#Gamergate goes off the deep end

[Jacob]

Jeez, why so nasty Valmy?

Exhausted really.  I have been in midterm exams mode for three straight weeks and going on just a few hours sleep.  Also Spicey post was idiotic and he just tossed in there like a troll bomb.  Vague claims of 'both sides being bad' along with accusations that anonymous 'sources' are being unfair?  Please.

I've seen plenty of examples of this kind of stuff: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/10/16/the-top-four-mens-rightsiest-things-said-about-the-recent-threats-against-anita-sarkeesian/

But I haven't seen stuff going the other way. I wouldn't be surprised if someone's done something stupid like that in the opposite direction, but so far I haven't seen anything actually documented.

[Valmy]

Wait the plan to show that her message was wrong was to fulfill it?  Behead all those to say Islam is violent eh?

[merithyn]

This is pretty interesting. It's written from a woman who has been harassed for a decade due to her writing about the tech world. What's most interesting is that she gives a sort of check-point list of how to destroy a person on the internet, which was done to her. And point-by-point, it's what's being done to Sarkeesian and Quinn.

I'm only posting the first part of it - it's a pretty long blog post - but it gives the jist of it. The rest can be read here.

Trouble at the Koolaid Point
October 7, 2014

[Note: I didn't want to have to write this. But here it is. I'm not linking it to the blog, and it won't likely stay up long *(*Update Oct. 8** I'll be taking it down soon, but a copy has been placed on Wired** ) It is long and rambling and unedited and one of the few things I've written that I wrote mostly for myself. It is all I ever hope to have to say about it. Also? Content warning.]

This month is the 10-year anniversary of my first online threat. I thought it was a one-off, then. Just one angry guy. And it wasn't really THAT bad. But looking back, it was the canary in the coal mine... the first hint that if I kept on this path, it would not end well. And what was that path? We'll get to that in a minute.

Later I learned that the first threat had nothing to do with what I actually made or said in my books, blog posts, articles, and conference presentations. The real problem — as my first harasser described — was that others were beginning to pay attention to me. He wrote as if mere exposure to my work was harming his world.

But here's the key: it turned out he wasn't outraged about my work. His rage was because, in his mind, my work didn't deserve the attention. Spoiler alert: "deserve" and "attention" are at the heart.

A year later, I wrote a light-hearted article about "haters" (the quotes matter) and something I called The Koolaid Point. It wasn't about harassment, abuse, or threats against people but about the kind of brand "trolls" you find in, say, Apple discussion forums. My wildly non-scientific theory was this: the most vocal trolling and "hate" for a brand kicks in HARD once a critical mass of brand fans/users are thought to have "drunk the Koolaid". In other words, the hate wasn't so much about the product/brand but that other people were falling for it.

I was delighted, a few weeks' later, to see my little "Koolaid Point" in Wired's Jargon Watch column.

The me of 2005 had no idea what was coming.

Less than two years later, I'd learn that my festive take on harmless brand trolling also applied to people. And it wasn't festive. Or harmless. Especially for women.

I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, "following", "liking", "favoriting", retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll's mind) "drunk the Koolaid". Apparently, that just can't be allowed.

From the hater's POV, you (the Koolaid server) do not "deserve" that attention. You are "stealing" an audience. From their angry, frustrated point of view, the idea that others listen to you is insanity. From their emotion-fueled view you don't have readers you have cult followers. That just can't be allowed.

You must be stopped. And if they cannot stop you, they can at least ruin your quality of life. A standard goal, in troll culture, I soon learned, is to cause "personal ruin". They aren't all trolls, though. Some of those who seek to stop and/or ruin you are misguided/misinformed but well-intended. They actually believe in a cause, and they believe you (or rather the Koolaid you're serving) threatens that cause.

But the Koolaid-Point-driven attacks are usually started by  (speculating, educated guess here, not an actual psychologist, etc) sociopaths. They're doing it out of pure malice, "for the lulz." And those doing it for the lulz are masters at manipulating public perception. Master trolls can build an online army out of the well-intended, by appealing to The Cause (more on that later). The very best/worst trolls can even make the non-sociopaths believe "for the lulz" is itself a noble cause.

But I actually got off easy, then. Most of the master trolls weren't active on Twitter in 2007. Today, they, along with their friends, fans, followers, and a zoo of anonymous sock puppet accounts are. The time from troll-has-an-idea to troll-mobilizes-brutal-assault has shrunk from weeks to minutes. Twitter, for all its good, is a hate amplifier. Twitter boosts signal power with head-snapping speed and strength. Today, Twitter (and this isn't a complaint about Twitter, it's about what Twitter enables) is the troll's best weapon for attacking you. And by "you", I mean "you the server of Koolaid." You who must be stopped.

