http://rationalwiki.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_Gamergate_claims&diff=1587662&oldid=1587661

https://archive.is/X75r5

Continued from:

https://medium.com/@infiltrator7n/a-point-by-point-analysis-of-rational-wiki-s-list-of-gamergate-s-claims-part-1-2249404f6a97#.ml8j6pz5u

But charity donations!

Claim Gamergate has given lots of money to charity. How can Gamergate be evil?

Let’s be blunt here, giving to charity is a shitty metric to determine if someone is above reproach.

For example, I donate a million to a shelter for the poor, then I go out and kill someone I don’t like in cold blood. My act of charity would not erase the blood on my hands, this is a bullshit argument to defend or attack anything.

Rebuttal Gamergate seems to give to charity either out of spite or in order to somehow cancel out claims that they regularly tell women on the Internet to either kill themselves or that they will kill them, essentially treating charity as a form of indulgence.

Cite some proof to back this up.

Gamergate’s so-called lawyer Mike Cernovich tried to get Sam Biddle of Gawker (who Tweeted jokes at Gamergate’s expense) to do a charity boxing match, and tried to strongarm someone who had never had anything to say about Gamergate into supporting it in exchange for a charitable donation.

They cite Gawker here, but it does check out. another more neutral source for verification would be quite helpful here, given Gawker’s reputation.

Of note, one of the most prominent “charities” is, well, not.

But The Fine Young Capitalists!

Claim “GamerGate supporters […] contribute[d] to The Fine Young Capitalists, an organization dedicated to promoting women in the gaming industry, after attempts to derail their fundraising campaign by progressive activists,” Breitbart

Mind linking the Breitbart article so I can verify the quote is accurate?

Rebuttal TFYC is neither feminist nor a charity. The group is a crowdfunding front for a media studio called Autobotika. The only reason Gamergate ever learned about TFYC is because their spokesman and executive producer Matthew Rappard went to /r/TumblrInAction to lie about what Zoë Quinn did to him and TFYC’s project.

The source seem to bear out the claims, but over simplify things. They do concede TFYC do give money to charity, though they make for profit projects, so while they are not a charity, they operate with some of the functions of one. This could have used non biased third party verification, as the sources cited are obviously biased.

As for the last source is a screencap/text archive of, again, Reddit. RW, I told you about this, verification via neutral sources will only close holes in your argument. In this case, people can claim it was shopped, third party verification will only help your cause here.

The actual events prove otherwise.

The next two sources are a storify by Zoe Quinn and a collage of posts from Know Your Meme. One is obviously biased, and one needs verification from secondary sources since the collage of posts need verified by links to the sources and third party verification of their content from a non biased perspective.

TFYC is only supported by Gamergate to spite Zoë Quinn and serve as good publicity for superficially supporting “SJWs”,

The sources cited here again are shit, with one being a Vice article that has an obvious bias and needs verified by a more neutral secondary source.

to the tune of over $70k and a shitty video game no one actually owns outside of the people who got it for supporting the donation drive.

The game is on Steam, you could have cited the sales figures to make a better case than this unsourced allegation.

But Vivian James!

“”Vivian James being created for Gamergate PR was like when a Texas ribs restaurant uses a happy cartoon pig for its sign.

This source is an r/GamerGhazi thread, which is directly COI worthy since they discuss the very Gamergate claims article whose source I am critiquing, and DAVID GERARD himself created the thread, so it’s obvious where RW stands.

Fine, they have no obligation to be as NPOV as Wikipedia, but if you want to debunk something, you need to put your own prejudice aside and try to see if the argument you want to destroy holds up on its own and tear it down based on its own weaknesses, not your bias against the argument, if only so you can later say the argument you tore down couldn’t stand for itself on its own merit.

In short, RW, your objectivity is in the shitter and taints the entire GG claims article as bias riddled shit that has largely made up it’s mind in advance.

— casersatz,Claims “I’m not saying we should make effort to change their minds, but I feel we need to have make articles explaining why Vivian James was created and how it proves that Gamergate is not ‘misogynist’.” (For similar ideas, see the images.) “Supporting real women in games. Because we’re misogynists, right?” (See below for accompanying artwork.) “Our spokeswoman is Vivian James.”

