Response to @EthicsSuck

This is in response to @EthicsSuck's Twitlonger: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sndte7



It is true that people have been quick to throw around accusations on both sides. Both accusations of ethics cuckery and of being Ayyteam (or GGRevolt) occur too often and oftentimes without evidence. I haven't really seen any real examples of this ethics cuckery, though there probably are some people are trying to kick non-ethics people out. Either way, they are an extremely tiny minority, as the GamerGate survey revealed (http://strawpoll.me/5048935/r).



Even the people who would argue that GamerGate is about ethics in games journalism probably have more nuanced views than that. The accusations of ethics cuckery (and yes, I have made such accusations against others, namely @Sargon_of_Akkad) are often made with a broad brush and don't take into account individuality. To start with, there is no clear definition on what it means to be "anti-SJW" or an "ethics cuck."



Personally I got involved in GamerGate primarily to protect creative freedom of game developers and artists, which I saw as being under siege by social justice warriors. I can almost guarantee you that virtually everyone involved in GamerGate agrees that defending developers who come under attack by hate mobs is within the scope of GamerGate. While I don't have data on this, I bet even the vast majority of the ethics cucks would be on board with defending developers.



What does someone need to do to be anti-SJW? Merely disagree with SJW principles and/or tactics? Or do you need to actively work to eliminate them from them from the industry (or society), because of their beliefs? Because if it's the latter, then you can count me out and I'm very much opposed to social justice warriors in principle. I also believe they should have the right to make their own games and review/critique games from a feminist or SJW perspective. I would even go so far as to say that Polygon or Kotaku shouldn't have to disclose their feminist leanings when writing a feminist review.



I'm not familiar with the argument that Robin Gething made, so I don't have an opinion one way or another on that. If I see people trying to "kick people out" of GamerGate for their beliefs or because they have a different idea of what GamerGate is or should be, then I will challenge them on it.



I don't really have any strongly held beliefs on whether GamerGate can be considered a movement or an event. I see both arguments and don't really have a stance on it. I personally view myself as a gamer who is concerned about the industry and ethical journalism (not just games journalism). But at the same time I like having a GamerGate community and am one of the most prolific community organizers in that regard. I organized two meetups and have two more in the works (including one next week).



I don't want to restrict the scope of GamerGate or limit what the people involved can talk about. Personally I don't care very much about games journalism. If I don't trust a website, then I won't support them and it will be extremely difficult for them to regain my trust. Ethics policies aren't going to convince me that a website is ethical, especially if the same unethical people still work there.



As for whether or not I support something like Disrespectful Nod, I don't really have much of an opinion. I'm torn between warning people about corrupt websites and actively trying to burn them to the ground. If you are going to take the latter approach though, then you need to focus on a lot more than just Gawker and Vox, given that journalism at large is completely cancerous. Almost all major news outlets push narratives and in many cases are fine with outright lying (as we saw with GamerGate).



Journalism at large needs to be massively reformed. Brad Glasgow did a good job exposing narrative journalism in his piece (http://bit.ly/1JSaK81). Journalists aren't journalists anymore, they're activists and rather than objectively reporting on a story, they inject themselves into the story. In part you could blame this on the consumer for consuming garbage and for failing to support alternative business models. I believe that ad-free subscription based journalism would probably be the best business model for honest and ethical journalism. Unfortunately most people aren't willing to pay each month for serious journalism, thus perpetuating the ad-driven and sensationalist business model.



The reason I posed the question of whether or not people are too quick to attack each other is because I have seen this constantly over the past few months. I didn't bring up any names or groups, because I'm not trying to cause drama. One of the main reasons I'm involved in GamerGate now is to protect the people involved. There are tens of thousands of good people involved in GamerGate who have been falsely accused of being everything from misogynists to terrorists.



I didn't stand for these lies and attacks against innocent people when corrupt journalists and social justice warriors did it, nor am I going to stand for it when people claiming to be on our side do it. That's not to say people shouldn't call out unethical behavior on our side, because we should, but oftentimes these "attacks" are over disagreements. I honestly feel as though a large portion of these attacks are coming from people who are disappointed that GamerGate isn't doing what they want. They aren't "pure" enough or they aren't "anti-SJW" enough. And on top of that, many of those very same people are more interested in dividing or even dissolving GamerGate.

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