The Gamergate movement has been criticized as being all about attacking women in the video games industry. But supporters of Gamergate claim the anti-Gamergate members are attacking both female and LGBT Gamergate supporters in a similar fashion to what has been alleged by the other side.
In a related report by The Inquisitr, Brianna Wu claims supporters of the GamerGate threatened her, hacked her, and forced her to leave her home.
Similarly, game critic and feminist author Anita Sarkeesian canceled a recent speaking engagement at Utah State University when she received an email from an unknown source claiming to be associated with Gamergate. The email allegedly promised “the deadliest school shooting in American history,” and threatened that Sarkeesian would “die screaming like the craven little whore that she is if you let her come to USU.” But according to a release from Utah State Today the students were never in any danger.
“USU police, in conjunction with several teams of state and federal law enforcement experts, determined that there was no threat to students, staff or the speaker, so no alert was issued… Throughout the day, USU police worked to assess the level of threat with other local, state and federal agencies, including the Utah Statewide Information and Analysis Center, the FBI Cyber Terrorism Task Force, and the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. After a careful assessment of the threat, law enforcement officials determined that it was similar to other threats that Sarkeesian received in the past.”
Gamergate supporter Adam Baldwin disputes many of the claims made by both women. Baldwin believes the Gamergate movement is really about ethics in journalism and how progressive ideals are being embedded into the published articles of major gaming websites. Oddly enough, he has also noted that some of the gaming community under attack by anti-Gamergate supporters may in fact agree with their attackers in regards to ideology.
RT @BlMarketParade “anyone who still holds #GamerGate to be a hate movement instantly loses their credibility.”
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) October 18, 2014
MT @RoninGreg “I’d guess that most gamers are younger, liberal folks, Democrat base. The MSM attacks on #GamerGate has been an eye opener.”
— Adam Baldwin (@AdamBaldwin) October 18, 2014
The Gamergate movement has largely been described as being white males. While no one knows the exact demographics for certain, Gamergate supporters say there is a good percentage of fellow members who are female, non-white, and LGBT. The oddest accusation of all is that one of the Twitter handles run by the ISIS terrorist group even started tweeting in opposition of Gamergate. In addition, it’s claimed that at least 30 individuals have been harassed in various ways, and Gamergate supporters accuse the media of ignoring their plight.
For example, a transgender person named Alexandra Wuori was outed publicly and called over the phone. Wuori describes the experience, saying, ” I was pretty much shaking in my boots at this point.” Then a specific threat was made by the unknown caller.
“Do your family and friends know you’re trans? It looks like they don’t… Wouldn’t it be funny if someone called them up and outed you to all of them? Oh, oh! And what if they found out you’re a F***ING LOSER who bakes cookies for an imaginary cartoon character?! I’d bet they’d reeeaaally like that one! How would your parents react if they were told just how much of a pathetic, disgusting, loser the son they raised turned out to be?”
Essentially, Wuori was doxxed, which is the practice of publicly exposing someone’s real name or address on the Internet. The targets of doxxing typically don’t want their information online, and because of this, the Inquisitr will not publish their Twitter handles in order to prevent any further harassment.
For example, one woman was attacked on Twitter because “apparently I hate women because I’m a gamer.” When others suggest she out those attacking her, she replied, “I’m afraid of being doxxed, sorry. These people actively target who they consider ‘gender traitors’ or apostates.”
Other women were told by anti-GamerGate supporters that they had access to private data on their Facebook accounts, and demanded that they stopped tweeting in favor of Gamergate. Some of those who oppose Gamergate also could not believe that actual women could support Gamergate, and instead claimed they were men posing as women online.
There’s even stories of people calling the workplaces of Gamergate supporters in order to claim they are part of a hate group. As a consequence, it’s alleged the Gamergate supporters were fired from their jobs. One of these users tweeted about their situation.
“I’m on leave without pay until a decision is made on if I will continue employment at my company… Its a bit of mixed feelings from everyone involved, ones worried about public relations and more so the way I handled it.”
Just this past week, a woman claims her business with Amazon was blocked due to anonymous complaints. Amazon was allegedly withholding her income and she was trying to resolve the situation. Even on Saturday, October 18, she had multiple Twitter users harassing her with threats like “seriously hope you kill yourself you worthless thot” and “none of this would have happened if [name removed] had stayed in the kitchen.”
There have also been multiple death threats. For example, one Twitter user claimed the entire family was threatened.
“Just last night I deleted a youtube comment from a user who posted my home address and said he’d kill my wife and leave me to mourn.”
Another back and forth conversation involved an anti-Gamergate supporter saying, “I’m gonna stab you multiple times over if you don’t stop targeting defenseless women.”
The Twitter user then tweeted the Gamergate supporters’s home address and claimed he or she would “wait outside your house ’till you leave and blow out your brain. Going to go pick up my gun now. After I’m through, you won’t need a casket.”
The Gamergate supporter responded, “If you come onto my property I will kill you for trespassing, bury you in my yard, and go on with life.”
Needless to say, the amount of personal attacks involving Gamergate have continued to escalate. The question remains if Gamergate will result in positive changes overall, or if the cycle of attacks will escalate.
What do you think should be done to resolve the issues surrounding Gamergate?
…Or I could just post this:
http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/
Fun fact: The guy whom created the tumblr was also doxxed…by a 16 year old girl. That's mess up.
the newest anti #gamergate tag… you tell me…
http://pastebin.com/kC0rcG72
I just discovered your site because of GamerGate and I'll be reading more in the future. Your site once again proves journalist integrity online is possible. Thanks.
