GamerGate Vs. The CBC: My Complaint to the CRTC

January 15, 2015





Dear Sir or Madam,



Please consider this letter my official complaint to the CRTC concerning the CBC’s one-sided coverage and misrepresentation of the large-scale consumer revolt known as GamerGate.



PREVIOUS ATTEMPTS AT RESOLVING THE MATTER



I and several other GamerGate supporters attempted to deal with this issue by speaking with various members of the CBC, among them the Executive Producer of “The National” news program, Mark Harrison, the Managing Editor of CBCNews.ca, Brodie Fenlon, and the Ombudsman, Esther Enkin. After independently receiving responses from all parties involved which we considered unsatisfactory, we, at the suggestion of Francis Scarpaleggia, the Member of Parliament for Lac-St-Louis, are respectfully requesting a thorough review of the issue by the CRTC.



Some of the correspondence letters which we received may be viewed here:



http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2qqq34/cbc_finally_replied_to_me_regarding_their_gg/

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2oecch/another_response_from_cbc/

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2obj1o/so_i_got_a_reply_from_the_cbc/

http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2n0gnl/cbcradiocanada_ombudsman_esther_enkincbcombudsman/

http://www.ombudsman.cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/complaint-reviews/2014/playing-fair-the-challenges-of-talking-about-gamergate/



My personal correspondences with the CBC and Mr. Scarpaleggia may be found here:



https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/540749332568211456

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/541152368595705856

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/552304901884497920

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/552306119058948097

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/553375648757329920



Forwarded copies of all my e-mails are available upon request.



INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS GAMERGATE?



Before outlining my issues with the CBC’s coverage of GamerGate, I respectfully ask that you consult the following documents in order to better understand the complex series of events and viewpoints which culminated in GamerGate. My apologies for the fact many of them come from what some might consider non-traditional - or possibly contentious - news outlets and sources, but due to the mainstream media’s universal embrace of one side of this debate, GamerGate and its supporters have been left with little choice but to take their allies where they can find them, or, in some cases, act as ersatz journalists themselves after being targeted by the very gaming press that was supposed to represent them. However, I invite the CRTC and its representatives to freely scrutinize and analyze and all of these sources and perform independent research to verify the accuracy of the statements made in them.



While the inherent complexity of GamerGate is labyrinthine, the following six links provide an accurate overview of the major developments and issues involved:



Documented examples of corruption and conflicts of interest in video game journalism:

http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/12/gamergate-game-journo-pros-interview-blacklisting/

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/12/gamergate-game-journo-pros-blacklistboycott-may-have-breached-antitrust-laws/



The background behind GamerGate and relevant social and ideological viewpoints:

http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/12/gamergate-part-i-sex-lies-and-gender-gam/

http://reason.com/archives/2014/10/22/gamergate-part-2-videogames-meet-feminis

http://reason.com/archives/2014/11/01/misandry-in-the-gamergate-controversy



For a diagram of the various groups involved in GamerGate, please refer to the following link:



http://i.imgur.com/1ytPi3w.jpg



PROBLEMS WITH THE CBC’S DEPICTION OF GAMERGATE



Between October 8 and November 14, 2014, the CBC published no less than five separate news reports on GamerGate. In chronological order, they were:



Report 1: “Jesse Wente: GamerGate” by Matt Galloway (October 8, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/metromorning/columnists/2014/10/08/jesse-wente-gamergate/



Report 2: “#StopGamerGate2014 hashtag suggests internet is growing tired of GamerGate” by Lauren O'Neil (October 15, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/10/stopgamergate2014-the-internet-has-had-enough-of-gamergate.html



Report 3: “Technology column - GamerGate” by Matt Connolly and Dana DiTomaso (October 20, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/edmontonam/columnists/technology/2014/10/20/technology-column—gamergate/



Report 4: “Gamergate: Has the online world turned against women?” by Jian Ghomeshi (October 21, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Q/Excerpts/ID/2565108941/



Report 5: “‘Gamergate’ sparks conversation on gaming culture” by Deana Sumanac-Johnson (November 14, 2014)

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2600676865/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ELZXPvdH9AY



For purposes of simplicity, the aforementioned news reports will be referred to by the above numerical designations from here on out.



