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.
Well, this is a whole new way to frame anti-feminism. “It’s bad not to look past binary gender therefore misogyny against cis women doesn’t matter! Don’t talk about misogyny or you’re a TERF!”
That’s not how intersectionality works troll boy.
@Policy of Madness:
Makes sense (relatively speaking, I mean). Considering that MRAs (A) believe in “victim privilege”, (B) are shielded from harassment and abuse by their privilege, (C) express a total lack of willingness to listen to and empathize with oppressed groups and (D) are usually libertarians with the typical bootstraps mentality that comes with it, it’s not too far-fetched to assume that anti-feminists in general can’t conceive of anyone being the target of abuse without cashing in on it somehow.
Actually, yes it is. The truth, I think, is far scarier: they know exactly how bad things are for the targets of abuse and just how privileged they are for not experiencing it, but they don’t care. Worse, they derive enjoyment from the power trip they get from abusing less privileged people. All their outrage over made-up things like “professional victims” and whatnot is just fluff, a way to derail any conversation that could threaten their privilege. Like Trolly on this thread, they lie and gaslight to obscure things that are in plain sight while pretending they have a genuine issue they wish to discuss.
I just… it’s just really scary to imagine what kind of a terrible person can live like that.
Nationalist Dude:The fact that everything has to be about a lack of recognition or attention to binary gender is why I dislike feminism. Its bad for society. Stop concentrating on binary gender and look beyond.
What are you on about.
This piece is about misogyny (and the hypocrisy of these misogynists). Nowhere has anyone said trans-women aren’t women, or that misogyny doesn’t affect them.
So your blather is peurile, facile and imbecile. It’s not relevant to the topic. That you wish to pretend that us not going, “oh… your trans, sorry for calling you on your shit, keep on being an asshole defending misogynists, dismissing valid critique because you don’t like who says it (as apart from actually engaging it, and attempting to show it to be in error on its merits), is banal.
It’s magical thinking (the sort three year-olds engage in). Sorry Charlie; you are fundamentally wrong (in that you accept ad hominem as a reason to dismiss people, hell, you promote ad hominem as a reason to dismiss people, and boast of it, as if it made you some sort of special snowflake. Nope, just makes you another twit who thinks logic comes with having a male image for an avatar.
Flail, flail more, bro.
Someone learned some new words and phrases and is taking them out for a test drive.
Aaaand once again, armenia4ever fails to address anyone’s points or to make a meaningful contribution to the conversation. Instead, zie believes that reiterating a tired talking point over and over again magically increases the validity of said point.
I’m done with their bullshit. Have fun, y’all.
And, with that I need to put on a skirt, get some coffee, play a bit of video game before the event times out (I need to gain another few hundred slots on the leaderboard for the rewards I want to collect). I’ll be back later to see you say, “check your privilege again”, because folly is the idea that continuing a failed like of attack will be successful this time.
It’s how casino’s make money, people who think they understand stats, and probability (i.e. LOGICAL THINKERS) throw good money after bad.
Knowing what we do now, about Troll4Evah’s disregard for the fact that words have meaning, I think we need a decoder ring to fully understand statements like this.
However, lacking a ring, I think a safe interpretation of this would be, “My derail isn’t working. Why isn’t my derail working??? Feminists are supposed to fall all over themselves for me if I claim to be trans! THE MANUAL SAID THIS WOULD WORK!”
*poke* kookaburra. Axolotl. Hedgehog 😛
(OK, yes, I’m, bored rl)
gilshalos:
You’re making more sense than Troll4Ever, gilshalos 🙂
Ok, so how has anyone here or Anita Sarkeesian about “the lack of recognition ir attention to binary gender?” Do you even know what those words mean? Because this reads like a mishmash of buzzwords.
Are you truly trying to argue that pointing out misogyny is transphobic?
armenia doesn’t realize they’re sounding just like some radfems. Whoops.
@Nationalist Dude:
You’re a standard-issue misogynist with terrible reading comprehension. Go away, you have nothing to contribute and you… are… so… boring.
This new shtik Nationalist Dude is trying* reminds me of the sovereign citizens. “If I string these speshul werds together in the right order, they become a cheat code for reality!” It’s ceremonial magic for lazy, dull people.
*And he is trying. Oh so trying.
Dude looks like the villian Kane from the Command & Conquer games (video game reference holla!).