Reality Vivian James is not a real person. It is a cartoon character who was, according to the pro-Gamergate Gamergate Wiki,

One of the source is to r/KotakuinAction, which could use third party verification given it’s on Reddit, and the other goes to a dead link.

“deliberately made an average-looking teenage girl” in order to “deflect accusations of misogyny”. In fact, the 4chan user who originally suggested James’ design did so specifically because “the tards in the media” wouldn’t expect it. Creating a fictional female character, who cannot consciously affect the Gamergate mob and has absolutely no agency, does not prove that the mob is friendly to living and sentient women.

Every last freaking source cited here is biased horseshit that need verification with more neutral sources to verify the claims.

Also, notice the blatant narrative writing here: Gamergate is characterized as a mob, and while they make a good point about how a fictional character cannot prove GGers friendly to living and sentient women, it does not mean they AREN’T.

Personally, I have no great stake in the Vivian James character either way, so I personally do not give a shit, but if they are trying to make a case GGers are sociopaths based on a fictional drawing of a girl mascot character, they have a shit argument so far.

Vivian James exists to lend credence to Gamergate to justify itself as not being against women because they have a fictional female mascot. This drawing is put up as the perfect bastion of what a female gamer is in Gamergate’s eyes and this fictional character is idolized more than any living woman that is presented in a friend argument. That is because living, thinking women have agency, and Vivian James does not. 4chan being 4chan, some of the very first drawings of Vivian James were porn.

One, cite some more neutral sources to back up your more biased sources, RW. Geez, why do I have to repeat that so much? In fact, your arguments are heavily based on biased shit you barely or not at all bother to verify to prove your damn case.

Second, it’s 4CHAN! The place widely known for years as the asshole of the internet, and if anything exists, THERE WILL BE PORN OF IT.

Nothing is sacred to 4chan, Vivian James is not immune, so why the hell are you idiots acting like this is news? They’ve done this shit since they were founded.

And, of course, no proof to cite their claims this is somehow a fucking surprise.

This went well with the fact her clothing colors, dark green and purple, are a reference to a “Daily Dose” meme, which was a reference to an older meme of a rape hentai GIF,

Alright, the one of the sources checks out for the most part, though one is a Tumblr link, and the other is a 4chan link that is not accessible. The remaining sources are a reasonably neutral blog and Know Your Meme, and these could use some additional verification.

again casting doubt on the sincerity of Vivian James. Gamergaters deny the connection and TFYC denies it is an issue.

Alright, the data checks out despite the limited sources, which could obviously used additional citation for verification.

A user at Know Your Meme, one of Gamergate’s many walled gardens

Citation needed. How do you know it’s a GamerGate ‘walled garden”?

, saw fit to remove mention of “rape” from their “Daily Dose / Piccolo Dick” page after these allegations were made, changing “anally raping” to “having sexual intercourse with”.

This checks out.

But #NotYourShield!

Claim Gamergate is supported by a diverse set of people, as seen in the #NotYourShield hashtag! Rebuttal #NotYourShield was planned from the start to be used as an astroturfing campaign of Gamergaters making up Twitter profiles and claiming to be anything but straight white guys forming a reactionary hate mob.

RW, I grow weary of telling you to cite some less biased source to verify the more biased ones. And one is a friggin Storify.

#NotYourShield may have actually gotten support from real people, but it just became a tokenist sub-mob and a new pool for friend arguments. While #NotYourShield was started by two self-identified black men, the sincerity of their message is questionable in the long run, considering one was a poster to 4chan’s far-right wing /pol/ board

Additional citation, RW, you only cite one Medium article. And why the hell do you assume anyone who has right leaning opinions is obviously wrong about everything?

Also, if you guys bothered to READ /pol/ they are politically incorrect for a damn reason and I’ve seen people of all political shades there, and the rule is that they don’t give a fuck about political correctness and you go in knowing you need to check your being offended at the door. It’s mostly a place to politically vent, and given the anon nature of the place, there is no objective way to know how many are sincere and how many are just trying to be edgy.

Shit, I don’t haunt the chans a lot, but even I know that damn much, so RW, if you’re going to make an argument shitting on the chans, try to cite some information that doesn’t make you look like whining idiots.

and the other has participated in other racially-charged trolling campaigns.