As for the question you asked I think,
1) All gaming sites need to adopt a proper code of ethics which includes transparency.
2) Journalist need to stop being involved financially with developers.
3) Sites from Gawker media and their supporters need to stop slandering, bullying and harassing people and being to act like professionals.
Also at this point I think a public correction or apology for their actions during GamerGate is a must.They directed the narrative to mainstream media that made gamers villains and that needs to be corrected.
I know that sounds like a lot but if Kotaku's Stephen Totilo had just said "We're sorry and we'll be better in the future" when this started GamerGate would not exist today.
Thanks, If you came and asked the hashtag we could have given you the screen caps. Also the bullying charity raised almost 16k so far after sam biddle said we should bring back bullying for nerds and gamers. https://www.crowdrise.com/gamergatestompsoutbullying/fundraiser/loping
Thank you for writing this article, many sites do not give any attention to the #GamerGate side's point of view and hardships, and it's great to see us being noticed.
Didn't bother to keep up on the USU issue? FBI weighed in already: http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=54179
To save you the bother of… doing research: "USU police, in conjunction with several teams of state and federal law enforcement experts, determined that there was no threat to students, staff or the speaker, so no alert was issued… Throughout the day, USU police worked to assess the level of threat with other local, state and federal agencies, including the Utah Statewide Information and Analysis Center, the FBI Cyber Terrorism Task Force, and the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit. After a careful assessment of the threat, law enforcement officials determined that it was similar to other threats that Sarkeesian received in the past."
Meaning… the "serious threats" weren't. You're welcome.
Thank you so much for this article. It is a well needed to be told story. In fact I was shown this as I was arguing this exact point.
Thank you guys. Really appreciate this.
I will be forwarding your name as an example of a gaming media outlet not biased unreasonably against us.
Correction: the USU threat never had any ties to #GamerGate. Anita Sarkeesian only implied that they did.
Why is harassment only worth talking about if it happens to anyone who isn't a straight white male? Why is the harassment to Boogie not mentioned? Why is the media so concerned about everyone BUT straight white men? Why is there such a lack of. ASIC human compassion for them? This is worth asking yourselves.
The easy way to resolve this problem would be to have a fair, equally represented meeting between anti GG and Pro GG, so we could all come to terms with each other and try to find a way to reform gaming journalism ethnics that would benefit all of us. I'm sick of being made out as a typical white gamer who hates women/minorities by websites I've never even heard of before. The quicker both sides stop harnessing each other, the easier it'll be to address the issue, and so far I've felt the anti GG crowd have been the most toxic and caused the most cases of harassment, but they don't get a voice because it doesn't validate a traditionally 'politically correct' assumption.
Came for GamerGate, stayed for integrity.
Thanks for this.
Whenever I dare to suggest the gaming community has always been inclusive and white men aren't direct descendants of Satan, I have "Stockholm Syndrome". These people are unbelievable.
The whole thing is ridiculous. Makes me miss the days of the original NES when the "video game community" was playing with your best mate and talking about games like Mario Bros and Zelda at school. Now it's a bunch of people with too much time on their hands that seek so desperately to be a part of something. Video game journalism is really the most important thing to be fighting over right now? Nice priorities. Thought this was pretty funny though. Wouldn't doubt they made it themselves to perpetuate their claims that they are being bullied online. -_-
https://www.facebook.com/gaymergate
Apologies. I typically summarize previous articles from The Inquisitr in my 2nd paragraph and I wasn't aware of that information (I also didn't write the other article). I will update this article to reflect this info.
The title was chosen on the basis of a Gamergate supporter suggesting the idea. I'm assuming this was done on the basis that anti-Gamergate supporters are claiming the Gamergate movement is targeting those demographics.
…Boogie threat is mentioned, “Just last night I deleted a youtube comment from a user who posted my home address and said he’d kill my wife and leave me to mourn.” That was his tweet.
When it comes to positives/impact of GG – I keep these two banners handy –
http://imgur.com/3sOAke3
http://i.imgur.com/uONUA07.png?1
There have been a few more charities added since but it's pretty good stuff, the EA leak about compromised accounts, etc.
You can't say it accomplished nothing at all, even if there's been some vile behavior on all sides.
Great piece by the way, it's very rare for the media to admit we received doxxing/death threats too. Kudos for that!
After mountains of misinformation, at last, one article stating matters as they are. It is sickening to see how the same lines are parroted by every outlet, as if there is no other side to the story at all. All of them fail journalism 101.
Thank you Inquisitr for showing the other side. We are getting pretty fed up the the media bias.
let's focus on ways in which video games can benefit women!
http://www.amazon.com/Video-Geeks-Guide-Eating-Guides-ebook/dp/B00OP1XG60/
let's focus on ways in which video games can benefit women!
http://www.amazon.com/Video-Geeks-Guide-Eating-Guides-ebook/dp/B00OP1XG60/
You tell me. Is corruption within the media of a multibillion dollar industry important? Is the ability to smear and shame people, whilst blacklisting them and preventing them from making a living or at the very least get bonuses not incredibly unethical? I think the answer to both of those is yes.
I unblocked your site from the ABP! Thanks for the integrity while covering this topic!
Make that *over* 16k.
$16,282 to be exact. Go #GamerGate.
It's hilarious that she even says she gets these threats all the time going back to two years ago, but a random threat that just happened to be sent when GamerGate is around, it's GamerGate's fault when the psycho doesn't mention it at all, not even games.
I did that too, but then I got barraged by a video/noise ad… Which were the kind of ad's that originally pushed me into getting adblock in the first place (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