I am not a follower of Sargon, but damn he does know his stuff.  His critics end up getting torn apart by him.

Quote from: Iosue;805972Except that he's only advocating no more anonymity in gaming communities, and specifically notes the necessity of anonymity for folks like "Liu."

His suggestion may not be especially feasible, but he's certainly not saying what you're saying he's saying.

It reeks of the "Well we need to do something" mindset that now delays me an extra half hour every time I fly. The same general mindset that started two wars in countries that as far as we can tell had nothing to do with the initial claims. The same mindset that makes me expect that I'll need two forms of ID, a recent piss test and proof of proper opinions before I'll be able to make asinine comments on gaming forums at some point.

Honestly, there are assholes in gaming, and you know what you do with them? You boot them. If it's your server, boot them. They come back and continue, ban them. Same thing with your gaming table, forums, what have you. Of course what people don't like is when you do it to the assholes they agree with, and in my experience they only way to keep the peace is by booting ALL the assholes, if you let one stick around because they're a long timer or have some excuse they'll just rot away at things until you're as bad off as you'd have been with every asshole you ever booted.

That said, if people are bitching about someone is doing over there... well, those people are probably assholes who are looking to be offended, I say boot them too. I don't have the time for drama anymore. I'll make sure my people are comfortable, odds are that's the same thing that group is doing, they're just very, very different from you. And probably assholes. But if they're doing that over there, you can play over here, and I can find my spot at some other table. No one needs to dictate anything to anyone, we just need to not be assholes to each other just because of disagreements and find the people we enjoy playing with. Takes some work, though.

I think horrible things breed in secrecy.

It's why I have mixed feelings about Anonymous 'outing' Klan folks -- I think the Klan deserves to face the light of day, but on the other hand right now this doxxing is a careless brutal hand. (Anonymous are fucking assholes half the time, so... yeah, vigilante justice? Meh)

On the other hand, there are times secrecy is absolutely necessary, like voting or informing on a totalitarian regime.

Personally, what I'd like to see is various media outlets that require open identification, and an opt-in approach. Which just requires a few services to go through the effort of trying it, and people to sign up.

I ALSO would like to see online harassment treated more seriously by law enforcement.
If I'm sending death threats to you over the internet, including photos of your house, that should be treated like doing the same via regular mail.

I think that will happen eventually, I just hope it doesn't require a pile of horrible examples before it does. (But it probably will)

Quote from: Will;806741I ALSO would like to see online harassment treated more seriously by law enforcement.

I don't think it's a problem with LE not taking the problem seriously; it's a problem of getting adequate funding and qualified individuals to enforce cyber-crime.

There's also the problem that, even in RL, death and rape threats really aren't illegal (unless you're POTUS). They're scuzzy as all hell, and can help you get an Order of Protection/Restraining Order (after which, continued contact can become actionable), but by themselves they're a "grey area" between Free Speech and Criminal Declaration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restraining_order

*****

Breaking from that thought, editorial on GamePolitics that I found interesting:
http://gamepolitics.com/2014/12/29/editorial-gamergate-political-attitudes-part-1-movement-right-wing#.VKGPVF4ArA
Despite allegations of GamerGate being a right-wing astroturf movement, most of it's members veer sharply as left libertarians (in this sample).

EDIT: For the record, this editorial is anecdotal. It takes some good steps for the data to be more scientific, but it is still not a scientific study. I've had some detractors try to conflate "here's an interesting editorial" to "here's some scientific data from the Pew Group" as equivalent; they are not. I believe the Pew Group is much more scientifically rigorous, and accept their data as more likely to be representative, than the editorials. Caveat Emptor.

Well, when I say 'serious' it extends back to the structures that support LE and their interest in funding such things, but yeah.

Quote from: Will;806741Personally, what I'd like to see is various media outlets that require open identification, and an opt-in approach. Which just requires a few services to go through the effort of trying it, and people to sign up.

It's been tried, though, and people have freaked the fuck out - not entirely unreasonably, I should add.

And then everyone went to facebook, which is totes different, because...

...um...

...look over there, it's a distraction!

Anyway.

Actual death threats (As in "I will kill you", "I'm bringing a gun to your talk", and the like) are something I'd consider much more of a threat to free speech than hosting companies saying "we're not going to host that here". You can always sell product somewhere else, or distribute your work in other ways online; the store portals are ultimately just a convenience.

But a death threat is silencing; it forces you to think "is what I'm saying worth potentially dying for, or should I shut up?"... there are some things worth dying for, and there are some things not worth dying for, but that doesn't make them without value.

Is it worth discussing the stories and characters in video games? Yeah, they're a genuinely new form of media, they should be taken just as seriously (And subjected to the same scrutinies) as older mediums. Is it worth dying over? No.

I'm continually surprised that anyone takes online death threats seriously

And I can't see any valid reason why death threats have became a standard part of internet vocabulary.

Anonymous whipped people up to send my sister's workplace death threats. They shut down internet services of her workplace and a children's hospital.

Shutting down a children's hospital's IT had an impact on preventing transmission of paperwork, imaging, and other stuff related to treating children.

While, as far as I'm aware of, no children were physically harmed as a result, it's not hard to see how events could have skewed that way.
Also, the stress and daily hardship these places suffered were significant.


So, one online death threat? Eh, probably not that big a deal, but it's hard to be sure.

Anonymous spinning the gun and seeing who gets targeted, and possibly vulnerable people pushed to suicide?

Quote from: Will;806804Anonymous whipped people up to send my sister's workplace death threats. They shut down internet services of her workplace and a children's hospital.

Shutting down a children's hospital's IT had an impact on preventing transmission of paperwork, imaging, and other stuff related to treating children.

wow, do you have any links to news coverage of that?

http://www.boston.com/news/local/2014/03/28/state-police-investigating-threats-against-agency-involved-with-justina-pelletier/fTFflhP08JCyJwoWVCeZnO/story.html

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/24/hacker-group-anonymous-targets-children-hospital-over-justina-pelletier-case/jSd3EE5VVHbSGTJdS5YrfM/story.html

http://www.scmagazine.com/anonymous-might-be-culprit-behind-apparent-ddos-attack-on-childrens-hospital/article/344259/

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/25/childrens/bYG3BPl4vqnVQIsyNcqwyN/story.html

Of course, the commentary is that Anonymous generally frowns on it, it's only a fringe element.

Given my history of commentary about 'woops, our fringe element is being horrible but that's totally not us,' you can imagine my feelings about this.

Well, Anonymous isnt a group or a movement, its just people who frequent 4chan. t'd be like if a couple of posters from therpgsite went and did something, if the rpgsite posting community was about 100,000x or more the size. Ive seen Anonymous do great things and horrible things. Heck, I was an Anon up until Boxxy.

This might give some of you insight toward my attitudes toward GamerGate.

Hm, actually going through those links, its not actually as cut and dry as that. Apparently the threats against the hospital were made after a child was stolen from her family?  Reading up on Justina Pelletier now.

Quote from: Will;806813This might give some of you insight toward my attitudes toward GamerGate.

I hate to keep beating this horse, but you keep trotting it out so...

How do you feel about the transphobia, racism, doxxing, harrassment and death threats from people who identify as anti-gamergate?