I'd like to say a few quick words in regards to the biggest concern regarding GamerGate: ethics and free speech.
Ethics is the philosophy of right and wrong. It is the study of ideas that define what behaviors and actions can be seen as righteous or condemn able. There are several schools of moral philosophy, including Ayn Rand's Objectivism, Immanuel Kant's Intentionalism, and John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, to name but a select few. To learn more, here's Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Free Speech is a bit trickier to define, but let's give it a shot. Ideally, Free Speech means that we can say whatever we want without consequence. This, however, is impossible, because every action must have a reaction. I know that sounds vague, so allow me to present an example. Say someone were to yell "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater, thus causing a panic. Is that person excising free speech? In a way, yes, but what their action caused a panic, so the person must be punished. How about we give an example closer to our interests? Say someone uses their Twitter to harass, say, Anita Sarkeesian. Is she (let's make her a female to be fair. Not everyone who hates Sarkeesian, after all, is male) using her right to Free Speech? Well, technically, yes. But she's also committing an unethical act. Harassment means the continued and unwanted actions towards one party by another. This is illegal, and continuous harassment can get you in trouble.
When one thinks about it, one realizes there is truly no such thing as "Free" Speech, because Speech is variedly limited. In some countries, the restriction of Speech, de jure, falls on hate speech, harassment, and other speech that leads to criminal behavior (like our aforementioned friend who yelled fire in a theater). In other countries, anything you say that the government does not agree with can and will land you in jail, at best.
This brings us to the Internet. As we know, even on the Internet there is no such thing as Free Speech, because every site limits what their users and visitors can say. And like in real life, each site has different rules and standards, and speech that does not abide by these rules is censored or removed. For example, 4Chan is a site that allows its users to talk about how much they want to, for example, fuck their sisters, providing nude photographs and such, but you can still get banned for posting child pornography or calling for an individual to be harassed or worse. Fluffybooru is a website that allows its users to post drawings of fluffy ponies getting eviscerated, bleeding to death, etc. But if you post, say, real life pictures of animal abuse, you will be banned. On the opposite end of the spectrum there is Rapture Ready, an Evangelical Christian site that forbids use of foul language, "promotion" of homosexuality, blasphemy, and referring to God as Allah, or citing any news source the site does not approve of. And of course, there's Youtube, which allows its users to determine how they prefer to handle user commenting. For example, Feminist Frequency is a Youtube Channel that allows no comments on their videos. Rather Vocalized Illusion is also a Youtube Channel that moderates all comments, and all comments must be approved before they are posted.
This is proof that there is truly no such thing as Freedom of Speech. Speech is limited, but how limited it is depends on who is in power. "Why does this matter?" I hear you ask. This matters because it relates to GamerGate. One of the biggest problems facing GamerGate is that, for all intents and purposes, the places we're allowed to so much as talk about it, much less express ourselves, are limited. We can no longer count on Kotaku, Gamasutra, Cracked, or anything to express our anger towards gaming journalists, because those sites have proven to be unreliable. We can no longer count on Reddit or even 4Chan, because those sites have also taken to delete all discussion threads that so much as mention GamerGate.
This brings us back to Ethics. Is it right or wrong to delete threads that discuss GamerGate? On its face, it's wrong. And in a perfect world, the answer to this question would be a solid, resounding wrong. But again, we have to look at what every site has in common: User guidelines. These are clear, set rules that all site users must abide to, and if those users break those rules, then there must be punishment, and the punishment must be made clear and concise to all users. For example, moot claims that the GamerGate threads on 4Chan were deleted because they broke the site's rules against instigating attacks against other people. On its face, that's believable and understandable.
But this brings us to a bigger conundrum: Did these threads REALLY break the rules, or were the rules just liberally interpreted to allow justification against these thread deletions? After all, there exists proof that many Reddit mods deleted threads about Zoe Quinn because they had a personal relationship with her, and there have been rumors that moot has been associating with Anita Sarkeesian, so who's to say that moot's janitors weren't abusing their powers? Who's to say that moot himself isn't liberally bending his rules to his own whims? After all, when you make a claim, you HAVE to back it up. Alt+prtsc, it's your best friend on the Internet.
So what should stop, say, moderators from abusing their power? The same thing that should keep government officials from abusing theirs: a system of checks and balances. Many countries have a strict set of laws that clearly define what constitutes corruption and how it ought be punished. For example, there's the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988, which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Corruption_Act,_1988
And another one here: http://www.oecd.org/site/adboecdanti-corruptioninitiative/46814376.pdf
But what about when the corruption reaches the highest levels of power? That's when the citizens should take action. But is there a resource that citizens can use when the corrupt abuse their power? Yes, and it has a name: protest.
We the citizens have a right to protest, to raise our voices against what we see is wrong. And THAT is what GamerGate is: a protest. And what are we protesting? Well, here's a SMALL sample:
Ethics is the philosophy of right and wrong. It is the study of ideas that define what behaviors and actions can be seen as righteous or condemn able. There are several schools of moral philosophy, including Ayn Rand's Objectivism, Immanuel Kant's Intentionalism, and John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism, to name but a select few. To learn more, here's Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics
Free Speech is a bit trickier to define, but let's give it a shot. Ideally, Free Speech means that we can say whatever we want without consequence. This, however, is impossible, because every action must have a reaction. I know that sounds vague, so allow me to present an example. Say someone were to yell "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater, thus causing a panic. Is that person excising free speech? In a way, yes, but what their action caused a panic, so the person must be punished. How about we give an example closer to our interests? Say someone uses their Twitter to harass, say, Anita Sarkeesian. Is she (let's make her a female to be fair. Not everyone who hates Sarkeesian, after all, is male) using her right to Free Speech? Well, technically, yes. But she's also committing an unethical act. Harassment means the continued and unwanted actions towards one party by another. This is illegal, and continuous harassment can get you in trouble.
