanche of attacks on Quinn's ethics from some of the Internet's danker forums including threats of r--- and murder The fury directed at women went beyond Quinn and beyond the Web. In the most visible episode so who in Au released a video about the f women in games, canceled a scheduled talk at Utah State University after the school received emails threatening to murder people at the event. Becau ersity refused to ban students from carrying guns into the e Those are the "newsworthy" events, but they do little to explain what's happening my Hat of Reasonability on, I'm tempted to say "Of course no one - gamer or not - - supports anyone urder." But we don such orrific acts of violence, the meaning of "support" is one of the questions raised by Gamergate: These women are being attacked for criticizing mai the sites where these discussions have erupted am games' diminishment of women, and some of ubcultures of misogyny. That is a type of upport that can't be dismissed simply by disavowing those who threaten physical violence t post, the tech writer Kyle Wagner explains why "stating the facts" isn't always the same telling the truth. He says that Gamergate is "a fascin s they will be carried out by people who grew u n the system". "the press's genuine and deep-seated belief that ing glimpse of the future of grievance politics line"- a politics that exploits the "basic loophole go r both sides." That's why "a loosely organized, lightly noticed collection of gamers. have been able to set the terms of and chase women who speak up into hiding r journalistic A recounting of "the simple facts" makes this look like a "he said-s ethics. That gives too much credence to what "he said," and, more importantly, distracts l post puts it a larger shift. "There's a ppening right now," she begins. "It's happening in games, in film, in journalism, in television fiction, in fandom. It's happening online, everywhere. And everywhere, sexists, recreation gots rou r that they are no longer going to be able to shape the story is what has drivern a term Penny pointedly does not use. "They can't erstand," she says, "why game gners, induut ge women and girls in the future." They can't understand why the ultra-mainstream Time magazine invited Leigh Alexander a technology and culture critic to explain Gamergate to its readers. The old forces of assumed privilege are realizing they're losing their grip on our culture. Not immediately. But, itf over, even y is right, the extremity of their tactics is a tacit admission that the game is nues with Watergate,the "scandal" that started it has been discovered to be more extensive than it first seemed, or because there was a cover-up. Before tags and the rest of the Web infrastructure, Gamergate would have been about an angry ex-boyfriend and a woman who wrote a game he the way it has if we still had the old broadcas presented clea ational narratives tha dhered to the national fiction that everything was basically OK, because it was OK for the class that ot t re f the clearest examples of what happens now that the forging of the narrative not only occurs in public but becomes part of the event itself. Is Gamergat urnalistic ethics? An ex-boyfriend's revenge? About the role of corruption tory of dismissing women? You can decide, but n the age of the Net and the days of Gamergate, to understand is to take a stand a IS Read CNNOpinion's new Flipboard magazine 4 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Comp All re

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Hulks Stand is The Hulk

Oct 19, 2014 at 06:02PM EDT

>Claims it’s not like watergate, which blew up due to a cover up.

The censorship in the wake of the Quinnspiracy stage of Gamergate is one of the PRIMARY REASONS it blew up into more than Zoe Quinn and the 5 guys.

+14

Scavger

Oct 19, 2014 at 06:16PM EDT

No TFYC mention? No WizardChan blaming? No ten articles on the same day dispelling the people of gaming culture? Not looking deeper that another Kotaku writer did the exact same thing and proved it?

You sir get an F--…Do some dang research!

+13

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