This is a story with two parts to it. The first part concerns Gamergate, a gross misogynistic movement that attempts to pass itself off as being about ethics in journalism. The second part gets into why I quit Twitter. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Gamergate, for those of you who don’t know or have otherwise blocked it from your memory, started from a post made by a jaded ex-boyfriend, Eron Gjoni, of a female game developer, Zoe Quinn, who claimed that his ex-girlfriend used to sleep with games journalists in order to get good publicity for her games. Naturally, this developed into a full-blown scandal, with thousands of “gamers” using this as an excuse to vent their inner frustrations at not understanding “what do the girls do?” In the name of defending ethics in games journalism, Gamergate supporters showed how classy they were by sending death and rape threats to Zoe Quinn. As they were crying out about free speech and journalistic ethics, they also threatened anybody that disagreed with them. Eventually, it came out that said ex-boyfriend was even more of a douchebag than first thought, because all of the accusations he made about Quinn were proven to be unfounded. Even Gjoni, the Biggest Douchebag in the Universe, himself admitted so. Of course, that didn’t stop the Gamergaters from continuing their crusade against wome-I mean-unethical tactics in journalism, because, you know, stupid girls aren’t real gamers yada yada yada.
Something to note about gaming culture is that many are notoriously sensitive about their identities. In discussions related to gaming, you’ll find many who mock “casual gamers” or “noobs” because they play easier games or, perhaps, aren’t even that good at playing games (what a crime, right?). People talk about “console babies,” meaning people that apparently play more streamlined games on consoles rather than the hardcore time-consuming stuff on the PC. Here’s the thing, I’m not saying that one is better than the other. However, that’s what a lot of gaming culture is based around. From the consoles wars stretching back to the days of Nintendo vs Sega, there is a history of gamers being very defensive about their identity. The fact that the term “gamer” even exists is indicative of the issue. With other mediums of entertainment like books or watching movies, there is nothing approaching the level of identity-cultivation as can be found with “gamers.” For the record, I enjoy doing all of the above, but that doesn’t mean that I identify myself as being a “gamer” any more than I identify myself as a “movie watcher” or a “book reader.” In short, it is, in many ways, a culture based on being hostile. Going online and playing games will frequently find you being harassed by 12 year old boys, who think that “your (sic) a faggot” is the ultimate insult.
And this concept of identity is one of the biggest issues with this whole movement. Nowadays, many Gamergaters are whining about being labeled as misogynists, essentially trying to turn themselves into the victims of this horrible situation. Never mind all of the people who have been verbally abused and harassed, it’s the gamers who are the real victims here! A movement that started from a bullshit story by a bitter ex-boyfriend is still focused on the bullshit problem that doesn’t even exist.
One of the craziest things about this whole movement is that, for a movement that seems to be so concerned with free speech, they will violently harass anyone that disagrees with them. Just ask Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian, or anyone else that has had to move because of death threats against them. While I haven’t had anything remotely close to that happen to me, I have gotten a very small taste of the vitriol spewed forth by fuming gamergaters.
Some months ago, I posted an anti-gamergate tweet on twitter, using the #gamergate hashtag. Within seconds, I started getting replies from Gamergate supporters, which, in turn, were liked by other Gamergate supporters. It was here that I first started clearly getting the picture of how much these people see themselves as the victims. They cry about being labeled “misogynists” by the mainstream media, while remaining completely ignorant about the fact that they are essentially aligned with a misogynistic group. It does not matter whether they personally have sent forth death threats to women. They align themselves with people that have. Furthermore, they tend to argue that the movement is entirely about ethics in journalism, while refusing to acknowledge that the reason this movement even exists in the first place was unfounded. Again, the accusations of sexual favors for jobs or good reviews were debunked. So what is their issue? Strangely, as mentioned above, it seems to have morphed more into a movement trying to attack anyone that calls them misogynistic. For anyone to claim that it is still about ethics in journalism is clearly ignoring the facts.
A few months later, I started seeing Gamergate pop up in the news again so I posted a tweet asking “why is Gamergate still a thing?” Wouldn’t you know it, within seconds I started getting replies from Gamergaters saying that it’s still a thing because they actually care about ethics in journalism. Not in the mood to once again try and debate logically with Gamergaters, I decided to joke about them instead, pointing out that the Gamergate “circle jerk” continues. By the next morning, I’d gotten several more responses including some that invaded my privacy. One person had gotten a picture of me from somewhere, and had said something along the lines of “let’s see you looking like this when the FBI arrives at your door,” referencing a douchebag move that people like to do called “SWATting.” Essentially, they call the police on someone that they don’t like, telling them that said person is armed and holding people hostage or something along those lines. Another comment said something along the same lines, hilariously unaware that the American SWAT force does not operate in Finland.
My original plan was to laugh it off, and just report them to Twitter for violating my privacy and for posting threats. This is the part of the story where we get to why I quit Twitter. After sending them a report about the picture that was posted of me, I get a reply from Twitter saying that before they can take any action, I need to send them a picture of my passport to verify my identity. So, in order for me to report someone for violating my privacy, I need to send more of my private material to Twitter. How can they expect me to send them a picture of my passport no matter how much they insist that it will be deleted after they have confirmed my identity? This is the internet. Nothing gets deleted.
Twitter has had a long history with problems like this. As Jim Edwards describes in his article “Gamergate Taught Me What Twitter’s Biggest Problem Is,” one of the issues with Twitter is that it has no identity controls in place, leaving you subject to easily be “the target of anonymous trolls – thousands of them – who want to make your life miserable
even though they don’t know you” (Edwards). However, Edwards goes on to say that “the company does cancel and delete the accounts of people who abuse others on Twitter,” which may be true, but it is ridiculous that in a post Snowden-world, a company could still require you to send them a picture of your passport because YOU are being harassed by anonymous trolls. Shouldn’t the accused have to be the one that proves whether the picture they posted is actually of themselves? Furthermore, as Edwards points out, if you, like Zoe Quinn, are being harassed by thousands of people daily, it’s pretty damn “laborious to list every single Twitter account that needs to be examined for threats.” There are unofficial apps that allow you to block tweets containing certain hashtags, as well as apps that list people who have been frequently blocked, allowing you to block them too. However, this still does not excuse Twitter for their own policies, which brings me to the crux of my issue. I did not quit Twitter out of fear of Gamergaters. I quit Twitter, because I don’t want to support a site that requires me to send them more personal info just because my personal info was used without my permission. The system they have in place at the moment simply makes it all the more easy for people like those in the Gamergate movement to continue their bullying tactics, and I refuse to support that kind of a system.
Gamergate is a movement that has no reason to exist, yet they continue to do so and are able to threaten anyone who disagrees with them, because they suffer little to no consequences for it. Anonymity should not allow people to violently and criminally harass other people, and websites like Twitter need to take a good look at their policies in order to help curtail this. Right now, the ability to actually have a discussion about the issue seems damn near impossible. With this in mind, my final tweet before I deleted my Twitter account was one more message to Gamergaters everywhere: “It says a lot about your movement that people are hesitant to speak against it.”
Sources and other useful links:
'Gamergate' Taught Me What Twitter's Biggest Problem Is by Jim Edwards
GamerGate has nothing to do with ethics in journalism by Patrick O'Rourke
The Man Who Sparked GamerGate Regrets Harassment, Says He'd Do It Again by Joseph Bernstein