Needs additional citation. Also, #BaltimoreLootCrew was a troll. It was in very shitty taste, but that’s what trolls do. Granted, some may have been serious, but the Buzzfeed article shows a lack of trying to do anything other take everything at face value, make the worst possible assumptions, and RW merely parrots this shit as gospel without additional verification.

The #NotYourShield hashtag was a response to negative media pressure, who (mostly accurately) saw Gamergate as primarily straight white males.

Citation needed dammit, even the first source disproves that, while the second source is more about reinforcing the view GamerGaters are Hitler than actually providing proof or debunking of #NotYourShield. This needed additional sources for verification, and the second was pretty damn bad since it didn’t even really do anything except parrot an obvious party line rehashing earlier anti-GG arguments.

Gamergate claimed that #NotYourShield proved it was diverse, and so the media couldn’t hide behind the “shield” of diversity. Meanwhile, Gamergate picked up and used the shield they stole from the media — because how could you criticize such a diverse group of fake people, pursuing ethics in journalism? It’s solely been used to weaponize anyone who wasn’t a straight white male into becoming a Gamergate supporter, and those people are the ones who went out and picked fights in order to play the #NotYourShield race card and shut down their targets with a cry of racism or sexism.

And your only source to prove all this is a storify by someone who opposes GamerGate. Mind bringing something stronger to the table next time?

Gamergaters also seem to treat #NotYourShield as the anti-matter equivalent to women and other minority voices speaking out against oppression they’ve faced in the video games industry and the online gaming community. One woman, person of color, homosexual, or transgender individual agreeing with Gamergate does not negate the experiences and feelings of people critical or victimized by Gamergate. This is the equivalent of someone saying, “I broke my toe,” and then another person responding with, “I don’t know what your problem is, seeing as my feet are fine.”

Lot of assumption here, but nothing cited to support it’s assertions.

Gamergate has support from feminists

Claim “Want to [know] something funny? If you bothered doing research…you would know…that gamergate is actually backed by a feminist who has been in feminism LONG BEFORE YOU WERE BORN…”

Rebuttal This is referring to Christina Hoff Sommers. She isn’t a feminist. She calls herself one but that’s just to claim that her conservative views (funded by the American Enterprise Institute) are the real feminism and third-wave feminism isn’t proper feminism. She does nothing but complain that modern third-wave or gender feminism is unnecessarily harsh on poor defenseless boys and that her equity feminism is the right way to do things. And that people should leave her boys alone! The fact that she is a registered Democrat and voted for that party lines in previous elections doesn’t really mean anything when all she does is repeat the same talking points as every other anti-feminist reactionary.

One, use actual citations to make your point instead of sourcing your own wiki. Second, a little feminism breakdown.

First Wave Feminism: The Susan B. Anthony Era feminism, focused on getting women suffrage.

Second Wave Feminism: The ERA wave of feminism, focused on elevating the rights of women (especially in the workplace) to the same level as men.

Third-Wave Feminism: AKA the modern day version of feminism.

I'm not going to get into a long assed debate on the topic, but feminism has gone through many phases, has many adherents, many interpretations, and Ms. Summers views are just as valid as that of anyone else, as feminism is not a monolithic ideology with only one viewpoint, so RW, while you don’t think her views are valid, that’s a matter of opinion, and you do very little except narcissistically source your own writing to attempt proving her views mean nothing, and the whole section in general is just bashing Ms. Summers and has little to do with GamerGate in general.

“Gamergate did not start because of Eron Gjoni.”

Claim “GamerGate did not begin with an online rant by Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend. It began when Zoe Quinn tried to disrupt The Fine Young Capitalist’s [sic] Game Jam because they limited applicants to people identifying as women before the contest began which Zoe claimed was anti-transgendered [sic]. This is a position impossible for the media to defend so they pretend 4chan’s fight with Zoe began later.”

Rebuttal All of this comment left on an article about Milo Yiannopoulos is so incredibly wrong it’s almost sad. Gamergate did indeed begin with Gjoni’s rant.

No citations yet to back this up, but this is fairly on target with earlier established information, so I’ll give RW this one so far.

