gamergate
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Emerging from the shadow of GamerGate
On August 26th, game developer Nathalie Lawhead published a blog post accusing legendary Skyrim composer Jeremy Soule of rape. It's a detailed account of the events leading up to and after the alleged assault, which Lawhead says took place in 2008, when she was in her mid-20s and trying to break into the video-game industry. Soule was already a major name in games, and according to Lawhead, he used his influence and the veneer of mentorship to manipulate, silence and sexually assault her. By the 28th, another woman, vocalist Aeralie Brighton, had come forward with her own story about Soule. She said Soule sent her a video of him masturbating, and then cut her out of projects when she expressed that she wanted to keep their relationship professional. Soule denies the accusations from both women.
GamerGate’s subreddit temporarily shuts down because toxicity
GamerGate was a huge deal, mostly because the internet becomes incredibly volatile at perceived slights against white men. But, it turns out, that even the founder of one of the movement's most potent social channels has had enough. Business Insider reported on Friday that one of the primary subreddits temporarily shut off access to the page after its head moderator called it a "cancerous growth."
Zoe Quinn's book about fighting online hate arrives Sept. 6th
Zoë Quinn, perhaps one of the most qualified people to talk about online harassment, has written a book on her fight against online hate. It's called Crash Override, just like the volunteer group she founded to support harassment victims, and it's now ready for pre-order. As GamerGate's original target, the game developer had to endure having her accounts hacked, her sensitive photos stolen and her family and friends doxxed and harassed. She was also on the receiving end of numerous murder and rape threats. Quinn's book talks about her GamerGate experience in its first few chapters, but it sounds like it has much more to offer.
FBI releases redacted report of its GamerGate investigation
It's one thing to have read about (and reported on) the various threats of violence perpetrated by GamerGate, but seeing the FBI's collection of documents regarding the harassment campaign is entirely different. The Bureau recently released a 173-page document that compiles a plethora of emails and tweets received, seemingly, by targets including culture critic Anita Sarkeesian and game developer Brianna Wu. There are also internal reports, police reports and letters of request to various gaming and tech companies. I only say "seemingly" because names, email addresses and identifying information has been redacted throughout the report. But lining up the emails with dates and news stories, it's plainly obvious who the trolls were writing to.
GamerGate target drops case against harasser that started it all
Game developer Zoë Quinn has been through an awful lot in the 18 months since an ex-boyfriend posted details of his relationship with her online. But now she's dropping harassment charges against the man who essentially started the GamerGate firestorm because it's not worth the emotional trauma to carry the case forward anymore. "Ironically, getting a restraining order against Creep Throat [Quinn's pseudonym for her ex] was the least effective thing I could do in terms of getting him out of my life for good, and for protecting myself," she writes.
Intel and Lady Gaga team up to 'Hack Harassment'
Hack Harassment is exactly what it sounds like -- a tech-driven initiative to curb online harassment and find solutions to issues with hate speech and threats on the web. The program, which Intel teased during its CES conference this week, is spearheaded by Intel, Vox Media, Re/code and Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation. Hack Harassment's first move will be a series of hackathons, held both online and in-person, with the goal of advancing anti-harassment technology.
Intel is taking its fight against GamerGate even further
The most important news from last year's CES was Intel's $300 million response to GamerGate, the caustic online movement that targeted women with vicious harassment. But talk is cheap, even with that high of a price-tag on it. How has the tech titan fared since that announcement? Some 43 percent of its new hires were women and underrepresented minorities since, CEO Brian Krzanich said near the end of the company's media briefing.
BuzzFeed returns to SXSW lineup following online harassment fiasco
BuzzFeed said it would only come back to the South by Southwest festival panel roster if organizers put online harassment back on the agenda, and it's making good on its word. The web firm tells Recode that it's returning to SXSW 2016's lineup now that the event has instituted a day-long Online Harassment Summit. The SXSW team has "moved in the right direction," BuzzFeed says. There's no word yet on whether or not fellow abstainer Vox Media is returning, although it won't be surprising if the online publisher follows suit.
Former Sony Pictures exec snags the rights to a 'GamerGate' movie
Former head of Sony Pictures Amy Pascal is working on a film based on a coming memoir from Zoe Quinn, the game developer at the heart of the online controversy known as "GamerGate." Quinn's memoir, Crash Override: How To Save The Internet From Itself, is due to be published in September 2016 by Touchstone (a Simon & Schuster imprint), Deadline reports. Pascal, who now heads a production company under Sony, won the rights to Crash Override following a bidding war, according to the site. The film is tentatively named Control Alt Delete and Scarlet Johansson is looking at the script.
SXSW apologizes, launches day-long Online Harassment Summit
South by Southwest organizers earned the ire of the internet this week after canceling two panels aimed at addressing online harassment and "GamerGate" culture in the video game industry. SXSW canceled the discussions because it received "numerous threats of violence" -- a reason that, to many, gave power to those threats and in fact encouraged continued harassment. Both Buzzfeed and Vox Media swiftly announced plans to skip SXSW entirely unless the panels were reinstated. Today, SXSW Interactive Director Hugh Forrest offered an apology and announced the Online Harassment Summit for March 12th. It's a full-day event that SXSW says will feature people from both of the canceled panels, plus a lineup of additional speakers. SXSW will live-stream the summit all day, for free. However, one panel organizer says she's not on-board with this new solution.