It begins with simple threats. You know, rape, dismemberment, the usual. It's a good place to start, those threats, because you might simply vanish once those threats include your family. Mission accomplished. But today, many women online — you women who are far braver than I am — you stick around. And now, since you stuck around through the first wave of threats, you are now a much BIGGER problem. Because the Worst Possible Thing has happened: as a result of those attacks, you are NOW serving Victim-Flavored Koolaid.

And Victim-Flavored Koolaid is the most dangerous substance on earth, apparently. And that just can't be allowed.

There is only one reliably useful weapon for the trolls to stop the danger you pose and/or to get max lulz: discredit you. The disinformation follows a pattern so predictable today it's almost dull: first, you obviously "fucked" your way into whatever role enabled your undeserved visibility. I mean..duh. A woman. In tech. Not that there aren't a few deserving women and why can't you be more like THEM but no, you are NOT one of them.

You are, they claim, CLEARLY "a whore". But not the sex-worker kind, no, you are the Bad Kind of Whore. Actually TWO kinds:  an Attention/Fame Whore and an Actual Have Sex In Exchange For Jobs, Good Reviews, Book Deals Whore. I mean, could there be ANY other explanation for your visibility? But the sex-not-merit meme is just their warm-up, the lowest-hanging-fruit in a discredit/disinfo campaign.

Because what the haters MOST want the world to know is this: what you're serving your audience? It's NOT EVEN ACTUAL KOOLAID. "Snake oil", the trolls insist. You're a "proven liar". Or, as I was referred to yet again just yesterday by my favorite troll/hater/harasser: "a charlatan". And there is "evidence". There is always "evidence". (there isn't, of course, but let's not let that get in the way.)

And the trolls aren't stupid. The most damaging troll/haters are some of the most powerful people (though they self-describe as outcasts). Typically, the hacker trolls are technically-talented, super smart white men. They're not just hackers. They are social engineers. They understand behavioral psych. They know their Kahneman. They "get" memes. They exploit a vulnerability in the brains of your current and potential listeners.

How? By unleashing a mind virus guaranteed to push emotional buttons for your real, NOT-troll audience. In my specific case, it was my alleged threat to a free and open internet. "She issued DMCA takedowns for sites that criticized her." Yes, that one even made it's way into a GQ magazine article not long ago, when the writer Sanjiv Bhattacharya interviewed weev and asked about — get this — the "ethics" of doxxing me. Weev's explanation was just one more leveling up in my discredit/disinfo program: DMCA takedowns. I had, apparently, issued DMCA takedowns.

If you are in the tech world, issuing a DMCA takedown is worse than kicking puppies off a pier. But what I did? It was (according to the meme) much much worse. I did it (apparently) to stifle criticism. If a DMCA takedown is kicking puppies, doing it to "stifle criticism" is like single-handedly causing the extinction of puppies, kittens, and the constitution. Behold my awesome and terrible power. Go me.

But here's the thing. I never did that. I never did anything even a teeny tiny nano bit like that. But sure enough, even on my last day on Twitter, there it was again: Kathy did DMCA's. And it wasn't even a troll saying it, it was another woman in tech who believed the meme because she believed weev. Because in twisted troll logic, it makes sense. She must have done something pretty awful to deserve what, according to weev, "she had coming."

After the GQ story came out, the one where weev "justified" the harassment of me by introducing the DMCA fiction, I asked him about it on Twitter. "Where, seriously, where exactly did I ever issue a DMCA?" His answer?  Oh, right, he didn't have an answer. Because it didn't happen. But see? he doesn't have to. He's already launched the Kathy-does-DMCA-takedowns meme. Evidence not required. For that matter, common sense not required.

(For the record, far as most people have been able to determine, most of what happened to me long ago was triggered by a blog comment I made that said "I'm not moderating my blog comments, but I support those who do and here's why." That's right, Blog. Comment. Moderation. Just a tiny hop, really, from that to full-blown DMCA takedowns. Easy mistake.)

For me, the hot button to rally the army (including the Good People) against me was my (totally fictional) legal threat to freedom. But there are so many other hot buttons to use against women in tech. So. Many.

A particularly robust troll-crafted hot button meme today is that some women are out to destroy video games (shoutout to #gamergaters). Another is that they are taking jobs from men. Men who are, I mean obviously, more deserving. "If women/minorities/any oppressed group are given special treatment, that's not equality," they argue "I guess you don't believe in equality, feminists." Quickly followed by, "wait, did I say 'oppressed group'? There's no such thing as an oppressed group I just meant Professional Victims Who Pretend To Be Oppressed And Serve Social Justice Warrior Koolaid."

