The We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive continues! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!
Ah, sweet schadenfreude! The gamebros at 4chan have been insisting publicly that the whole #GamerGate campaign — you know, the vicious attacks on game developer Zoe Quinn and other women in gaming — has been a spontaneous grassroots uprising against corruption in the world of game journalism, not a targeted campaign by misogynistic 4channers and their allies to ruin the lives of Quinn and everyone even vaguely connected with or even just aligned with her.
Well, it’s just become a lot harder to make that argument with a straight face. Last night, Quinn announced that she’s been lurking in the IRC where 4chaners have been diligently and often quite deviously planning this “spontaneous” uprising. And she’s started posting screenshots that seem to offer pretty incontrovertible evidence of just how duplicitously 4channers planned every element of #GamerGate.
You can find Quinn’s tweets of these screenshots laid out neatly on this Storify page; it’s essential reading for anyone who’s been following all this.
But I thought I’d highlight some of my favorite bits.
Here, 4channers talk about trying to hack her email:
definitely no raids ever happen because of 4chan and I definitely hacked myself mmhmmm pic.twitter.com/3309AiQk3u
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
Here they spout bizarre conspiracy theory — while conspiring to hack another website.
this has pure insanity AND some illegal shit in it pic.twitter.com/rRo5KVFBhZ
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
In this screenshot — you can find the whole thing here — 4channers talk candidly about how they hope to ruin her career:
More of the same:
because this is about integrity. not revenge. not harassment. not hurting people. pic.twitter.com/rSSm4ZJG4T
— zoë “Baddie Proctor” quinn (@UnburntWitch) September 6, 2014
Here some 4channers talk about #NotYourShield, a supposedly spontaneous bit of hashtag activism in which people of color — and white dudes pretending to be people of color — attack “social justice warriors” for supposedly using them as “shields” for their attack on gaming. Notice the dudes at the end talking about showing up on Twitter “as a Latino” and “in blackface” to support the campaign.
Given how damning a lot of these screenshots are, it’s hardly surprising that they freaked out when Quinn started posting her screenshots:
https://twitter.com/MsMinotaur/status/508177920687210496
Too late, dudes. Too late.
Social justice mystic adept with a side in hacking and drone control.
You may scuff at my low dice pools an very broad set of skills, but I assure you, fear is knowing that the person with a grudge can do literally everything.
(Also a barely possible build in SR5, if you really know what you’re doing.
re: J
What does this movement want?
How is it going about getting it?
A long article (like all the ones that were made) about how OWS is “bad people” for doing stuff is just what happens. “They smoke weed, so they’re completely wrong about how a concentration of wealth is fucking up the capitalist system” is easy to see doesn’t follow from each other.
I have to admit that “They’re worried about corruption in game’s journalism, so they harass and threaten and stalk female journalists and women in gamging” isn’t really… quite the same.
Fibinachi – I’m currently running an elven mystic adept with the Magicians way traits. I can’t imagine the amount of balancing necessary to fold hacking in there. Granted the inestimable Jack Random is incompetent with all computer skills, our team hacker has to open solitaire for him when he’s bored.
By the way can I just say how thrilled I am to see SR5 go back to the priority assignment creation system. SR4 took foooooorever to make a starting character in.
J,
That’s a bad analogy. The occupy movement is legit grassroots. The gamergate thing was always about attacking Zoe Quin and only used corruption as a thin pretense. Gamergate is astroturf. Not grassroots.
RE: J
So why is this sort of thing given a pass in this context?
Because you aren’t posting any evidence to the contrary, dumbass. Why should I believe YOU?
Also, last I checked, those “stoned dipshit hippies” weren’t gushing with rape and murder fantasies when asked about Occupy. Plus, I actually KNOW reputable people involved in Occupy (two medics in different states). I don’t know anyone reputable involved in THIS particular conflict on the side of 4chan.
LBT – That’s because 4chan is unable to achieve any sort of reputability by it’s very nature.
RE: pendraegon
Not only that, but Occupy and Gamergate are working at very different ends, through very different means, with very different people. J is comparing apples and oranges, if the oranges were radioactive and also on fire. He’s trying to pull legitimacy from Occupy and give it to GamerGate, which is hilarious.
It’s a bit of a pickle, yeah. And you start of being pretty fragile.
On the other hand, there’s some useful synergy beween willpower + logic traditions, adept powers body + willpower, most hacking being logic based and having just enough cash to squeeze in two cerebral boosters, a commlink and a cyberdeck in your skull at .96 essence.
You can get reflexes as an adept power if you want, or something else, but I went for reflexes (ALL OF THEM), and Loophole thinks at matrix speed. She’s nice like that. Fragile, initially, but then with a tiny bit of cash and karma you can afford a qi focus, and suddenly you can shoot, hack and deal with magic while giggling at anyone who isn’t as 1337 pwnzorzs as you.
… I, uh, don’t think all that rooting around with her brain stem has done her any good in the long term.
You’re never going to be a street samurai with that set up, but it does open up some fun random opportunities.
“So what do we do now? They locked us in here and neither of us are any good with bags over our heads. How’d they know we were mages anyhow?”
“Mhm”
“They have a god damn sentry gun outside. So I rip of these cuffs, it opens fire, we die”
“Uh-huh”
“You could at least bloody panic a little, mate”
“Did you know the standard Ares MyTurf(tm) Personal Defense Turret has a really curious OS exploit?”
