On Friday, expat woman-hating woman-chaser Roosh Valizadeh put up a post on his Return of Kings blog with the sensationalized headline “Did Anita Sarkeesian Commit Felony Wire Fraud?”
Roosh breathlessly “reported” that
Two independent journalists have confirmed with the San Francisco Police Department that Anita Sarkeesian, a video game social justice warrior, may have used false pretenses to raise money for her non-profit entity. The police have said that she has not contacted them as she claimed after receiving a Twitter death threat in August. Under Federal law, this may put her on the hook for felony wire fraud.
The two “independent journalists” in question are tech journalist and self-described “fan of 4chan” Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart, and Davis Aurini, the cigarette-smoking, scotch-drinking, Anton LaVey-looking blogger who’s trying to raise money to make a “documentary” about the evils of Anita Sarkeesian and “social justice warriors.”
Both journalists – well, the one dude who writes for a sleazeball right-wing site and the other dude who’s not actually a journalist at all – did indeed contact the San Francisco Police Department and were told by a media spokesman that he couldn’t find a record of Sarkeesian contacting them about the threats she received in August.
This bit of “news” sent #GamerGaters and other Sarkeesian-haters around the internet into a bit of a frenzy.
But it turns out they got worked up over nothing. The police spokesman just hadn’t looked hard enough. A day after Tweeting a number of accusatory questions to Sarkeesian, Yiannopoulos had to backtrack, noting in a series of Tweets that he’d had another conversation with the SFPD, who told him that Sarkeesian had in fact reported the harassment to the FBI.
Another writer posted emails he’d gotten from the police spokesman that seemed to confirm Yiannopoulos’ updated information. In the emails, SFPD Public Information Officer Albie Esparza said that Sarkeesian had indeed contacted the SFPD in August but that the case had been handed off to the FBI. (I’ve confirmed this with Esparza .)
Given that the main “proof” that Sarkeesian was lying about the threats she said she received had just vanished into thin air, you might expect that Roosh and Aurini might, you know, correct their now-clearly incorrect posts on the subject and retract their accusations. Well, not so much.
Roosh’s post remains up, with only a brief “update” at the end, noting that “the police have changed their story and now state that they were contacted.” Aurini’s post remains unchanged, and as I write this he’s posted nothing more on the subject.
Even considering the people we’re dealing with here, the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Roosh ends his post by declaring that
these new revelations concerning Sarkeesian show that no form of media is safe from the SJW and feminist agenda, and that we must do all the fact checking ourselves. The entire media establishment in the United States is potentially corrupt. Proceed accordingly.
Yet he refuses to frankly acknowledge that the “new revelations concerning Sarkeesian” were based on faulty information, offering instead a weasel-worded “update.”
Aurini, for his part, claims in his post to be “fight[ing] for openness and integrity within Tech and Video Game circles.” But he hasn’t bothered to update his post.
When ethical journalists discover that they were wrong about something, they acknowledge their errors and post straightforward corrections. When they get something spectacularly wrong, they apologize.
Somehow I don’t think we’ll be getting apologies from either of these guys.
And thus we get to the whole wire fraud thing. In his post, Roosh repeated a claim made by Mike Cernovich of the “game” blog Danger and Play, who tweeted:
https://twitter.com/PlayDangerously/status/510245982131335169
https://twitter.com/PlayDangerously/status/510246926990594048
As it turns out, there’s zero proof that Sarkeesian lied about anything here. And she made no direct connection between the threats and her Tweet asking for donations.
Indeed, by Cernovich’s logic it’s Davis Aurini, not Anita Sarkeesian, who’s guilty of felony wire fraud. Why?
Because in his post, he made a direct connection between his accusations against Sarkeesian and his own fundraising efforts. Here’s how he ended his piece:
Personally, I’d like to see a lot MORE documentation on Sarkeesian, because this isn’t the only claim she’s made which I suspect is fraudulent – and not just her, but all of the individuals hiding behind the shield of Social Justice, and the journalists who have been aiding and abetting them, culminating in outrage known as #GamerGate. That’s why Jordan Owen and myself have started a Patreon page, so that we can create a feature-length documentary about these people and their methods, and how they bully and victimize the very people they claim to support.
So please help us get this documentary made, so that we can fight for openness and integrity within Tech and Video Game circles, and expose the professional victims for the con artists that they are. Please support our documentary, The Sarkeesian Effect: Inside the World of Social Justice Warriors.
Given that Aurini now knows that his post was based on faulty information, and given that he hasn’t corrected his post or retracted his insinuations, could he now be guilty of felony wire fraud?
For what it’s worth, I don’t think so. While admittedly I’m no lawyer, Cernovich’s logic seems to me like a bit of a stretch.
I do feel safe in saying, however, that neither Roosh V. nor Davis Aurini should be lecturing anyone about ethics.
UPDATE: I confirmed with the SFPD that Sarkeesian had indeed called the SFPD and that the case was handed off to the FBI; the post has been updated to reflect that.
Christ on a fucking bike. The lengths people will go to to defend fucking video games.