The problems with the CBC’s coverage of GamerGate - and there are several - are as follows:



1. DEMONSTRABLE LACK OF INTEREST BY THE CBC IN COVERING BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE



CBC Social Media News Producer John Bowman has gone on record stating that, after performing a preliminary interview with female pro-GamerGate video game developer Jennifer Dawe on October 3, 2014, “(he) planned to do a second (interview) for (his) radio column” but that “(his) producers didn’t want (to) go ahead with that topic.”



http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/producers-didnt-want-the-full-story-of-gamergate-according-to-journalist/



As reporter William Usher correctly points out in the aforementioned article, the producers at the CBC apparently had no qualms with pursuing the narrative that GamerGate was about the “harassment of women”, as all of their GamerGate pieces released after Bowman’s conversation with Dawe leaned solely in that direction.



2. ALL FIVE NEWS REPORTS BY THE CBC FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY ON THE “HARASSMENT OF WOMEN” ANGLE AND NONE ON THE “ETHICS IN JOURNALISM” ANGLE



Every single interviewee in the CBC’s reports - Jesse Wente in Report 1, Dana DiTomaso in Report 3, Brianna Wu and Soraya Chemaly in Report 4, and Gersande La Flèche and Mia Consalvo in Report 5 - supported the GamerGate “harassment of women” narrative (albeit to varying degrees) and were allowed to voice their views and opinions unchallenged. The end result was that they were collectively allowed to repeat hearsay, rumor, allegations, half-truths, and occasionally misinformation and lies as if they were facts.



One false allegation emphasized in all five reports was that Zoe Quinn suffered harassment due to her gender and occupation as a female game developer. While any abuse she may have suffered is, of course, reprehensible, the vast majority of it came from her infidelity, her (alleged) exchange of sexual favors for publicity and awards for her game, “Depression Quest”, as backlash for engaging her detractors in a hostile manner, and for her previous reprehensible actions, such as sabotaging The Fine Young Capitalists’ game jam. Quinn’s infidelity was the only one of her transgression to be mentioned, and, even then, only in passing and in order to categorically refute that the allegations were true (as was done by Wente and DiTomaso); otherwise, she was inaccurately portrayed as an innocent and utterly blameless victim.



As for the “ethics in game journalism” angle, when asked point blank “if there was any validity to the complaints of collusion among journalists in the industry” in Report 1, Wente responded “not from the way (he) sees it”, even though hard evidence for the existence of GameJournoPros - a private mailing list inspired by Ezra Klein’s JournoList, in which video game journalists from numerous publications conspired to spin the news, among other things - was made public more than three weeks earlier and the subject of no less than five different news articles:



http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/17/Exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/18/The-emails-that-prove-video-games-journalism-must-be-reformed

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2014/09/19/inside-the-secret-world-of-games-journalism/

http://techraptor.net/content/examination-game-journalism-professionals

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/09/gamergate-game-journalists-ignored-facts-to-push-gamers-are-dead-agenda-according-to-e-mails/



Wu, too, neglected to mention this in Report 4, where she simply stated that “almost every single major outlet in the games world […] denounce (GamerGate) as a source of misogyny”, conveniently omitting the fact that this occurred because all of those news outlets had been secretly conspiring with one another to do so on GameJournoPros.



More outrageously, in Report 3, while DiTomaso acknowledged that corruption existed in video game journalism, she immediately shifted the blame for it on the audience by stating that “someone has to pay those journalists’ salaries”, that “if you want ethics in journalism, then you have to make sure that you pay for it”, and falsely implied that Quinn and female game developers and critics were being attacked out of misdirected anger and a misguided attempt to rectify the situation.