“I don’t see how that helps me not be kidnapped by a gang of Halloweeners”
[roll 12 dice to hack on the fly, gain 2 marks]
“Well, the trick is…”
[Edit File]
“The RFID targetting data is easy to flip. It’s a really terrible security flaw. One minute you’re wearing a don’t shoot me badge, and the next, the sentry thinks that the RFID marks out targets for a live fire action trial! It’s odd how that bug stayed on after production”
[Sentry turrets start firing outside. Screams]
——
If only you didn’t have the strength, grace and immune system of a particularly plague-stricken underfed dog. That’s one problem with priority-gen, it doesn’t really seem to allow that much thinkering around. I liked that about karma creation in 4e.
…. Sorry for the sudden off-topic RPG mechanics blurp 😛
J, do you REALLY not get it? Do you not understand that planning to harm, kill or rape someone, or that talking about doing the same to that persons family and friends is a MUCH larger order of threat then “stoned bufoonery?!?!?”
You are probably a man, since most women (and men of conscience) viscerally respond to dire threats to safety and the hopes that one will kill oneself!
I saw a documentary made by a man – I believe from one of the Scandinavian countries – who had himself made up to look like a woman and dressed like one. He did this to see what the fuss was about. At the end of his experiment in walking around town, he said that he had never been so terrified – that the constant threats to “her” safety from total strangers who felt entitled to stalk, touch, insult, insist that “she” talk to them and grab at “her” were overwhelming. He finally said that he had no idea how the average woman was able to get through a day, if this was the kind of crap she had to go through. Try it, why don’t you, and then tell us how silly we are all being by reacting to cyber threats that can all to easily become real time.
Women grow up knowing that we are prey…that men are dangerous. We learn to handle it (somewhat) by the time we are teens. I tell you that almost 64 years of living on a world where that is considered normal and nothing to bother about is Not.Much.Fun.
Fibinachi – No worries I’m always willing to break into random systems talk myself. As for rooting around in someone’s limbic system like a blind squirrel looking for an acorn, well who am I to judge. Jack actually has copyrighted the phrase “Random brand mayhem” and tags at least one wall with it every run.
I feel like representing an entire movement with the views of just a few people is just dishonest. Furthermore, representing an entire community with the already misrepresented views of an isolated movement is even more dishonest. There are lot of us on 4chan that just don’t care about the silly movement, who Zoe sleeps with, orwho is attacking her for it. We justwanna go back to discussing video games like we always do. It would be similar to saying Zoe represents all of Twitter. Have a good night, all of you.
Ok, but these are the people who actually started the “movement.” You don’t think the viewpoints of the founders of the “movement” and their reasons and motivations for starting the “movement” isn’t relevant?
People from 4chan are attacking her for it. Don’t like that kind of shot going down in your community? Do something about it. Don’t come here and scold us for taken notice of the shitty things 4channers are doing.
Yeah, but Zoe Quinn isn’t using Twitter to organize a campaign of harrassment and lies for the sole purpose of destroying one person life. If she was, damn straight people would be asking why Twitter would continue to allow someone to do that, and damn straight people would be asking why her fellow Twitterers (Tweeters? What do you call people who hang out on Twitter? Do people hang out on Twitter?) weren’t calling her out for that kind of reprehensible behavior.
I do agree with you on most of your points. However, it’s not shitty things 4channers are doing in general. It’s shitty things a few 4channers are doing. I don’t need to explain to you why judging an entire community based off of the actions of a few people that are a part of it, is a bad idea. I do feel both sides are responsible for blowing this out of proportion.
Whatever she does, whoever she sleeps with, isn’t any of my business, and I’m not particularly interested in the first place. If people are hacking her or harassing her, that bothers me, but it’s a problem for the police. Making this into some giant feud between both sides is ridiculous.
These people, other than their IRC handles are still anonymous. She didn’t have anyone else to go after, so she blames the entire community. That’d be like me blaming reddit the next time a redditor murders someone.
I wish you luck hunting down a group of people hiding behind their anonymity on a website full of nameless users.
#notall4channers We’ve been over this about a million times in various gamergate threads. Yawn.
Really? You’re going to insinuate that criticizing 4chan is the same is racism, misogyny, homophobia etc.? Seriously?
Any reason for this besides your feels? I didn’t think so.
One side is harassing someone and making threats towards her. The other side is against that. How is this remotely equivalent?
If people are harassing her? If? Are you kidding with this? And no it is not just a problem for the police. This was driven by misogyny. It’s basically a hate crime. The intended victim isn’t just Zoe Quinn. The intent is for all women to be afraid that this will happen to them if they try to work in the gaming industry or Bootsy forbid, critique it.
No. Another false equivalency. A redditor murdering someone out in meat space has nothing to do with reddit. The harassment of Quinn, on the other hand has everything to do with 4chan. The “movement” started there and the site allows the worst examples of humanity to post with impunity. And you’re part of it. Other sites manage to moderate so don’t try and tell me 4chan couldn’t possibly do it. If you or anyone else there cared you wouldn’t put up this bullshit.
With that little taunt you completely have us convinced that you’re totally innocent and opposed to harassment! Or not.
‘4chan is not your private army’
Unless you are an antifeminist neckbeard that wants to insult women for daring to have impolite dissenting opinions.
This debacle has proved that 4chan is not cancer, they are just mediocre manchildren.