Tag Archive for "online harassment"

Posts Tagged online harassment

Experiencing online harassment? There’s a form for that.

ICYMI, women face terrible harassment online, and Twitter is no exception. GamerGate is just the most recent and most visible chapter of long-unchecked online abuse against women — particularly trans women, women of color, and women from other marginalized communities — but social media companies have been slow to step in.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Standing in the Firing Squad: An Interview with Brianna Wu

Game developer Brianna Wu has been at the epicentre of the GamerGate firestorm of late. Wu is an outspoken independent game developer, whose studio Giant Spacekat produced the acclaimed Revolution 60.

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Through The Gate: What’s next for geeky feminism after GamerGate

Discourse aplenty has resulted from GamerGate; a campaign meant to silence women and critics has, in some cases at least, succeeded in having exactly the opposite effect.

By Maya Dusenbery • 9 years ago

Watch: GamerGate gets The Colbert Report treatment

Last night Stephen Colbert sat down with Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian to discuss GamerGate and the fact that “feminazis in the gamer world are coming for our balls to snip them off, put them into a little felt purse and take them away, so we have to play your non-violent games.”

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Empire of Dirt: How GamerGate’s misogynistic policing of “gamer identity” degrades the whole gaming community

As GamerGate’s cyber sandstorm rolls into its third month, the mainstream press has now covered it from virtually every angle conceivable, often with no small amount of frustration at its incoherence and nesting dolls of ideological self-delusion. Its cresting tidal wave of outrage has dredged up the worst sublimated impulses of a minority of mostly male gamers who made national headlines by driving developer Brianna Wu from her home, and threatening a terrifying mass shooting at a university where critic Anita Sarkeesian had been scheduled to speak. Many GamerGater’s protest that this does not represent the true face of their movement, but this is impossible ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 9 years ago

After terrorist threat, feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian cancels lecture at Utah university

*Trigger warning*

Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency was scheduled to give a talk at Utah State University tonight. But she was forced to cancel after someone threatened to commit “the deadliest school shooting in American history” if the event went forward and the state’s conceal-and-carry law prevented the police from taking adequate security measures to address the threat.

*Trigger warning*

Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency was scheduled to give a talk at Utah State University tonight. But she was forced to cancel after ...

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

We must dissent: Intel bows to GamerGate campaign to silence feminist video game critics

The #GamerGate movement, which might be explained best to outsiders as the Tea Party of video gaming, was born in a fire of harassment against one woman in August. The crowdsourced terroristic harassment campaigns that have historically been directed at individuals—by now a dreary feature of everyday life online—have now, with the advent of GamerGate, collectivised. Instead of attacking one woman deemed to be too loud and too disagreeable, these characteristics have now been projected on any person in the orbit of games journalism who has had a positive word to say about equality. GamerGate called them all “social justice warriors” or SJWs, giving new life to the old pejorative, and set about attempting to purge them from ...

By Katherine Cross • 9 years ago

Yes, “Emma You Are Next” was a hoax; No, everything’s not okay

In the wake of giving a very mild speech about feminism and men’s role in it at the United Nations, Harry Potter actress Emma Watson found herself threatened by the 4chan messageboard with a release of nude photos supposedly hacked from her computer. But the countdown clock website at the center of this mess, entitled “Emma You Are Next,” had a surprise for everyone when it hit zero: the whole thing was, apparently, a hoax by a marketing firm called Rantic. Confusion proliferated: was the entire thing made up? Were the comments on 4chan fake? How deep did the rabbit hole go? Who or what was Rantic? Indeed, the website itself ...

In the wake of giving a very mild speech about feminism and men’s role in it at the United Nations, Harry Potter actress Emma Watson found herself threatened by the ...