In Report 4, Wu reported receiving harassment. Again, while this cannot be condoned, she not only attributed the abuse she received to GamerGate supporters (even though no verifiable evidence confirming the identities of the individuals involved and conclusively linking them to the consumer revolt have yet surfaced to the best of my knowledge), but neglected to mention that she had actively inserted herself into the discussion and antagonized various pro-GamerGate individuals with a sockpuppet account on Twitter, something which may have prompted the harassment she received in the first place:



https://twitter.com/Spacekatgal/status/512690892012924929

https://twitter.com/BROLOLZ/with_replies



Numerous statements made by DiTomaso concerning Zoe Quinn and her former boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, in Report 3, were also riddled with factual inaccuracies. She was quick to label “The Zoe Post” - the notorious exposé of Quinn’s private life which sparked Gamergate - as the actions of a jilted lover (in spite of the fact that he, in fact, had dumped her) and casually wrote Gjoni off as “a little unhinged” based on an interview with him that she had read on BuzzFeed. However, if one actually looks at the blog entry in question…



http://thezoepost.wordpress.com/



…it unequivocally states that he originally wrote it in order to warn others to be wary of Quinn due to her manipulative, unethical, and deceptive behavior and neither made calls for her to be harassed nor supported such actions. In fact, a close reading of the document indicates that it was, in fact, Gjoni who had been the victim in their dysfunctional relationship, having been gaslighted by her and suffered various forms of emotional and psychological abuse on numerous occasions. More importantly, he has an extensive collection of chat logs and screen captures that lend credence to his version of events.



Also, DiTomaso stated that allegations that “(Zoe Quinn) had romantic relationships with gaming journalists in exchange for glowing reviews of her game” were “later proved to be not true” and that “one of the journalists…mentioned did not write a review of her game at all”, echoing a statement made by Wente in Report 1. This is, at best, a half truth. While the journalist in question, Nathan Grayson, did indeed never write a review about Quinn’s game, “Depression Quest”, not only was the existence of a romantic relationship between him and Quinn confirmed by the editor-in-chier of “Kotaku”, Stephen Totilo, nearly two whole months before Report 3 aired…



http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346



…but Grayson also offered both her and her game positive press in at least two different articles he wrote for “Kotaku” and “Rock, Paper, Shotgun”…



http://tmi.kotaku.com/the-indie-game-reality-tv-show-that-went-to-hell-1555599284

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/01/08/admission-quest-valve-greenlights-50-more-games/



…and he is also listed in the credits of “Depression Quest” itself as far back as 2013, indicating that there was a very real conflict of interests here, even if it was admittedly not quite of the nature originally reported:



http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/DEPRESSIONQUEST3.jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/20130222013314/http://www.depressionquest.com/dqfinal.html

http://archive.today/LFrir



Wente and DiTomaso’s ambiguous phrasing and selective omissions of fact in their respective segments give uninformed listeners the impression that the accasations levied against Quinn were completely false.



3. THE CBC BURIED A PRO-GAMERGATE INTERVIEW WITH A FEMALE GAME DEVELOPER



The producers at the CBC never released a preliminary interview of pro-GamerGate female game developer Jennifer Dawe, whose content runs completely contrary to the “harassment of women” narrative in the five news reports and reflects the version of events in this letter.



https://soundcloud.com/johnfbowman/interview-bowman-dawe-gamergate



This inteview only saw the light of the day thanks to the combined efforts of freelance journalist William Usher and the interviewer, John Bowman.



http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/producers-didnt-want-the-full-story-of-gamergate-according-to-journalist/



It should be noted that Bowman and Dawe’s combined statements from this pre-interview clearly demonstrate that at least some individuals at the CBC has detailed knowledge of several aspects of GamerGate that they failed to address in any of their subsequent coverage. Moreover, that information and more was available to them as early as October 3, 2014, five days before Report 1 came out.



