Category: twitter

Twitter CEO on trolls and abusers: "We're going to start kicking these people off right and left."

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date February 5, 2015
62 Comments on Twitter CEO on trolls and abusers: "We're going to start kicking these people off right and left."

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has frankly admitted that his company has done a terrible job of dealing with trolls and abusers. And he’s promised to do better, declaring that Twitter would “start kicking these people off right and left.”

In a remarkably candid note to concerned staffers, obtained and posted online by The Verge, Costolo was blunt about Twitter’s failure to protect its users from harassers:

We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

He’s got that right.

Costolo went on to accept personal responsibility for this failure:

a voice for men Dean Esmay lying liars MRA schadenfreude twitter

Did A Voice for Men's @deanesmay and @Jackbarnesmra buy thousands of fake Twitter followers?

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date February 4, 2015
94 Comments on Did A Voice for Men's @deanesmay and @Jackbarnesmra buy thousands of fake Twitter followers?

Are Dean Esmay and Jack Barnes of A Voice for Men following in the fake footsteps of Superbad's McLovin? — Are Dean Esmay and Jack Barnes of A Voice for Men following in the fake footsteps of Superbad’s McLovin?

If you’re on Twitter, and have any number of followers at all, you’re going to end up getting followed by some bots — usually spambots looking for people to pester when certain keywords get used.

But when Twitter accounts have more than a relatively small percentage of fake followers, it’s almost certainly because they went out and bought them in order to make themselves look more influential than they really are.

Well, it looks like two of the most active members of A Voice for Men’s Twitter squad have done just that.

Twitter users @BlutalTheDog and @UnseenPerfidy recently ran “Twitter Audits” of a couple of AVFMers who are especially active on Twitter — AVFM “Managing Editor” @deanesmay and @Jackbarnesmra, co-host of AVFM’s Blue Collar Red Pill online radio show. The results weren’t pretty:

a new woman to hate all about the menz anti-Semitism antifeminism dark enlightenment entitled babies evil bunheaded women evil fat fatties evil sexy ladies evil short-haired women evil ugly women heartiste literal nazis men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny oppressed white men post contains sarcasm PUA reactionary bullshit red pill twitter

Are men oppressed by women who put their hair up in buns?

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 8, 2015
375 Comments on Are men oppressed by women who put their hair up in buns?

Heartiste's worst nightmare? — Heartiste’s worst nightmare?

Pity the poor pickup artists, who have suffered so much at the hands of modern women.

Just consider the many cruelties that these malicious females have inflicted on these long-suffering men: Women insult and horrify men by getting tattoos, developing self-esteem, and being fat. They have the temerity to sleep with men that aren’t pickup artists. They force would-be Casanovas to take showers and even wipe their own asses in order to appeal to their fickle female tastes. Sometimes they even say “no” to sex.

And then there is the hair thing: believe it or not, some women actually cut their hair short in an obvious attempt to destroy the boners of modern man.

But it turns out women don’t have to get pixie cuts to oppress men with their hair. They can also put their long hair … in a bun.

Our old friend Heartiste is on the case:

#gamergate a voice for men antifeminism antifeminist women attention seeking bullying entitled babies evil SJWs FemRAs gaslighting gross incompetence gullibility harassment hypocrisy irony alert judgybitch misogyny MRA playing the victim rape culture reactionary bullshit straw feminists straw futrelle twitter

Janet "JudgyBitch" Bloomfield tries to lie her way out of a Twitter suspension; here's proof of her targeted abuse

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date January 1, 2015
233 Comments on Janet "JudgyBitch" Bloomfield tries to lie her way out of a Twitter suspension; here's proof of her targeted abuse

Screenshot of one of Janet Bloomfield's suspended accounts — Slightly censored screenshot of one of Janet Bloomfield’s suspended accounts

Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield may not have mastered the fine art of public relations in the real world, but amongst those who live in imaginary worlds of their own making she is something of a PR genius.

Bloomfield, A Voice for Men’s “Director of Social Media,” was recently booted from Twitter (again) for “targeted abuse” — evidently her harassment of feminist writer Jessica Valenti, which included making up inflammatory fake quotations and attributing them to her.

#gamergate a voice for men a woman is always to blame abortion antifeminism antifeminist women contraception doubling down FemRAs harassment judgybitch lying liars men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny MRA not-quite-explicit threats reactionary bullshit twitter

Antifeminist instigator and serial liar Janet "JudgyBitch" Bloomfield attacks Jessica Valenti for having the abortion that may have saved her life

Janet Bloomfield, reporting from her bunker

Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield, lovely human being that she is, has resumed her harassment of feminist writer Jessica Valenti. Several months back, you may recall, the integrity-deficient Bloomfield tried to smear Valenti by Tweeting a series of made-up quotes she attributed to the writer.

