If you haven’t been keeping up to date with all the happenings in #GamerGate, you probably missed out on a vital aspect of the movement that includes a small sub-section of Twitter users who focus on weeding out harassment and getting third-party troll accounts shutdown, lockdown and suspended. It’s an effective countermeasure against all the negative press that the consumer revolt has been receiving in mainstream (and gaming) media regarding misinformed fact-spinning (sometimes done purposefully) that centers on harassment and abuse.

One of the individuals involved with the harassment patrol, Twitter user Izel, put together a bullet-point addendum for the new direction of the anti-harassment program.

A key point is that they no longer want any activity that surrounds or deals with harassment associated with #GamerGate in any way. This makes perfect sense. According to the missive…



“This situation requires revisions to the program to make it better at what it's supposed to do, while making it more difficult to abuse.

“As of now, the program is dropping the "#GamerGate" tag. "#GamerGate" is defined as the scandal of corruption in game journalism by its creator, Adam Baldwin. It's not about anything else. It certainly isn't about trolling or harassment. So its misuse should be dropped going forward.”

I have no idea how other individuals associated with the “Harassment Patrol” will take to dropping the #GamerGate hashtag in order to focus on weeding out abusers, harassers, doxxers and death-threat senders, but it does make sense to distance all the trashy behavior from trolls from the actual goals of #GamerGate.

The patrol was also tangentially responsible for outing Anita Sarkeesian’s death and rape-threat sender from Brazil, who turned out to be a journalist.

The apprised list also explains that “Harassment Patrol” will no longer be the name of the specialized group. It states…



“The name is being changed from "Harassment Patrol" to "Death Threat and Doxxing Patrol". These are the primary abusive behaviors that the program was meant to target, anyway, and making it clear in the name prevents shills/moles/concern trolls from claiming that controversial statements or opinions are covered by the program. They aren't. Disagreements can be solved through civil argument and blocking if/when that doesn't work.”



In a way, the group wants to move away from having troll antics tied to #GamerGate… the same antics that many media outlets have used to pin their complaints on #GamerGate. The group, instead, wants to focus on keeping disruptors from takings over the main hashtag without making it known. It’s like getting stealth kills in ninja-mode.

Of course, most people would naturally assume that this new, smaller, leaner, cleaner patrol group could still be susceptible to infiltration and third-party trolls. However, there is a preventative method being established to preemptively filtrate potential backstabbers…



“Calls for the patrol are to be communicated through DM only. This achieves a number of things. It leverages the trust network that people have built by finding each other worthy of following, and therefore prevents infiltration. It also cuts down on drama and arguments in public, increasing morale.”



If you still aren’t entirely sure about the changes, the notice makes it abundantly clear at the very end about the end-goals of elevating the efficiency of the harassment patrol, stating…



“We hope that this improved/evolved/optimized/transformed/etc. version of the program will do what it's meant to do while resisting attempts to abuse it towards ends it wasn't meant for.”



I imagine if you’re serious about helping weed out harassers and trolls attempting to co-opt the #GamerGate hashtag, or abuse and harass those using the hashtag, you can get in contact with Twitter user Izel. #GamerGate is about rooting out corruption and elevating games journalism ethics… not harassment.