Buzzfeed will skip SXSW unless cancelled gaming panels are reinstated
On Monday, the South by Southwest festival announced that it was nixing a pair of gaming-related panel discussions because a bunch of mouth-breathing, neck-bearded man-children threatened "on-site violence" in response. Tuesday, three Buzzfeed executives -- EIC Ben Smith, President of Motion Pictures Ze Frank and Publisher Dao Nguyen penned a strongly worded letter to the festival, effectively demanding organizers put on their Big Boy Pants and not be swayed by unsubstantiated threats. Otherwise, Buzzfeed would pull its entire staff from the event and at least a half dozen other unrelated panels. Good on you, Buzzfeed.
SXSW cancels online harassment panel, because of harassment
Online harassment is a real world problem, and you don't need to look any further than a cancelled South by Southwest Interactive panel for more reasons why. Citing "numerous threats of violence" the SXSW planning team has annulled "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games" at next March's event according to an email sent to panelists that was obtained by Jezebel. What's more, the festival has cancelled a pro-GamerGate panel, dubbed "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community," as well. An official statement from the organizers says that since announcing the two panels they've been inundated with threats of on-site violence and in the interest of keeping the marketplace of diverse people and diverse ideas (their words) safe, the best way to do that was simply not act as a venue for the discussions. "Maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session," the statement reads.
Survey shows boys think women are underrepresented in video games
A recent exploratory study conducted by Time has found that 47 percent of middle-school and 61 percent of high-school-aged boys believe that female characters in video games are too often treated as sex objects. The survey was conducted to examine issues of sexism in video games and asked over 1,400 students about their feelings surrounding how women are depicted in the medium. What's more, 70 percent of girls surveyed said that the gender of a protagonist doesn't factor into them playing a game while a surprising 78 percent of boys said the same. And 58 percent of boys who identified as gamers think there should be more female heroes in game, like Bayonetta up above, for example. Oh, and reassuringly "very few" of the respondents knew what Gamergate was. Phew.
How a Gamergate target is fighting online harassment
There's a wariness to the way that Alex Lifschitz and Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn comport themselves over Skype, as though they've grown accustomed to expecting assault. Their voices are clipped, their laughter strained. They're careful about everything, vigilant against even the slightest risk of being hacked. Which makes sense. Caution is a natural response when you're in the crosshairs of the internet.
Twitter CEO admits 'we suck at dealing with trolls,' vows to fix it
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has admitted that "we suck with dealing at trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. He added that the problem has caused "core user after core user" to flee the platform and took personal responsibility. Though Twitter has suffered from issues around abuse and trolling for years -- with the recent GamerGate abuse of Anita Sarkeesian being just one egregious example -- the apparent breaking point for Costolo was a recent Guardian story by feminist writer Lindy West. In it, she talked about her interview on This American Life with a troll who assumed the identity of her beloved, deceased father on Twitter.
Daily Roundup: Tesla Model X, DARPA YouTube robots and more!
Tesla's Model X has been spotted in the wild; a new DARPA technology lets robots learn from YouTube videos; and Verizon is changing its policy on "supercookies." Get the details on these stories and more in the Daily Roundup.
Of course 'Law & Order: SVU' is doing a GamerGate episode
Actually, it's not about ethics in games journalism. NBC's Law & Order: SVU will air an episode titled "Intimidation Game" on February 11th, and unless you've been living under a rock the circumstances will be pretty familiar. In a plotline following "GamerGate" and the women many of its participants targeted for harassment, the show will feature a video game developer (played by Mouzam Makkar) preparing for a launch "amid a stream of online insults, intimidation and death threats." Inevitably Detective Olivia Benson and Ice-T are called in and... you've seen Law & Order, right? Update (2/4): A promo for the episode has popped up on YouTube, and you can view it embedded after the break. [Thanks, Sean!]
GamerGate target working with 'major social media' to end online abuse
Along with game developer Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian is likely one of the most knowledgeable people when it comes to online harassment. Both have been targets of intense cyber-abuse campaigns stemming from the GamerGate movement, and like Quinn, Sarkeesian is tackling the problem head on. She's going to continue giving speeches and making videos examining media (what she calls public efforts), but the digital abuse she's receiving has changed her long-term goal: "There is also work being done behind the scenes in private meetings and consultations with major social media and gaming platforms, and by partnering with other organizations to form a task force with the goal of ending online harassment."
GamerGate target starts online harassment prevention program
Despite Twitter making it easier to report cyber harassment, its measures still fall woefully short. To wit, game developers Zoe Quinn, one of GamerGate's biggest targets, and Alex Lifschitz have teamed up to form an online abuse help network. Crash Override says its goal is to provide a support network for victims of SWATting, doxxing and other maliciousness both preventatively and reactively. It accomplishes this by using "well-established, humane and transparent channels to disempower abuse and reduce the ability abusers have to perpetuate it." The outfit notes that in its trial runs it's effectively helped abuse targets head off SWATting attempts and lock down their personal information, too, all without resorting to more harassment. What's more, Crash Override counts whitehat hackers, infosec professionals and lawyers among its agents.
Nightline investigates GamerGate, online harassment
ABC's Nightline aired interviews with Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, Tim Schafer and a handful of video game critics and players on Wednesday, in a segment titled, "What It Feels Like To Be A Gamergate Target." It presented an overview of the issues involved in GamerGate, including the portrayal of women as sex objects in games, harassment toward women who play games, the growing market of women within gaming, and the argument that all games (or players) can't be represented by a few extreme examples alone. Nightline highlighted "signs of change in the industry" with a visit to Double Fine co-founder Tim Schafer and a look at Broken Age. "Once you've sat down and tried to play a game with your daughter and tried to find games where she can play a character that she identifies with, you start to feel bad about not putting that option in your own game," Schafer said. Watch the complete segment below.