4. THE CBC FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF NOTYOURSHIELD



In all five CBC news reports, no mention whatsoever was made of the #GamerGate sister hashtag, #NotYourShield, which was created in response to the infamous “Gamers are dead” articles: between 12 and 14 essays which appeared within a 72 hour time frame declaring the “gamer” identity to be dead and labeled and denounced all critics of Zoe Quinn and the game journalists who rallied to her defense as sexist, misogynistic, territorial, straight white men intent on protecting their “boys only” gaming community from an influx of women:



http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Gamers_are_Dead



The brainchild of African-American Twitter users @Ninouh90 (real name unknown) and @j_millerworks ([REDACTED]), NotYourShield was used as a rallying cry for all members of the gaming community who did not fit the above stereotype - minorities, women, members of the LGBT community, etc. - who were tired of and angry with radical feminists and social justice extremists in the video game press using them as shields to justify pushing their own identity politics and sociopolitical agendas, silencing criticism through shaming, guilting, and “call-out culture”, and other questionable and reprehensible behavior in the guise of promoting diversity and equality.



http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Hashtag-Shows-Multi-Cultural-Support-GamerGate-67119.html

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Video-Shows-All-Different-Faces-Behind-GamerGate-67173.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqBdCmDR0M



It is suspected that, as in the case of the Dawe interview, that the CBC purposely chose not to mention NotYourShield in spite of their awareness of it, as it would have seriously undermined the “harassment of women” angle they were intent on pushing.



5. THE CBC PRODUCERS AND OMBUDSMAN ARE USING LOOPHOLES AND SPURIOUS LOGIC TO CIRCUMVENT THEIR OWN JOURNALISTIC AND ETHICAL STANDARDS



In the following documents…



https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/540749332568211456

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/541152368595705856

https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/552304901884497920



…the Executive Producer of “The National”, Mark Harrison, and the CBC Ombudsman, Esther Enkin, make a number of dubious claims that do not hold up to scrutiny:



i. Both state that Report 5 was “not specifically about #GamerGate” and instead “mostly remained focused on the phenomenon of harassment of female game developers, set in the context of (an event known as Gamerella)”, which was organized “to make female gamers comfortable and safe enough to create”.



http://www.ombudsman.cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/complaint-reviews/2015/playing-fair-take-two-the-challenges-of-talking-about-gamergate/



If this was indeed the case and GamerGate not the focus of the report, then why was it entitled “'Gamergate’ sparks conversation on gaming culture” instead of something more suitable, such as “Gameralla offers new opportunities for female video game developers”? In fact, a similar argument was made by Enkin and CBCNews.ca Managing Editor, Brodie Fenlon, in the following response to a complaint filed by Patrick Upson about Report 2:



http://www.ombudsman.cbc.radio-canada.ca/en/complaint-reviews/2014/playing-fair-the-challenges-of-talking-about-gamergate/



Enkin’s claim that the CBC was not required to explain in detail the nature of GamerGate in Report 2 because it was not an “in-depth piece on GamerGate” is ludicrous, as it makes no sense to write an entire article about the purpose of the #StopGamerGate2014 hashtag without first explaining, in a fair, thorough, and unbiased manner, the exact nature of the hashtag which it was created to oppose. Moreover, Report 2 - “#StopGamerGate2014 hashtag suggests internet is growing tired of GamerGate” - also contains “GamerGate” in its title, in spite of Enkin’s insistence that the consumer revolt is in no way the focus of it.



ii. Enkin steadfastly claims that “(GamerGate) has become associated with harassment of women” and “has been linked with a range of bullying and threatening behaviors” in both of the aforementioned reviews, but, in doing so, conveniently omits the fact that this is largely because this was the narrative that was not only pushed by the gaming press in the “Gamers are dead” articles which introduced the consumer revolt to the world…



http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Gamers_are_Dead



…but also by mainsteam media outlets, including MSNBC, the CBC, the BBC, and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), all of whom took the video game journalists at their word instead of independently verifying whether or not the claims being made were true.



iii. Enkin highlights the use of weasel words and equivocation to justify why the the CBC news reports are not technically inaccurate. For example, in Report 5, Sumanac-Johnson makes the following statement:



“Initially a social media hashtag for discussion of ethics in gaming journalism, it has increasingly become a catch phrase for the online harassment of female gamers.”



