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.
@WWTH
Wishful thinking.
You’re a petty, smarmy dipshit, armenia4ever, and not particularly bright.
I am sure the irony of complaining about bullying while dismissing the harassment Anita Sarkeesian received, and calling her a “professional victim” while trying to use your status to deflect criticism, will be completely lost on you.
I was going to give that a 6 because of the masterful use of a passive-aggressive smiley. But then it was too long and just ended up being a plea for attention. So I’m reducing it to a 4.
Plus two failures to flounce brings us to an even 0.
This statement seems to imply that feminism and the MRM both employ these methods to equal extents, or even that the MRM is the side that very rarely has bad apples that do this, compared to the EVIL FEMINISTS. This is simply not the case. And while you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts.
I can see how some people might be confused, as the MRM certainly raise a lot of stink any time they receive any pushback. But let me assure you that the situation is much more like this:
Feminist: There are many problematic inequalities that are built into our system and need to be addressed.
*receives a shit-ton of death threats, rape threats, slander, harassment of all stripes, etc etc etc*
Feminist: This stuff is horrible and also illegal stop that.
MRA: Women are evil worthless lying [insert slur of choice here] and need to return to their proper place in society and also [insert baseless assumptions and insults about woman-of-the-hour here]
*receives word about how they are being reactionary, misogynistic, and that the assumptions they made were blatantly incorrect*
MRA: FEMINAZIS ARE TRYING TO SILENCE ME! FREEDOM OF SPEECH, FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
Pffft and now dudebro tells us he’s trans and laughing at his witless misogyny is some sort of cis privilege.
Guess what, saddo: I don’t actually care if misogynist losers like yourself are cis, trans or whatever.
@armenia4ever
Not everything is a matter of opinion. the FACT is that one does NOT have to PLAY games to know a lot about them. Saying she is wrong because of what she plays or doesn’t play is a very common fallacy called ad hominem and it fucking sucks.
All it takes to know a lot about video games is research, NOT play time. And she is making a damn legit research, her points are very reasonable and that’s clear for anyone who can think logically and is not a depressing bigot who is terrified of change.
and btw, you can have your shitty opinion on what makes one a “real gamer” but that tells more about you than you would like. for instance, it shows arrogance and elitist thinking. you sound like the kind of douchebag who despises girls who play video games and tries to test people – specially girls- to see if they’re “””real””” gamers. shitty fucking culture. That’s why i love video-games, play video-games, have always played video-games and yet I refuse to call myself a fucking “gamer”, you elitists take yourselves FAAAAAAAR too seriously. arg.
so yeah, unless you can’t actually address her reasonable, though-out points and doooooooozens of examples she constantly gives, then you have nothing on her. There is nothing wrong with Anita’s critiques on video-games and she’s not a threat to it, she’s trying to make the industry grow, not shrink, like you shitheads think is the case.
Shorter Trolls: I do not believe/trust/respect w̶o̶m̶e̶n̶ Sarkeesian because of REASONS. After three months of increasing harassment and desperate flounces they
all end up back at the same place.
Oh for the love of all the My Little Ponies…
I know this is confusing, trolls, because “check your privilege” sounds a little bit like “checkmate!”, but it’s not something you can just throw out as an I Instantly Win The Argument card.
Being told to check your privilege is a call to acknowledge your relative lack of expertise when it comes to subjects that (this is the important part) are relevant to that particular aspect of privilege.
If I’m trying to tell a PoC that what they experienced wasn’t really police discrimination…
If I’m trying to tell a woman why her experience of harassment was actually something harmless she overreacted to…
If I’m trying to tell a disabled person that really, they’re just being selfish demanding accessible everything…
… being told to “check my privilege” is a desperately needed call to pull my head in and stop talking down to people who know more about what they’re discussing than I do.
If, on the other hand, I’m arguing about topic that have nothing to do with trans issues, and prompting hostility by being belligerently immune to any discussion, and then out of the blue I try to accuse my critics of hostility to trans people, for criticisms that are completely unrelated to trans*-ness and by the way, I’m trans, and I tell people to “check their cis privilege” …
… then I’m being a colossal asshole and trying to use the “NotYourShield” tactics to manipulate people into not criticising me.
tl;dr version – you can’t call “privilege!” when the discussion doesn’t relate to that axis of privilege
(just to be clear, I’m cis, and that’s a hypothetical situation in the last scenario)
YAY David has restored the Recent Comments sidebar!
No True Gamer makes me lol. Like, No True Gamer would ever give games an academic-style critique, therefore Sarkeesian can’t possibly be a gamer.
It’s very tidy – it doesn’t matter how much Sarkeesian has played games, or how many games she’s played. If she conducts a critique, she is No True Gamer.
It’s a bit different from how the fallacy is typically used, and might make an interesting topic for study.
@PoM:
The thing it calls to mind for me is the “love it or leave it!” types who automatically assume that the only two positions one can hold on a nation are uncritical full-throated adoration or utter condemnation. The idea that one can be a patriot and still think there are problems with their country that need fixing (other than lack of patriotism!) just doesn’t register.
Similarly, I think a lot of these gamebros aren’t willing to let people occupy any middle ground – they’re trying to artificially divide everybody into “loves games/gamers” or “hates games/gamers”. There’s no room for nuance.
Thanks for outlining this. It’s an idea I’ve often had trouble articulating in non-feminist spaces with vague familiarity of the privilege concept.
Good decision 😀
Although I wonder whether it’s just wordpress developers dicking around with the code. Didn’t we have something weird a few weeks ago too?