When one thinks about it, one realizes there is truly no such thing as "Free" Speech, because Speech is variedly limited. In some countries, the restriction of Speech, de jure, falls on hate speech, harassment, and other speech that leads to criminal behavior (like our aforementioned friend who yelled fire in a theater). In other countries, anything you say that the government does not agree with can and will land you in jail, at best.
This brings us to the Internet. As we know, even on the Internet there is no such thing as Free Speech, because every site limits what their users and visitors can say. And like in real life, each site has different rules and standards, and speech that does not abide by these rules is censored or removed. For example, 4Chan is a site that allows its users to talk about how much they want to, for example, fuck their sisters, providing nude photographs and such, but you can still get banned for posting child pornography or calling for an individual to be harassed or worse. Fluffybooru is a website that allows its users to post drawings of fluffy ponies getting eviscerated, bleeding to death, etc. But if you post, say, real life pictures of animal abuse, you will be banned. On the opposite end of the spectrum there is Rapture Ready, an Evangelical Christian site that forbids use of foul language, "promotion" of homosexuality, blasphemy, and referring to God as Allah, or citing any news source the site does not approve of. And of course, there's Youtube, which allows its users to determine how they prefer to handle user commenting. For example, Feminist Frequency is a Youtube Channel that allows no comments on their videos. Rather Vocalized Illusion is also a Youtube Channel that moderates all comments, and all comments must be approved before they are posted.
This is proof that there is truly no such thing as Freedom of Speech. Speech is limited, but how limited it is depends on who is in power. "Why does this matter?" I hear you ask. This matters because it relates to GamerGate. One of the biggest problems facing GamerGate is that, for all intents and purposes, the places we're allowed to so much as talk about it, much less express ourselves, are limited. We can no longer count on Kotaku, Gamasutra, Cracked, or anything to express our anger towards gaming journalists, because those sites have proven to be unreliable. We can no longer count on Reddit or even 4Chan, because those sites have also taken to delete all discussion threads that so much as mention GamerGate.
This brings us back to Ethics. Is it right or wrong to delete threads that discuss GamerGate? On its face, it's wrong. And in a perfect world, the answer to this question would be a solid, resounding wrong. But again, we have to look at what every site has in common: User guidelines. These are clear, set rules that all site users must abide to, and if those users break those rules, then there must be punishment, and the punishment must be made clear and concise to all users. For example, moot claims that the GamerGate threads on 4Chan were deleted because they broke the site's rules against instigating attacks against other people. On its face, that's believable and understandable.
But this brings us to a bigger conundrum: Did these threads REALLY break the rules, or were the rules just liberally interpreted to allow justification against these thread deletions? After all, there exists proof that many Reddit mods deleted threads about Zoe Quinn because they had a personal relationship with her, and there have been rumors that moot has been associating with Anita Sarkeesian, so who's to say that moot's janitors weren't abusing their powers? Who's to say that moot himself isn't liberally bending his rules to his own whims? After all, when you make a claim, you HAVE to back it up. Alt+prtsc, it's your best friend on the Internet.
So what should stop, say, moderators from abusing their power? The same thing that should keep government officials from abusing theirs: a system of checks and balances. Many countries have a strict set of laws that clearly define what constitutes corruption and how it ought be punished. For example, there's the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988, which you can read about here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevention_of_Corruption_Act,_1988
And another one here: http://www.oecd.org/site/adboecdanti-corruptioninitiative/46814376.pdf
But what about when the corruption reaches the highest levels of power? That's when the citizens should take action. But is there a resource that citizens can use when the corrupt abuse their power? Yes, and it has a name: protest.
We the citizens have a right to protest, to raise our voices against what we see is wrong. And THAT is what GamerGate is: a protest. And what are we protesting? Well, here's a SMALL sample:
We protest against a "journalist" community that has gotten so hubristic it thinks it can get away with corruption, biased and false reporting, and insulting its audience. We protest the hypocrisy of those that are not afraid to release the personal information of those they disagree with yet cry crocodile tears when it happens to them. And we protest those that dare call themselves our journalists.
Journalistic ethics can be summed up in four rules:
- Seek truth and report it
- Minimize harm
- Be accountable
- Act independently
Game journalists have been proven to fail these four rules time and again. They do not seek truth, they seek validation for their biases. They do not minimize harm, they increase it, sometimes cause it, with their doxxing. They are not accountable because they do not owe up to their mistakes, much less fix them. And they don't act independently, because they've been proven to share a secret mailing list to discuss what to cover and what to ignore. More info here: http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/17/Exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite
It is high time this ended! It is time our voices were heard, to make them louder than ever! It is in our rights to demand more ethical journalism in gaming! It is in our rights to discuss these events in places that claim themselves to be zones of Free Speech! Let every game journalist, every game developer in the world hear these words: we're mad as hell, and we won't take it anymore! We will boycott every site that censors discussion on GamerGate, we will boycott every site, every journalist, every game developer, every blogger that dares to say we have no voice, no power! Because make no mistake, that's what THESE "news" items are really saying:
For more information on unethical journalism, here's a link: http://prezi.com/sw533p9wagze/unethical-journalism/
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