Doesn’t armenia4ever’s argument boil down to “you anti-racists are the real racists, because you keep bringing up skin color when it shouldn’t matter”?
… do they even know what transphobia and cis privilege are?
This is how it works:
You’re acting like an asshole.
Nobody gets a free pass on asshole behavior around here.
If this dude won’t address his disingenuous behavior we ought to stop engaging him or have David boot him.
But axolotl are always awesome!
We never brought up your transness, and don’t think it matters.
You brought it up.
Since you did…
I really find it interesting that you lived part of your life as a female and yet seem not to have any qualms about what sort of crap female-bodied people get put through by society.
I can’t say the sexual abuse was a strictly female thing, that happens to lots of boys…I can say being forced to wear dresses and later, bras that hurt, that was a female thing.
I think getting my tits groped in high school was a female thing.
Getting a dick flashed at me when I was 12, probably female…as an adult I once had an adult man who was so angry that I wouldn’t talk to his drunk ass on the street punch a street sign…I was denied a work position I wanted because ” the client wants a man to work nights out here.”
At one job this creepy-ass guy would not stop talking to my tits, and they’re not even big tits.
You probably find all that shit funny because it didn’t happen to you. Yuck it up, dickface.
Oh, forgot to mention, innumerable creeptastic guys who think nagging me for a half hour will change the ” no ” I just gave them. Nope, now I wonder if you’re gonna beat me up or rape me because I said no and hurt your manfeels.
@ justakind –
Then, by all means, please do so. We aren’t stopping you. Neither is Anita Sarkeesian. Neither is David. Neither is anyone else, except you. Rebut Anita’s videos with thoughtful, well reasoned critiques of your own. Just, please, for Dog’s sake, stop posting whiny stuff on other people’s blogs about how much you hate Anita. Learn to argue the issues, not the person (or what you think the person is) and you’ll sound way more like a real grown-up.
@ armenia4ever – no one here knew you were trans before you outed yourself. They have all been arguing the issues and the stupid stuff you’ve been saying, rather than attacking your gender.
If I do, will I see a substantive argument in any of the crap you’ve been saying so far?
@ Cassie’sMajorDomo
Actually I think it probably means that armenia4ever saw the giant blowup over Ally’s past behavior/subsequent discussion about how to handle that kind of behavior on this blog and thought, hey, I can leverage that.
I don’t think anyone aware of context actually believes transphobia is what was at play when Ally’s conduct was rigorously criticized. That was just her attempt at dismissing opinions contrary to or critical of hers – we’re all TERFs! There’s no support for the accusation.
Good attempt at using one person’s bad behavior as ammunition against the entirety of the board though!
I just find it hilarious that this is the most trans*/non-binary friendly place I frequent on the internet, and we have this douchecanoe trying to argue trans* persecution. If we’re hating on you for being a disingenuous asshole and we don’t know your gender identity, we can’t be hating on you for being trans*. It’d be like me suddenly arguing that anybody who’s ever disagreed with me on the internet is a bird-hater, because I’m actually a duck – if nobody knows I’m a duck, by definition they can’t be prejudiced against me on that basis, can they?
Not sure if I’ve ever seen such a clumsy attempt to use the language of discussing oppression against those who are opposed to it. Although I will grant that “discussing issues that affect women is trans*/non-binary exclusive, so you’re the REAL bigots!” is a derail attempt I’ve never seen before. Possibly because it’s colossally silly and requires a complete lack of understanding of how many feminists see the gender binary and the oppression of women as part of the same problem.
@ justakind –
Then do it, won’t you? Seriously, for the love of Dog, do it. I would love to see more well thought out and researched critiques of games, please. Go ahead, do it. Anita’s not stopping you. David’s not stopping you. No one here is stopping you. And please, argue the issues, not the person (or whatever you think the person is) won’t you?
@ armenia4ever – I did not see any transphobia on this thread, and I still don’t. You’re the one who tried to use your own gender as a get out of jail free card. (FWIW, I personally think TERF doctrine is horrid). Every one jumped on you because you were saying stooopid things, not because of your gender (which I didn’t even try to guess at until you brought it up). I also doubt that anyone here knew your gender until you mentioned it. Please, please show me the transphobia in this thread. Pretty please with sugar on.
InsanityBytes attempted to argue that if we told her that her arguments were wrong it must be because we’re misogynists, which was a similar flavor of troll fail.