While “increasingly become a catch phrase for the online harassment of female gamers” does not make an explicit claim as to whether or not a given statement is indeed true, listeners are most definitely left with that impression due to the strong, unspoken implication. A similarly ambigous phrasing can be found in Report 2:



“One of the discussion threads now most commonly associated with GamerGate revolves around misogyny within the gaming community and, specifically, the harassment of females within the industry.”



Again, the aforementioned statement does not mention whether this “common association” is justified or not, but lends the claim an unmerited air of legitimacy. In fact, statements made by Enkin in her own reviews - “associated with harassment of women”, “linked with a range of bullying and threatening behaviors”, etc. - are similarly misleading and dishonest.



To put things in context: if I were, for example, to say that “The CBC has been linked with the sexual assault of women” or that “The University of Virginia has become associated with gang rape” due to recent events involving Jian Ghomeshi and “Rolling Stone” magazine, respectively, those statements would indeed be technically accurate, but the implications are divorced from the reality of both situations, which are far more complex and nuanced. The same applies to GamerGate, whether the CBC wants to acknowledge it or not.



iv. Statements by Enkin, Harrison, and Fenlon, such as “#GamerGate is not an organization with a management that is accountable for statements made in its name” or “not a traditional organization with designated leadership or a manifesto” appear to imply that, since our consumer revolt lacks a traditional hierarchical power structure, leader(s), or official representative(s), we therefore somehow not only lack plausible deniability - and thus all allegations of misconduct levied against us cannot be effectively countered because anyone could potentially hijack the hashtag to do things in our name - but also in some way forfeit our right to self-definition in regards to purpose and identity.



These arguments are as Kafkaesque as they are indefensible.



First, democracies do not operate under the premise of “guilty until proven innocent” and the power of repetition cannot magically transform hearsay, rumor, or allegations into fact. Unless solid evidence linking GamerGate and its supporters to specific instances of wrongdoing surfaces, it is unethical for a news organization to assert or imply guilt where none has been conclusively proven to exist, do so on five separate occasions, and give air time solely to guests and CBC-affiliated individuals reinforcing that viewpoint. The mainstream media jumping to conclusions and irresponsible journalists stacking the deck against a person or organization in the court of public opinion based solely on the word of a single individual with little to no independent verification has, in the past, resulted in such fiascos as the Duke University lacrosse case in 2006, and, more recently, the aforementioned University of Virginia gang rape scandal with “Rolling Stone” magazine that is still ongoing.



Second, the reliance on an official representative to spoonfeed news outlets talking points and mission statements is the definition of lazy journalism. Since GamerGate is a consumer revolt whose structure is akin to an anarchist collective with a meritocracy of ideas, it is admittedly more difficult, but far from impossible, to determine the truth. The simplest option would be to investigate and see if claims had any merit. Respected elder feminist Christina Hoff Sommers conducted immersive research on GamerGate and came to the conclusion that the claims made by the mainstream and gaming media did not hold water:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MxqSwzFy5w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RVlCvBd21w



Another alternative would be to gather statistical and numerical data and analyze the results. Chris Von Cesfalvay, a data scientist specialising in social networks, did just that in December 2014, and came to the conclusion that results of his network analysis were “incompatible with the description of #Gamergate as a hate group” and “the assertion that #Gamergate is regularly harassing particular personalities”:



http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2014/12/07/Gamergate.html

http://chrisvoncsefalvay.com/2014/12/07/Gamergate.html



While Von Cesfalvay is quick to point out that his results are not conclusive proof of GamerGate’s innocence, they are enough to shift the burden of proof from the consumer revolt to the media. In addition, writer J.W. Caine performed a statistical analysis of data touted in a “Newsweek” magazine article as proof of the consumer revolt’s guilt when it came to the harassment of women and found that it demonstrated the exact opposite of what was claimed:



https://medium.com/@cainejw/an-actual-statistical-analysis-of-gamergate-dfd809858f68

https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-statistical-analysis-of-gamergate-utilizing-newsweek-data-e2bada31ea7e



Even if one ignores all of this, Enkin is still completely incorrect. While GamerGate has no designated leadership, it does have several prominent supporters or spokespeople - including actor Adam Baldwin, feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, video game developer Jennifer Dawe, YouTube and media personalities Jennie Bharaj and TotalBiscuit (John Bain), British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, writer and journalist Cathy Young, Stardock Entertainment CEO Brad Wardell, etc. - all of whom were more than qualified to provide insight on GamerGate. The only possible explanation for why the CBC never gave official coverage to any of these individuals is because they made a conscious decision not to do so.