And it did not begin with the very minor Internet argument between Quinn and Rappard because no one knew about TFYC’s project until Rappard appeared in a proto-Gamergate thread on Reddit to talk shit, as referenced above. Claim “The joke of this great ‘debate’ is that before any of the events mentioned, the gender debate was stoked by the commercial production of “GAME_JAM”, in which some of the key principals participated — a sort of reality TV code-a-thon for a video game. Great efforts were made to inject drama (and Mountain Dew), after which it fell apart. I couldn’t even get people to leave a mention of this genesis in the article. Nonetheless, this is the reason why this is such a confused topic — it isn’t really a political issue at all. It’s a reality TV show gone rogue, with opportunists seizing on any way to stir trouble hiding somewhere in plain sight.”

Rebuttal No. While it’s true that Zoë Quinn participated on the failed GAME_JAM pilot and this article was written by Nathan Grayson,

Mind providing independent citation to verify the claims in the source you used (which, given Grayson had input there, taints it’s credibility so much you basically need independent verification to make your case)?

nothing about this event has anything at all to do with the genesis of Gamergate. No one involved in stirring up Gamergate was aware of the failed reality show’s existence until they began digging for anything resembling evidence to prove that Grayson had written about Quinn in any fashion during Eron Gjoni’s initially erroneous timeline of his relationship with Quinn. Quinn’s brief argument with Jon “JonTron” Jafari and producers trying to drum that up for scripted drama has nothing to do with Gamergate considering Quinn was already being harassed for about a year over Depression Quest’s initial foray onto Steam Greenlight and Anita Sarkeesian had already been harased for 2 years at the time of GAME_JAM’s filming.

Citations fucking needed.

What defense of child pornography?

Claim Gamergate never supported child pornography! Rebuttal In November 2014, The Daily Dot reported on 8chan’s rampant problems with child pornography, while site owner Fredrick Brennan said that while he did not support the content morally, he was obligated to keep to his word that anything illegal under U.S. law would be taken down by the moderators, while arguably everything else was in some legal gray area.

Use another source to verify the one you cited here, dammit. Also, while the Daily Dot article doesn’t seem half as ignorant of chan culture as I thought, they default to a predictable conclusion which RW parrots as gospel without independent verification.

A month later, Dan Olson ran an exposé that blew the lid off of this assertion, showing that blatantly illegal child pornography was to be found on pedophilia-themed boards that Brennan claimed fell in the legal “gray area”, often posted weeks or months prior, and these boards could be easily accessed from 8chan’s front page.

Three things here: Olson fucked up and broke his own country’s laws, so cite someone else to verify things. Second, lolicon and shotacon are, while morally questionable, legal under US law since no actual children are harmed. Third, I saw the photo of the boards in question, and while skeevy looking, still fell within the gray area and nothing worthy of FBI attention stood out.

Brennan deleted one of the more blatantly bad boards, claiming Olson’s article “advertised” 8chan to “actual pedophiles”, causing them to suddenly flock to the board and flood it with explicit photos.

This source checks out, but need verification, since it’s just an Imgur post with no way to verify it’s true to the source or has been shopped.

If this is true, who the hell was posting all of the just god awful photographs of sexualized children, descriptions of sexual acts people wanted to perform on said children, expressing the desire to work near or around children, and descriptions of how posters had sexually abused children in the past months before his article and before the one at The Daily Dot? Throughout this whole article, Olson never once mentioned Gamergate. That did not stop Gamergaters from attacking him and falsely reporting him and others for possessing child pornography.

Under Canadian law, they were right in accusing him, so take this bullshit and shove it.

And on top of that, Gamergate doubled up and said that SJWs were posting the porn to frame 8chan. And of course, what Olson did is practically identical to what Anderson Cooper did with an audience of millions on his CNN show Anderson 360 with regards to /r/jailbait in 2011. The response back then wasn’t to pillory him as 8channers did to Olson.

Decent source, needs additional citations.

The outrage of the world at large still led to a reluctant ban of anything even close to being child porn by Reddit but months after Cooper’s report. Just why are these “free speech” sites bastions of pedos anyway?

This source is from Gawker, and you obvious need to verify their claims with an independent source.

And notice the leading conclusion? It’s basically saying free speech is a crock and just a shield for pedophiles, when the only person who was directly proven in the above to have broken any laws was Dan Olsen himself.