Life for women in tech, today, is often better the less visible they are. Less visible means fewer perceived Koolaid drinkers.

[Ideologue]

Wait the plan to show that her message was wrong was to fulfill it?  Behead all those to say Islam is violent eh?

That's racist against Muslims!

[Jacob]

That's a really good article Meri. Thanks for sharing.

[Valmy]

Do these guys really have nothing better to do with their time?

Does that article mention how it happens to both sides?  If not that gives Spicey bad feelings.

[Valmy]

Wait the plan to show that her message was wrong was to fulfill it?  Behead all those to say Islam is violent eh?

That's racist against Muslims!

Maybe those Muslims should stop saying Islam is violent then.

[CountDeMoney]

That's a really good article Meri. Thanks for sharing.

And here I was, thinking how comparing their behavior to 1930's brown shirts was too hyperbolic.

[merithyn]

That's a really good article Meri. Thanks for sharing.

And here I was, thinking how comparing their behavior to 1930's brown shirts was too hyperbolic.

Nope. Seems pretty apt, actually.

[Martinus]

I tried but I still can't find enough strength in me to feel an interest in this.

Why in Hods name would you try to feel an interest in something this stupid?

I still find myself unsure of which side is "gamergate" and un-motivated to find out.

Sorry if this is making people you know unhappy, Jake.  It seems the veriest storm in a tea cup.

What I find particularly unappealing is that both sides seem to be treating this like an internet flamewar, calling each other names and flinging hyperbolic shit. Reading someone else's flamewar is never fun, no matter which side is right.

[Martinus]

Basically yes, with a giant mish-mash of culture war things thrown in and rage about corruption in games media.

The culture war thing I get (it's everywhere, and doesn't have fuck-all to do with games), but the "corruption in games media" bit escapes me.  Did "depression quest" sell so well that it is distorting the development of other types of games, because its developer corrupted so much of the media?  Or are these "gamergate" types just pissed because they spent money on a game that got unfairly hyped in a review?  Or is the whole issue just a cover for something else?

Or, am i just over-estimating the goals of the "gamergate" types (other than the kooks, of course) and they really aren't talking about the global picture, but just their own personal debates in their own tiny world, and they don't care about this IRL any more than I care about whether a poster here thinks I am a "coward?"

The bolded part.

Depression Quest is a free game. It's not much of a game, apparently, being a "walking simulator" (whatever that is - I'm guessing it's a point and click type thing).

The "ethics" thing was cooked up by the bitter boyfriend. During/after the breakup, apparently Quinn slept with a guy who's a game journalist. The bitter ex alleged she did it for good reviews and added that she'd slept with a bunch of other guys for good treatment. The channers ran with that (never mind the fact that the guy never reviewed her game) as cover for their attacks on the game dev. As the thing grew bigger, they kept coming back to the ethics thing, about the corruption in game media; yet all they ever did was throw shit at women in general and feminists in particular (and people who disagreed with them). They haven't in any way acted against the actual corruption that exists in game media whatsoever, and seem to conflate the "corruption" with a "feminist war on men and gamers".

So yeah, to me it looks like a cover. Though at this point it also seems there are a bunch of people going "gamers aren't sexists! Don't call me a sexist because I like games" who are hitching themselves to the "movement", giving it continued life. On that, then, it seems to me it's a convenient way to grab a marginalized-us-outsiders-against-the-world position and run with it for a while.

Maybe this Quinn is a really bad person, though?

[Valmy]

Maybe this Quinn is a really bad person, though?

Maybe my house is made out of candy canes.  Maybe the moon is made of cheese.

So what?  Her entire role in this nonsense was that she had sex with some dude so far as I can tell.  If that makes you a bad person I guess you are fucked.

[Valmy]

What I find particularly unappealing is that both sides seem to be treating this like an internet flamewar, calling each other names and flinging hyperbolic shit. Reading someone else's flamewar is never fun, no matter which side is right.

Then why are you here reading it?  I thought you tried to care and couldn't.  You just want to keep reminding us you are not interested?

[Martinus]

That's a really good article Meri. Thanks for sharing.

And here I was, thinking how comparing their behavior to 1930's brown shirts was too hyperbolic.

Nope. Seems pretty apt, actually.

Really? People posting stuff online is an apt comparison to people mugging other people and breaking windows? 

[Martinus]

Maybe this Quinn is a really bad person, though?

Maybe my house is made out of candy canes.  Maybe the moon is made of cheese.

So what?  Her entire role in this nonsense was that she had sex with some dude so far as I can tell.  If that makes you a bad person I guess you are fucked.

Her ex is accusing her of sleeping with many other people - while she was dating him - to get good game reviews. He could be telling the truth, or he could be lying. We don't know.