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>The bundle of nightmares that is the GamerGate movement, an amorphous collection of gamers largely focused on harassing feminist game developers and critics, m

by penprog 12y ago

>The bundle of nightmares that is the GamerGate movement, an amorphous collection of gamers largely focused on harassing feminist game developers and critics, managed to make the front page of The New York Times. Why did I know this article had to do with #gamergate, can we get this shit out of here? This is a highly politicized and uninteresting topic.

delecti 12y ago
GamerGate is merely a symptom of a society that allows online harassment (or at least doesn't sufficiently persecute it), and it's currently a very visible example. Of course there are assholes in the movement, there are in any side of any movement. The problem is that they've got access to weapons which are largely unregulated.
- penprog 12y ago
  I don't care about GamerGate, what I care about is that every single media outlet is spamming this topic and it would die a lot faster if they ignored it. I can go to any other website for social commentary, do we want Hacker News to be a battleground for social justice or do we want it to be a place where we can actually discuss something interesting. Almost every other discussion website had the good sense to ban this topic because it only leads to flame wars and name calling.
- talmand 12y ago
  Just curious, which "weapons" do you think require regulations?
  - jerf 12y ago
    Our psyches are tuned for a world where a village of several hundred people is pretty big. No matter how rational you may think you are, when stepping into a "village" of millions just getting normal, non-harassing feedback that happens to be partially negative can be overwhelming to your emotions, even before we discuss people systematically abusing negative feedback. The worst thing about the "weapons" is that they aren't even "weapons"... they're just... communication. How can we fix harassment when just plain normal usage of the relevant channels alone can be emotionally overwhelming? Serious question for serious thought. I've got no practical answer and I've been pondering this question off and on for at least 15 years now.
    - penprog 12y ago
      This is why I hate these articles, we get people like you that call insults "weapons". They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by an insult. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon this is what the word weapon means The only way to stop online trolling is by educating people to ignore stuff on the internet. If some anonymous nobody starts saying weird stuff to you, ignore them. If they threaten you, call the police and ignore them. It's that simple. edit: changed weapon to comment
      - jerf 12y ago
        "They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by a weapon." Err, I know what you tried to say there... but you're still wrong, because "physically" hurt is not the only relevant type of hurt. You are not a robot. You are an emotional being, and you can be emotionally hurt by things that perhaps wouldn't hurt Spock but do hurt you. Your threshold may be much higher than many other people's. As it happens, mine is too. But that doesn't make us "right", or better, and it doesn't mean that people don't get really hurt on the Internet when thrust into a world their brain is quite literally not prepared for. If anything, we are the freaks of nature. Also note I didn't even limit it to insults... just perfectly normal social interaction can be quite draining. The realm of "negative feedback" is far richer than just "insults". Just receiving 4000 emails on a topic is an astonishing experience that I have but put my toe in the water of, and have little desire to experience the full blast.
      - delecti 12y ago
        From that article: >In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary. Harassment goes beyond just "insults", and coordinated targeted harassment campaigns against an individual are absolutely capable of inflicting severe mental trauma. If you disagree, consider the difference between me calling you a "poopy head" (insult), and me organizing a group of people to call the cell phones of you and several members of your family, multiple times per day for the next several months and leaving aggressive or threatening messages.
- siegecraft 12y ago
  "They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction."

by penprog 12y ago

delecti 12y ago

GamerGate is merely a symptom of a society that allows online harassment (or at least doesn't sufficiently persecute it), and it's currently a very visible example. Of course there are assholes in the movement, there are in any side of any movement. The problem is that they've got access to weapons which are largely unregulated.

penprog 12y ago
I don't care about GamerGate, what I care about is that every single media outlet is spamming this topic and it would die a lot faster if they ignored it. I can go to any other website for social commentary, do we want Hacker News to be a battleground for social justice or do we want it to be a place where we can actually discuss something interesting. Almost every other discussion website had the good sense to ban this topic because it only leads to flame wars and name calling.
talmand 12y ago
Just curious, which "weapons" do you think require regulations?
- jerf 12y ago
  Our psyches are tuned for a world where a village of several hundred people is pretty big. No matter how rational you may think you are, when stepping into a "village" of millions just getting normal, non-harassing feedback that happens to be partially negative can be overwhelming to your emotions, even before we discuss people systematically abusing negative feedback. The worst thing about the "weapons" is that they aren't even "weapons"... they're just... communication. How can we fix harassment when just plain normal usage of the relevant channels alone can be emotionally overwhelming? Serious question for serious thought. I've got no practical answer and I've been pondering this question off and on for at least 15 years now.
  - penprog 12y ago
    This is why I hate these articles, we get people like you that call insults "weapons". They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by an insult. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapon this is what the word weapon means The only way to stop online trolling is by educating people to ignore stuff on the internet. If some anonymous nobody starts saying weird stuff to you, ignore them. If they threaten you, call the police and ignore them. It's that simple. edit: changed weapon to comment
    - jerf 12y ago
      "They aren't, nobody get's physically damaged by a weapon." Err, I know what you tried to say there... but you're still wrong, because "physically" hurt is not the only relevant type of hurt. You are not a robot. You are an emotional being, and you can be emotionally hurt by things that perhaps wouldn't hurt Spock but do hurt you. Your threshold may be much higher than many other people's. As it happens, mine is too. But that doesn't make us "right", or better, and it doesn't mean that people don't get really hurt on the Internet when thrust into a world their brain is quite literally not prepared for. If anything, we are the freaks of nature. Also note I didn't even limit it to insults... just perfectly normal social interaction can be quite draining. The realm of "negative feedback" is far richer than just "insults". Just receiving 4000 emails on a topic is an astonishing experience that I have but put my toe in the water of, and have little desire to experience the full blast.
    - delecti 12y ago
      From that article: >In a broader context, weapons may be construed to include anything used to gain a strategic, material or mental advantage over an adversary. Harassment goes beyond just "insults", and coordinated targeted harassment campaigns against an individual are absolutely capable of inflicting severe mental trauma. If you disagree, consider the difference between me calling you a "poopy head" (insult), and me organizing a group of people to call the cell phones of you and several members of your family, multiple times per day for the next several months and leaving aggressive or threatening messages.
siegecraft 12y ago
"They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction."