In the last few months, the topic of the ‘alt-right’ has become an increasingly hot topic online. Usually associated with Donald Trump support, white nationalism and ‘anti progressive’ viewpoints, the term has ended up applied to everything from Breitbart to trolls and image board culture.

And as per usual, GamerGate gets given the label again. You can see it right here on Medium; just search any article on the alt-right, and at least one reference to ‘GamerGate’ will probably appear in the text.

However, here’s the thing.

GamerGate isn’t alt-right. And if you do some research into it, you’ll find it’s pretty much the opposite by any reasonable definition.

For example, look at some actual stats before you make claims about an internet hashtag/pseudo movement:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3eur0g/gamergate_census_survey/

These come from the Kotaku in Action subreddit, which basically acts like the Reddit forum for GamerGate and anti SJW discussions. So how many people are right wing there?

Well, very few. In this poll, only 17 out of 555 people say they vote for the ‘far right’ political party in their home country:

Which is significantly outnumbered by the centrist voters (297 vote for the ‘centre-left’ party) and even the far left voters (the latter got 57 votes in the poll).

Political party results are mixed, though show more of a left wing attitude in GamerGate supporters in the US. For example, 32% of respondents here said they normally vote for the Democratic Party, with ‘don’t vote’ option coming second and the Libertarian Party coming third.

In the UK on the other hand, UKIP does decently well among GamerGate supporters, though it’s outnumbered by the percentage who don’t vote and nearly equalled by the number who vote for the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats respectively:

Meanwhile, the actual ‘far right’ party here (the British National Party) got just 3 votes in total. So if there’s a group who don’t want racial equality or what not (like is being claimed by some articles on Medium), then they’re pretty clearly a tiny minority on the fringes rather than representative of the whole.

And views on social issues tend towards the left side of the spectrum too. From the other polls, 73% said abortion should be legal, 94% supports equal rights for all humans, 83% support same sex marriage (and another 9% support civil unions) and 72% support ‘respecting the choices of trans people’. The Democratic Party probably have more of a split on those issues than GamerGate does!

Either way, there’s a full break down here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3f3tjd/gamergate_census_results/

There’s also Brad Glasgow’s much more detailed survey about GamerGate demographics and views too. Here’s his breakdown of the results:

https://www.allthink.com/1588852

Interestingly, his survey (which was posted on Reddit, Twitter, Voat, 8chan and various other sites) mostly shows UK supporters as voting for the Liberal Democrats and Labour Party.

Outside of voting, GamerGate stances on social issues arguably appear more libertarian than anything else, since the majority of voters believe that:

Yes, humans have contributed to global warming Yes minorities have as much chance to succeed Marijuana should be legal Gay marriage should be allowed And that abortion should be legal

These are not political stances of a right wing movement or group. These are stances of a group that clearly believes that, with the exception of healthcare as a public service, pretty much anything should be allowed as long as the government and police keep their noses out of it.

Above: Statistics courtesy of Brad Glasgow’s GamerGate survey.

Heck, even their reading material is usually more left wing, with only a minority of supporters being regular visitors to Breitbart! Instead, I’d hazard a guess that Techraptor, Super Nerd Land and Niche Gamer probably get a bigger share of the ‘GamerGate market’ than any conservative blog or mouthpiece. And all these sites are pretty standard, mainstream gaming publications now.

Either way, the point is pretty clear now; GamerGate isn’t ‘alt-right’, outside of maybe a very small minority. But hang on, you may ask.

Why do people assume it is?

Well, I’ll sum it up like this:

GamerGate is very much ‘anything goes’ as far as freedom of speech is concerned.

What do I mean by this?

Well basically, most supporters do not want any form of speech or political view to be ‘illegal’ or ‘banned’. They support a world where the ‘market’ and ‘people’ decide which view is correct and which isn’t, not what a bunch of ivory tower folk decide is the ‘right thing to say/believe’. Where social media sites only ban people for actually attacking others rather than merely saying things that makes others feel uncomfortable.

And that will always bring a certain ‘reputation’. I mean, every organisation and movement that’s freedom of speech/expression does. For good or bad, pro freedom of speech seems to be as unfairly associated with racists and bigots as pro privacy is with paedophiles and black market drug/gun sales. It’s the same twisted and broken logic that assumes people who have ‘nothing to hide’ shouldn’t be worried about losing their privacy. An assumption that only the ‘evil’ want true freedom of speech and a right to privacy.

So no, GamerGate isn’t alt-right, it just supports freedom of speech at all costs, regardless of the people saying their views and what said views are.

Thanks for reading.