More detailed breakdowns and critical analyses of the CBC’s violations of their own journalistic ethics and standards by William Usher may be found here:



http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/11/cbc-breaches-multiple-journalistic-ethics-standards-to-smear-gamergate/

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/12/cbc-exec-acknowledges-gamergate-media-slant-states-ethics-are-important/

http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/01/gamergate-cbc-contradicts-ethics-principles-while-denying-impropriety/



6. THE CBC HAS WIDELY PROMOTED FEMALE VICTIMS FROM THE ANTI-GAMERGATE SIDE WHILE COMPLETELY IGNORING FEMALE VICTIMS WHO ARE PRO-GAMERGATE



In all five of the above reports, the CBC has vigorously pursued the “harassment of women” angle and largely focused on the following three women who oppose GamerGate as proof of those claims:



i. Female video game developer Zoe Quinn (a.k.a. [REDACTED]).



ii. Feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian.



iii. Female video game developer Brianna Wu.



In doing so, however, they have completely ignored the harassment and abuse - including rape threats, death threats, and worse - that many women who support GamerGate have received, among them:



i. YouTube and Twitter personality “jayd3fox” (real name unknown), who was temporarily driven off the Internet due to the volume of negative messages and vitriol she received.



ii. Twitter user “_icze4r” ([REDACTED]) - a prominent member of the GamerGate Harassment Patrol, a group dedicated to reporting abuse on Twitter related to the #GamerGate hashtag - who was recently “swatted” (i.e. had a SWAT team dispatched to her house after someone filed a false report with the authorities).



https://twitter.com/_icze4r/status/534247156077445120

https://twitter.com/_icze4r/status/534246365702803456



iii. Canadian media personality Liana Kerzner (a.k.a. Liana K), who has received a fair amount of criticism from individuals on both sides of the debate.



iv. Twitter user “GGfeminist” (real name unknown), a professor who received a genital mutilation threat from a student on her university’s campus.



https://twitter.com/ggfeminist/status/514238397653590016



v. Twitter user “lizzyf620” ([REDACTED]), whose most recent example of abuse was being tweeted a photograph of a printout of her face covered in what appears to be ejaculate. (Warning: The following image is graphic and not safe for work.)



https://twitter.com/lizzyf620/status/549713497161232385



vi. Feminist Christina Hoff Sommers, who was publicly threated on Twitter by businessman Bobby Oliveira:



https://storify.com/gurdur/gamergate-goes-weird



The above incidents do not include examples of harassment and abuse suffered by male supporters of GamerGate, including:



i. British journalist Milo Yiannopoulous, who received a syringe with an unidentified white liquid and a dead animal in the mail:



https://twitter.com/Nero/status/513666683916255232

http://gamergate.community/t/twitter-suspends-milos-account-nero-reinstated-dead-animal-sent-to-his-home/755/13



ii. Twitter personality “kingofpol” (real name unknown) who had emergency services and firetrucks sent to his home.



iii. Twitter user “j_millerworks” (Jason Miller), the co-founder of NotYourShield, who was fired from his job after unidentified individuals called his workplace to complain about him by accusing him of, among other things, disseminating child pornography:



https://twitter.com/j_millerworks/status/513198848542781440



iv. Lawyer and businessman Mike Cernovich, who was the victim of an attempted swatting by Zoe Quinn and her associates:



http://i.imgur.com/cm1tfI4.png



v. YouTube personality Boogie2988 ([REDACTED]), who had his home address posted online along with a threat to murder his wife:



https://twitter.com/Boogie2988/status/521788006135771136

https://twitter.com/Boogie2988/status/522156760623484928



While claims made by parties on both sides of the argument need to be independently verified, the aforementioned list - which is most definitely not exhaustive - illustrates a fatal flaw in the CBC attempts to deflect or dismiss criticism because they have willfully engaged in two major lies of omission:



A. They attempted to frame GamerGate-related harassment as a gendered issue when it never was, and erased any and all male victims in an attempt to do so.