The fact that the quotes were patently ridiculous, and utterly unlike anything Valenti has ever written, didn’t stop Bloomfield’s army of knucklehead followers from swallowing her lies whole – or, once informed that the quotes were fake, of declaring that they sounded like something someone like her would say.

On Monday, Bloomfield tweeted one of the more obviously fake Valenti quotes that’s been floating around online, and her followers once again responded with predictable outrage against Valenti. Their response included this lovely tweet below from a proud #GamerGater and rabid feminist-hater by the name of Sean Hudspeth:

#gamergate a woman is always to blame anti-Semitism creepy dark enlightenment emotional abuse empathy deficit entitled babies evil sexy ladies gamebros harassment hate men who should not ever be with men ever men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny rape rape culture reactionary bullshit red pill twitter zoe quinn

A new low: One of Zoe Quinn's harassers was selling rape fanfic about her on Amazon

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date December 19, 2014
195 Comments on A new low: One of Zoe Quinn's harassers was selling rape fanfic about her on Amazon

The "book" as it appeared on Amazon — The “book” as it appeared on Amazon

This is the final day of the We Hunted the Mammoth Pledge Drive! If you haven’t already, please consider sending some bucks my way. (And don’t worry that the PayPal page says Man Boobz.) Thanks!

Every time you think they can’t go any lower, they go lower. This morning game designer and #GamerGate target Zoe Quinn discovered that someone was selling, er, “erotic fiction” about her on Amazon. Which is to say: a Kindle eBook apparently filled with explicit descriptions of her being gang-raped by five “upset” gamers trying to “teach her a lesson.”

Here’s the author’s blurb for the book:

#gamergate 4chan 8chan advocacy of violence antifeminism entitled babies evil fat fatties evil SJWs feminism grandiosity gross incompetence harassment hate speech hypocrisy irony alert men who should not ever be with imaginary women ever men who should not ever be with ponies ever men who should not ever be with women ever misogyny transphobia twitter

GamerGate plays Good Cop, Viciously Transphobic Cop

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 23, 2014
110 Comments on GamerGate plays Good Cop, Viciously Transphobic Cop

GamerGaters: You’re not fooling anyone.

#GamerGaters have been spending a lot of time lately trying to convince the world that they’re really quite reasonable people, actually, and that the “movement’s” reputation as a hotbed of hateful bullying is undeserved.

Today on 8Chan’s /gg/ board, for example, one enterprising anon announced the start of “OP FIREHEART,” a combination of “Operation Firefly + Operation Lonely Hearts.”

#gamergate 8chan a woman is always to blame antifeminism entitled babies evil SJWs flip flops imaginary backwards land misogyny post contains sarcasm sarkeesian! self-congratulation twitter

Super Fun Anita Sarkeesian Pop Quiz

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 19, 2014
174 Comments on Super Fun Anita Sarkeesian Pop Quiz

GamerGate may have to retire this bit of propaganda.

Today, a quick quiz to see how closely you’ve been following controversies in the world of video gaming. Well, a quiz that’s sort of been shoehorned into a poll. The correct answer(s) come after the bump. Enjoy!

#gamergate irony alert misogyny twitter

Respects is Earn: A meme is born

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 17, 2014
88 Comments on Respects is Earn: A meme is born

Brianna Wu — game developer, #GamerGate target #3 — got a Tweet sent to her yesterday announcing that “respects is earn not shrilly demanded.”

Mangled grammar aside, this is an “argument” we hear a lot from misogynistic men as a way of explaining away their lack of respect for women as a gender. Wu thought this inadvertantly lollcatty version of this cliche was too good to let vanish in the internet ether, and suggested that the phrase “respects is earn” be immortalized in a meme.

Can someone make us a meme for, "Respects is earn?" pic.twitter.com/7aLGokbOwk

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) November 17, 2014

And so it was. The cat above is @RobIsAWriter’s interpretation; here (after the bump) are a few more.

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#GamerGate's new champion is a wax replica of Patrick Bateman who thinks gamers are a bunch of dateless nerds

Post author By David Futrelle
Post date November 14, 2014
218 Comments on #GamerGate's new champion is a wax replica of Patrick Bateman who thinks gamers are a bunch of dateless nerds

Actual unretouched photo of Mytheos Holt, #GamerGate’s new champion

Watch out, Milo Yiannopoulos, you’ve got competition! #GamerGate has a new journalistic champion — and this one, like Milo, seems to have come straight from central casting, a virtual embodiment of every snooty reactionary preppie stereotype from every bad 80s movie.

A libertarian think tanker and erstwhile journalist with the unlikely name of Mytheos Holt, this new contender has one great advantage over young Milo: as you can see in the photo above, which I have not photoshopped in any way, he appears to be made entirely of wax — which means that unless someone accidentally sets him near a heater he will last forever.