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Brianna Wu: GamerGate Tied To Death Threats, Adam Baldwin Claims ‘Deceptions’

By Patrick Frye
Published on: 15:41 PST, Oct 14, 2014

Brianna Wu is alleging that supporters of the GamerGate threatened her, hacked her, and forced her to leave her home. She has since appeared on multiple media outlets, including MSNBC, to discuss these allegations. Meanwhile, Adam Baldwin, who came up with the GamerGate hash tag to describe the controversy, is claiming she is using “deceptions” in her description of the events that occurred.

In a related report by The Inquisitr, the Gamechurch movement has a very simple goal, although its presence has been considered controversial by both Christians and non-Christians because of the approach it takes in the video game industry.

Supporters of GamerGate claim the movement is really about ethic in gaming journalism. Critics of GamerGate claim the movement is really focused on attacking women in the video game industry. This stark difference on how GamerGate is defined has led to discussions on feminism, cultural Marxism, and the role of the “liberal media” in allegedly creating the need for GamerGate.

To give you an example of how deep the divide can be, check out these recent tweets from Twitter.

The #StopGamerGate2014 trend started in response to the incident involving Brianna Wu, which occurred late last week on Friday. The Twitter account for Wu is SpaceKatGal and she tweeted out this attached photo, which allegedly documents the death threats sent to her account (please note the images contains content vulgar in nature).

Within hours of this incident, members of the GamerGate movement claimed they had also been reporting the offending Twitter user, which resulted in the suspension of the account. GamerGate supporters also claimed there was no place for such behavior in GamerGate. Law enforcement officials are currently trying to trace the offending Twitter user, although Wu claims social media companies like Twitter need to make it more difficult for people to harass anyone.

The next day, Saturday afternoon, Brianna Wu said her video game company, Giant Spacekat, had its financial accounts targeted by hackers who were allegedly users of the 8Chan website. Fortunately, the financial attack was unsuccessful but Wu also discovered hackers had attempted to breach the company’s Apple account, which it used to sell gaming apps on Apple’s platforms.

The majority of these allegations are discussed in this interview on Huffington Post Live.

Brianna Wu also appeared on MSNBC and the topic of the gaming culture came up in regards to hiring practices.

“I think it needs to happen from the top down… this is a problem with the gamer culture, but it’s also a problem with the professionals within the gaming industry. If you look at IGN and Giant Bomb, these are sites predominantly ran by men, and they are choosing to not cover what’s happening to women in the industry. If you look at the industry’s hiring practices as a whole, they are tilted very, very severely against women… I think you have to look at the culture from the top-down that’s sending these messages, to women, very subtly and unconsciously. ‘You are not welcome here,’ ‘this is a boy’s club,’ ‘this is our turf.’ It’s not that the men are conscious that they’re doing this. I love and respect the men I work with in this industry with me, but they have attitudes frequently that they don’t understand are antagonistic.”

In response to the interview, Adam Baldwin publicly claimed on Twitter that Brianna Wu committed “deceptions” in her description of the incident.

Baldwin also highlighted an article written on the blog Daddy Warpig’s House of Geekery, which claimed that critics could “kill” GamerGate by if the media adopted an ethics policy and then adhered to it. The blog also claims The Verge is falsely linking the GamerGate movement to a trolling campaign and even the leaked celebrity photos called the Fappening. Ian Miles Cheong, who is editor in chief of Gameranx, is also accused of saying antisemitic and racist quotes in the past (including “Hitler is my f*cking idol”), but Cheong has apologized for these past quotes by saying he made them while “young, dumb, and under the influence of the very toxic gaming community that is trying to smear me today.”

Fortunately, both Brianna Wu and Adam Baldwin spoke via Twitter and it seems both are willing to reach an understanding over the GamerGate controversy.

On Sunday evening, in response to the #StopGamerGate2014 trend, Baldwin went on the offensive against critics of GamerGate.

What do you think about Brianna Wu’s allegations about GamerGate and the gaming community?

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