B. They insisted on pursuing the “harassment of women” angle, but, in doing so, omitted 50% of the victims, namely the female GamerGate and NotYourShield supporters who happened to find themselves on the “wrong” side of the progressive narrative that they were intent on promoting. Any potential claims the CBC might make of highlighting only those women involved in the video game industry who were being harassed would be invalid, as Anita Sarkeesian is a media critic yet mentioned constantly.



In short, in this particular instance, the CBC is not only being sexist, but hypocritical as well.



7. CBC STAFF MEMBERS HAVE PUBLICLY MOCKED GAMERGATE, ITS SUPPORTERS, AND THEIR GRIEVANCES ON SOCIAL MEDIA



On November 14, 2014, GamerGate supporters discovered a Twitter conversation frm November 8, 2014, where CBC social media news producer John Bowman, CBC National Network Reporter Philip Lee-Shanok, and CBC Radio Host Piya Chattopadhyay, were openly mocking GamerGate, its supporters, and their efforts to complain to the ombudsman.



https://archive.today/sePok



When Reddit user “narf8h1” (Steve G.) brought this matter of unprofessional conduct to the attention of CBC ombudsman Esther Enkin, she simply forwarded the complaint to the CBC General Manager and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer McGuire…



http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2n0gnl/cbcradiocanada_ombudsman_esther_enkincbcombudsman/

http://i.imgur.com/jRIlwvc.png



…and there have been no follow-ups or updates as far as I know. Needless to say, this incident did little to inspire confidence in the CBC’s claims that they take the concerns of GamerGate and its supporters seriously.



CONCLUSION



To paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. Given their behavior over the past five months in regards to GamerGate, it has become apparent that the gaming press and the mainstream media believe otherwise.



While their motivations for doing so can only be guessed at, the producers and ombudsman at the CBC demonstrated a clear lack of interest in getting both sides of the story and made a conscious decision to portray GamerGate and its supporters as harassers of women. They completely failed to properly address the “ethics in video game journalism” aspect of the consumer revolt, made multiple lies of omission by surpressing evidence and ignoring victims of both genders who did not fit the narrative they wished to promote, and repeated opinions, allegations, hearsay, rumors, misinformation, and falsehoods as if they were true without doing any independent fact-checking, investigation, or research. And finally, when confronted with evidence of their bias and wrongdoing by those they had misrepresented, the CBC was contemptuous and dismissive of their critics, using spurious logic to defend their actions and loopholes to circumvent their own journalistic ethics and standards.



Even though I completely agree with the idea that freedom of expression and the journalistic independence of broadcasters must be respected, I thoroughly reject the notion that those rights are so sacrosanct that broadcasters should be freely allowed to misrepresent, defame, slander, or libel entire groups of people in order to maintain them and promote an agenda.



It is for this reason I am requesting that the CRTC intervene by investigating this matter. I find the behavior of the CBC towards GamerGate and its supporters shameful and thoroughly unbecoming of representatives of the journalistic profession, who are supposed to act as gatekeepers of truth rather than promoters of what they wish to be true. I have no desire whatsoever for the news to be skewed in my direction; I simply wish for the CBC and the mainstream media to give a fair, unbiased, and accurate account of events, because if there is one thing I am absolutely certain of in all this, it is that even if GamerGate comes out looking bad after a brutally honest review of all the facts, then the gaming press and their supporters will appear infinitely worse by comparison.



Thank you for your time. I look forward to your reply.



Sincerely,



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