After Anita Sarkeesian’s debut on the Colbert Report, #gamergate and KotakuInAction jumped on the supposed hypocrisy of inviting her on the show:







When you look carefully at the source, however, you find a different story entirely.

She never says anything about #cancelcolbert. Her entire text is here:

Another short excerpt from this must read article by Katherine Cross on the vile oppressive backlash women like Suey Park, Adria Richards and I face for speaking up about social issues online.

Never once did she espouse any opinions about #cancelcolbert. In much the same way that even people who do not agree with Sarkeesian find the way she’s been treated abhorrent, her speaking out about the abuse Suey Park faced is not (and never was) an endorsement of her views.

She makes no mention of supporting #cancelcolbert. All she mentioned was finding the obscene backlash Suey Park faced to be abhorrent. To conflate that with “she wanted to cancel the Colbert Show!” is disingenuous or ignorant at best, and an outright attempt slandering her through misrepresentation at worst.

She did tag the #cancelcolbert hashtag at the end of her post, but there’s a simple explanation that doesn’t imply endorsement at all: she wanted to enter the conversation about #cancelcolbert and as such tagged it so it could be found through the hashtag. Much in the same way tagging #gamergate is not an endorsement of #gamergate: it just means you want to interact with the hashtag and the people in it. The sentiment being expressed matters, not the hashtag.

It’s also worth noting that Stephen Colbert himself used the hashtag in question.

Unfortunately, as with most #gamergate lies, facts seem to matter little to those forwarding them.