That is the stupidest definition of a gamer I’ve heard. Just because you have an opinion armenia4ever, doesn’t mean you’re not objectively wrong. Because you are. That it’s “just your opinion” means you have wrong and stupid opinions.
@armenia4ever
You seem to be another one of those “My lack of emotional investment in the subject obviously makes me more qualified to express my opinion about it than people whose lives are affected by it!” douchebags. You know what? Refusing to empathize does not make you a superior person. It makes you an asshole.
To me, “professional victim” sounds like a sort of modern equivalent for “hysterical”. Both exist to dismiss a woman’s experience because she’s irrational and overtly emotional and her actions don’t make sense because ladybrain. In other words, misogynistic shit.
Again with the “this is my opinion” bullshit. Discussing problematic issues that affect peoples’ lives on a daily basis is not the same as comparing ice cream flavors, asshole. If you think that an attitude that condones actions that actively harm others are a matter of opinion, you have no business to expect people to respect said opinion. You are allowed to share it, but other people are allowed to call you a terrible human being for it. That’s how free speech works. It’s not freedom of consequence for saying shitty things, no matter how you click your heels and say it is so.
I love how first you’re all like “I’m dismissing feminism because feminists take terrible shit affecting them so personally” and then “Hey guys, I’m totally trans, so criticizing the ignorant, patronizing shit I say makes you a bad person!” Like being a member of a minority instantly raises you above criticism. Newsflash: it doesn’t work that way, buddy. Nobody is harassing you for being a member of a particular group. People are mocking idiots saying stupid things, not attacking a woman on the internet for… pretty much just being a woman on the internet.
By comparing being called a halfwit for saying stupid things in the comment section of a blog to receiving a constant stream of personal attacks on multiple fronts on the internet and being driven out of your home by RL harassment, you’ve ultimately proven that your personal opinion on the subject of harassment is null and void. Go grow some empathy and try again.
@justakind:
That’s nice. So sending rape and death threats to a female critic is fine since you don’t like her? Go grow some empathy and try again.
@Bob Simpson:
a) Quit with the smileys. You’re not fooling anyone with your passive aggressive bullshit.
b1) You’re one of those trolls who reads a headline and then jumps straight to the comment section to go “nuh-uh, you are!” without bothering to read the article, aren’t you?
b2) You’re five years old, aren’t you?
c) Go grow some emp…
You know what? No. Just fuck off.
But they do seem to think it does, don’t they? They really do believe that we just give everyone who isn’t a white man a complete pass on what they say. Thus “Lisa” and the whole #notyourshield “movement”.
(Which, for the record, is why I’m treating any such claims from new trolls with the utmost suspicion.)
It’s almost like, for all their talk about fighting “Social Justice Warriors”, they don’t actually know anything about us.
Upthread I speculated Armenia dismissed feminism because he didn’t really care much about other people, that seems to be confirmed.
I care about issues of oppression that don’t directly involve me. Armenia does not.
Apathy enables oppression.
Dude’s part of the problem.
If you think a light drive-by swat is “worked up”, you should never try for a real fight. You’d get creamed.
BTW, this is a very weak trolling attempt on your part. As is this:
Oh, you’re an “us” now? Is there more than one of you? And you’re telling whom, exactly, to check their privilege? And what has being trans got to do with the subject at hand? Nobody here even mentioned that, and it isn’t germane to anything else you have prattled, either. If this is some attempt at a derail, it is full of fail.
BTW, “halfwit” suits you. You think you have wits, but you’re only half right.
TERFS and Transphobia. Sigh. We still have a long way to come.
The problem with feminism and Sarkeesian in general is that it’s all about just binary gender. Specifically that.
It forces the entire conversation on any subject into a gender binary POV all the time which reinforces the already distorted view manifested in the mainstream.
Hence, check your cis privilege.
Hey everybody, remember when this dolt showed up and claimed he was a lurker?
This here proves solidly that was BS. He never saw WHTM until he dropped his first stinkbomb yesterday.
Boring trolls can’t even do the slightest due diligence.
Um, NO. Try again, Halfwit4Ever.
LOL.
Admittedly I don’t know Sarkeesian’s views on non-binary gender identities, but generally it fits in just fine with intersectional feminism, ta.
Did someone put a post on 4chan about how to Trans on the internet, like the infamous post about how to girl on the internet (“I like pink things”)?
Silly ladies, getting all passionate about trivial things like equality and respect.
Has anyone over the age of thirteen ever thought this line was clever? And has anyone of any age ever believed it?
They like to pretend they have that much power over people.
Bob Simpson, you haven’t proven that Sarkeesian lied about being a gamer. I honestly thought your video was a parody of this utterly baseless accusation, since it paired her “not that into video games” comment with twice as many comments about her playing video games as a kid. Not to mention that the entire point she and her fans are making is that they’d be a lot more interested in video games if they (both the games and the fandom) were less hostile toward women.
THIS. RIGHT HERE. THIS IS THE PROBLEM. There are already women gamers, feminist gamers, gamers who are sick of the misogyny and want change. IT’S THEIR HOBBY TOO, and the way you assholes pretend they don’t even exist IS PART OF THE PROBLEM.
Okay. How are we being transphobic? Can you identify what, exactly, is transphobic about opposing online harrassment of women, and opposing making up outrageous claims of “wire fraud” in order to smear an outspoken woman’s reputation?
And how exactly is Anita Sarkeesian, whose video’s highlight misogyny in video games and points out the relative dearth of diversity in games, being transphobic?
And poor little Bob Simpson. Trying so hard to troll and no Inez’s paying attention to zir.