Kill all
mengamers.Aurini considers himself a member of the “Dark Enlightenment,” and part of that is creating this aesthetic of “cool-looking evil.” They look like clownish cartoon clods to us, but in their own minds they look totally awesome. Self-consciousness is not something they do well.
Last time I looked like that in a photo, I was told that “lol, you look like a mulester”.
Which, frankly, does not sound like a compliment.
Just not in the way you think.
@NonServiam
He’s secretly a fan of the Twilight-series of movies and he’s copying his favourite stalker there.
@Cassie’s Major Domo:
Dark Enlightenment, that’s right. Forgot about the term. Are these the same doofuses who make the arsewards-logic “argument” that sociopaths somehow have a vital part to play in society, or am I mixing them up with some other group of pompous douchebags who insist that their utter selfishness is totally beneficial to society as a whole because reasons?
Objectivists, for instance?
Very well. Here’s what happens when you fact-check and try to find any validity in the claims that journalistic integrity is being compromised by a ‘feminist agenda’:
https://storify.com/MorganRamsay/how-often-do-video-game-journalists-write-about-fe
(Spoiler: you find naff all)
Hence the Kubrick Stare. Think Hannibal Lecter or Alex DeLarge.
It’s so dorky looking, though. That’s part of what makes him hilarious, the fact that he has no idea.
These fucking guys. I wish they’d all just go the fuck away.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Homosexual_agenda
Hey, doofuses, if you want to sound credible, at least try to cargo-cult credible people instead of other conspiracy theorists.
LOL at Roosh’s little pitiful update. It undermines his entire hyperbolic vitriol and it is just one little line.
Oh yeah and the Dark Enlightenment stuff…the following quote is relevant.
Google says that they’re part of the Neoreactionary movement, so basically the exact opposite of Enlightement and the rational wiki links them to US fans of japanese-style conservative, right-wing revolutionaries as seen in many Gundam-series.
They’re trying to be Char Aznabel, basically.
I kind of like this as an album title or something.
You know a really similar thing happened to Zoe Quinn during the #gamergate harassment. In burgersandfries there was this objective (I guess you would call it) to get Quinn investigated for tax fraud. I didn’t see any real evidence except jealousy that Quinn had successfully raised money on the internet- some of it professional, some of it personal donations.
And it seems very hypocritical. I spent a few minutes browsing the AVFM Website, trying to get a sense of what kind of organization it is tax-wise. I learned that they raised about $5,500 in their last pledge drive, but it’s pretty opaque about the total amount of money it gets or how its managed.
Why is it no one’s looking at Paul Elam for the amount of beta buxx he gets, accusing him of wire fraud? Didn’t AVFM do something very similar a few months back with that alleged feminist threat at the Doubletree, where their convention was going to be held? I seem to recall there was from scaremongering in the weeks before their convention to solicit donations for “security.”
Sometimes people call you the things they are. Don’t you think?
I wonder if these idiots watch Barry Lyndon and see it as the story of a totally Alpha Dude with great game who only gets tripped up because he doesn’t have to nerve to shoot his stepson in cold-blood.
Oh what am I talking about? These idiots don’t have the patience to watch Barry Lyndon.
But then, most adults know that. Anton LaVey, whatever else was wrong with him, was in on his own joke.
That makes The Forehead, here, along with every fool who tries to sound all scary talking about the “dark enlightenment” just a bunch of nasty children at play.
Problem is that they’re tired of pulling wings off of flies and moved on to people.
Oh… I thought Aurini was too silly to do any real damage—or to be taken seriously by much of anyone, for that matter. But then, I’ve thought that about Rush Limbaugh too. (When I first heard him, I thought he was doing a parody of people who think that way.)
I hope Sarkeesian is weathering all this okay. And I hope the FBI does something about all this. It’s just sad.
LOL. He looks like a child’s idea of evil.
Sounds fishy. How does a police spokesman fail to dig deeper the first time? It’s pretty simple to access the database and find the reports.
Regardless, this whole Anita Sarkeesian is dumb. I personally dismiss anything she has to say as I believe her to be a professional victim and not an actual gamer.
But to resort to supposed criminal allegations to go after her? That kind of means to shut people up is exactly what I despise about feminism, but hell, it’s all over these days.
People can’t simply disagree – an inevitable part of daily life – without going through strenuous methods to shut people up, get them fired, wreck their lives, slander their names and reputations, ect.
You almost have to say, “Fuck it.” these days.
In Screwtape Letters, the senior devil explains that most of a tempter’s work consists not of putting ideas into people’s heads, but keeping them out.
They really overdid it with some of these people.
Also, Dark Enlightenment always makes me think of pseudointellectual Juggalos. F’ing morals, how do they work?
Well, something certainly smells, but I doubt we’d agree on the cause.
Then why the fuck are you here, leaving your aggrieved dudebro droppings?
It’s so ironic to call someone a ‘professional victim’ when she’s being chronically victimized for her profession. It’s just victim-blaming. If she remained silent—then you might have a point. But the whole point of making her the villain for talking about it, for attempting to prosecute it—is to silence her.