I’ve been receiving a lot of interview requests from GamerGate “journalists” lately, and while I’ve been talking about them a bit on Twitter, in light of the latest communication I’ve received from APG Nation, I’ve decided to post the emails in full publicly.

From: ryan@apgnation.com

To: randi@randi.io

Cc: luis@apgnation.com, sean@apgnation.com, jeff@apgnation.com, douglas@apgnation.com

Subject: Request for Interview and Question Regarding Appeals Board

Date: Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 11:47 PM Hi Randi, My name is Ryan Mo, and I work as Junior Editor for APGNation, an independent games journalist site. I came across your mention by way of Roberto Rosario, IGDA Chair for Puerto Rico, and read through the published memoirs on your site. I’m interested to do a profile interview of you so that our readers can get a more polished perspective on your background and the anti-harassment project you’ve started, GGAutoBlocker. I should also disclose that I am scheduled to do a character interview of Roberto Rosario. My proposal to the Editorial Board to interview you was fueled for a concern to keep the perspective non-partisan and broaden readers’ opinions beyond social media gossip. My colleagues of the Editorial Board (cc’d in this email) also found, through the IGDA Harassment Resources, indication that two of our staff members and our website’s official Twitter handle have been blacklisted by your program GGAutoBlocker. The Owner of the website (Luis) contacted me to find a way to privately resolve the matter, and I have e-mailed the Owner of the GoogleGroups appeals board to request the whitelist of the staff members in question, and preemptively whitelist the other staff members. My reasoning is that our staff members publicly disclose their accounts at the end of each article and in our About Us page; we do this to better engage our readers through social media and as such, our professional reputations are tied to our social media presence. Blacklisting our staff without notifying them would hurt potential readership and current readership as we strive to be a non-partisan news source for the gaming community. Condemning the staff as harassers for following notable Twitter accounts restricts their ability to follow on certain events, and ultimately jeopardizes our continued growth as a site. Because of the nature of these incidents and the request for interview, I believe there may be a conflict of interest in public disclosure of my request to whitelist APGNation and its staff, which I asked to be considered and resolved in private. Unfortunately, the first instance of my request for private consideration has already been forwarded and publicly disclosed. Regardless of your choice to interview, I ask you to please reconsider making the request, its consideration, and its resolution private. Thank you for reading and I hope to hear from you soon. Best Regards, Ryan Mo

Junior Editor – APGNation

ryan@apgnation.com

I did a bit of poking around on their site, as I hadn’t heard of them before, and I came up with some red flags that they weren’t going to be a receptive audience. I picked a few choice ones out, and then sent my reply.

From: sektie@gmail.com

To: ryan@apgnation.com

Cc: randi@randi.io, luis@apgnation.com, sean@apgnation.com, jeff@apgnation.com, douglas@apgnation.com

Subject: Request for Interview and Question Regarding Appeals Board

Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 3:29 AM Regardless as to if the email thread is made private, the github pull request would be public. There is no way to modify the code without the commit log being public. The policy is that all decision making is on the Google group. You are welcome to request that your email addresses be redacted, but the Twitter account names would remain on the appeals group for what should be obvious reasons. This process will not affect the interview for 2 reasons. – I have nothing to do with managing the whitelist appeals. – After glancing through your Twitter feed and site, I haven’t yet seen a single post about GamerGate that wasn’t horribly biased. Furthermore, your Twitter account is encouraging pile-ons, a familiar tactic for GamerGate, and literally the reason the block list was created. There are a number of ways to contact Kate. Publicly tweeting asking for the legal department is a ploy of ill intent, especially given that she was unlikely to even see this tweet in the deluge she was currently facing. [image 1] You’re also inviting hero worship for someone who had at that time publicly threatened to subpoena the women opposing GamerGate to “dox” them. Mike continues to threaten, intimidate, bully, and incite the mob to harass people. He has released the home address of several women on Twitter. There is no criticism of this of any kind on your site. [image 2] Nothing good would come of me participating in this interview given the lack of ethics I’ve seen thus far. I must regretfully decline. I would further encourage you to re-evaluate your position regarding supporting those that make a lifestyle choice out of bullying women. Condoning and participating in online harassment is far more likely to leave a lasting impression on your career than a public appeal to be removed from a Twitter block list. Sent from my iPhone

images:



From: ryan@apgnation.com

To: sektie@gmail.com

Cc: randi@randi.io, luis@apgnation.com, sean@apgnation.com, jeff@apgnation.com, douglas@apgnation.com

Subject: Request for Interview and Question Regarding Appeals Board

Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 5:42 AM

Hi Randi, In the interests of the Site and its staff members, I would like to request that the e-mail addresses be redacted from the logs. I would also like to note that the request for private consideration could have been rejected via e-mail, and the appeals board could have directed me to post on the Google Groups instead of forwarding the request and publishing it without consent. I had originally been requested by the Owner of APGNation to liaise with the Owner of the Google Groups privately, which I thought at the time was you, and am disappointed to learn after the fact that all members of the appeals board can access it. The first reason you listed conflicts with some of the information I have received. – Members of the appeals board have submitted via the log that further consideration will be based on discussion with you as you are the sole owner of the program. This was reinforced in an e-mail that member Aaron Sofaer responded to me with. – Two members have already voted to whitelist the APGNation official Twitter account based on lack of perceived disqualifiers. The second reason you listed directly questions my abilities as Editor, and those of my senior, Sean Winnett. The individuals chosen for interview are persons of interest in the ongoing discussion, and I can attest to Sean’s intent to shed light on their respective characters and politics. Similarly, I suggested to interview you because your character and politics may be more complex than attributed by other sources. In response to the allegation of pile-on, the Owner did receive IGDA’s legal department contact information. While I cannot speak on behalf of the Owner, I must attest, as a member of the staff, that the Owner’s actions were in the interest of the site’s welfare. The mentioned “deluge” that IGDA faced was a direct result of their endorsement and wording of the GGAutoBlocker on the Harassment Resources page. This may be attributed to their staff’s misunderstanding of GGAutoBlocker. I sympathize with the individuals and organizations that were incorrectly attributed as “10,000 of the worst harassers” even as I sympathize with the fact that GGAutoBlocker’s algorithm is a work in progress — and thus susceptible to false-positives. To assert that this was done as a “ploy of ill intent” is erroneous; the Owner is partial to the Site as you are to GGAutoBlocker. As a creator, you might understand the feeling of having a creation —one that you hold in high regard— criticized by an outsider who has little to no understanding of its functions or purpose. In response to the allegation of inviting hero worship, I must respectfully disagree with your opinion. However, I have noted that the article contains grammatical errors, and I will revise it accordingly. It is unfortunate that you must decline from a profile interview, but I respect your decision. Thank you for your words of encouragement. As this is no longer a matter that should be considered private given the circumstances of the publicized commit log without our consent, I would like to state that the e-mail chain may be publicly disclosed in the future for transparency with our readers should we feel it necessary to vindicate the site. Best Regards, Ryan Mo

Junior Editor – APGNation

ryan@apgnation.com

The fact that they were going to use my email regardless of my intent was not surprising in the slightest. I knew when I sent it that that’s likely the tact they would take, but isn’t it strange that the real press has been a lot more upfront about things? Weird.

From: sektie@gmail.com

To: ryan@apgnation.com

Cc: randi@randi.io, luis@apgnation.com, sean@apgnation.com, jeff@apgnation.com, douglas@apgnation.com

Subject: Request for Interview and Question Regarding Appeals Board

Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 8:27 AM Since you seem new, in real journalism, that’s usually the thing you disclose when you first initiate contact. In literally every interview I’ve done this week, each reporter has asked if it was OK to either record or use my emails going forward. You know, ethics. But you’re welcome to use the emails anyways. I will be doing the same. Sent from my iPhone