Talk:Gamergate (harassment campaign)/References

Conflict of Interest

Time

Sexism, Lies, and Video Games: The Culture War Nobody Is Winning was written by Leigh Alexander. There are some conflict of interest issues here:


 * 1) Leigh Alexander writes for Kotaku, who is at the center of the controversy.
 * 2) TechCrunch characterizes one of her tweets as implying "she will sink the career of anyone who brings up the topic." This sort of direct involvement with it is an indication of being involved with it beyond the level of a reporter/journalist, and this was not the only time she engaged with people in an aggressive manner over the subject matter on Twitter.

I don’t know that we can use this article as a reliable source for factual information beyond what Leigh Alexander thinks per WP:RS due to the conflict of interest issues. For the record, she characterized it as harassment borne out of culture war issues. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Factually Incorrect Statements

The New Yorker

the article in The New Yorker makes some claims which are outright false:


 * In Quinn’s case, the fact that she was the subject of the attacks rather than the friend who wrote about her game reveals the true nature of much of the criticism: a pretense to make further harassment of women in the industry permissible.

However, in reality, this was not the case; not only was Grayson the target of attacks, but it rose to the point where his employer, Kotaku, was forced to issue an official response on the subject matter. Other men were also targeted by the GamerGate movement, and everyone has been subjected to harassment by both sides at this point as noted in the sources below.

Likewise, the article claims that the controversy dissipated after Quinn claimed that 4Chan was behind it all; given that 4Chan has actually banned discussion of the subject matter at various times, and that the controversy continued on well past this point, it is rather questionable.

I’m not super fond of this piece, and I have issues with its reliability; two factual errors is quite a few for a piece this short, and it seems to be very heavily dependent on Zoe Quinn as a source. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Marketplace

Questions raised over bullying in the gaming community is an interview with Jennifer Hale, and is thusly a primary source. Per WP:RS and WP:BLP, interviews are generally not suitable for saying anything other than what person X said save under very specific circumstances which have to do with academics, which Jennifer Hale is not. Hale notes that only a minority are involved in harassment, and speaks generally positively, rather than focusing on negativity, as well as expressing that harassment is a bad thing and stops people from speaking up.

Article lead does note journalistic misconduct issues, in addition to harassment. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

APGNation

Truth in Gaming: An Interview With The Fine Young Capitalists is exactly that, and being a primary source, has all of the attendant issues – as with Hale, TFYC are not a bunch of academics of repute, so all that can really be reported on here is what they had to say. TFYC describes their conflict with Zoe Quinn, as well as getting funded, issues of misogyny in gaming (and their perception that there is very little actual reporting on it, that it is all click-bait intended to enrage rather than insightful pieces intended to inform), ethics in games journalism, ect. This wasn’t on the list presented by North, but I thought I’d throw it in because we’re probably going to end up discussing a bunch of random sources here, and I might as well get it out of the way. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

LA Times

Gamergate-related controversy reveals ugly side of gaming community is attributed to "the player". Who is "the player"? That isn't immediately clear from the article.

The article presents the harassment as being part of a culture war, noting Zoe Quinn as being irrelevant, an excuse to rail against “social justice warriors”. It pretty much presents everything as being hatred and vitriol targeted at these people over concerns about them ruining video games. Very nasty towards the GamerGaters.

Not really the best of reporting, but I didn’t see any factual inaccuracies; pretty heavily biased source, though. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Tech Crunch

#GamerGate – An Issue With Two Sides by Allum Bokhari describes GamerGate as being about politics, and describes the movement as a backlash against “culture warriors”. It makes note of the history of attacks by culture warriors, such as Jack Thompson, and compares the current crop of folks to the previous conservative attacks on gamers. It makes note of the censorship involved, as well as of harassment/death threats of people involved in reporting on the subject, as well as making note of tribalism and hypocrisy.

Very damning analysis, but also very well-cited, with numerous links to primary sources as regards its factual statements about the controversy. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The GamerGate Question by Tadhg Kelly is basically the same thing, but much more sympathetic to the ones that Bokhari called the “culture warriors”, more or less depicting them as liberal crusaders as opposed to conservative humbugs. Makes note of the harassment, depicting it as being a result of the culture war, with the gamers directed it at the people involved because they are losing in some fashion. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Pacific Standard

Online Harassment of Women Isn’t Just a Gamer Problem is about how… online harassment of women isn’t just a gamer problem, and talks about a wide variety of cases where women have been attacked online, and talks about how stereotyping groups is unfair, and talks about how it can “back people into a corner” and how it is unfair to stereotype gamers as being especially misogynistic. The article characterizes the #GamerGate hashtag as backlash against the stereotyping of gamers as misogynists and “competing victimization”. Titanium Dragon (talk) 03:55, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Boston Globe Gaming’s Summer of Rage by Jesse Singal talks about GamerGate. It says it “surrounds” Zoe Quinn and describes the general background – blog post by angry ex listing his grievances about her and listing people she had slept with while they were together, gamers notice Grayson, Kotaku writer, and get angry and accuse her of using their relationship to garner positive coverage in the press. Dismisses allegations of corruption, and discusses harassment of Zoe Quinn (and later, Sarkeesian) that ensued, including death threats. Ends article discussing it in in terms of entrenched gamers worried about change in the video game industry. It suggests both that the gamers see it as about corruption and claims that it is really a backlash against the video game industry changing.

Factual note: Claims that Grayson only mentioned Quinn in one article. This is untrue. While it is true that he only ever mentioned her in one article for Kotaku, he had mentioned her in other articles for Rock Paper Shotgun in the past. Probably indicates that they used the Kotaku press briefing as a source, which noted that he had only ever written one article about Quinn for Kotaku, and mistakenly thought that it meant that he had only ever written one article about Quinn ever, when he had, in fact, worked for other outlets in the past. Titanium Dragon (talk) 04:11, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Reliability Question

Re/code

Rated S for Sexism: To Fix Misogynistic Games, We Need a Better Filter by Eric Johnson casts the harassment as being caused by the death of gamer culture. Cites absolutely no one from the GamerGate side and promotes the idea of some sort of group which would judge games on how progressive they were.

Not really sure how great this source is; on the one hand, it does actually have a very nice looking website and about page, and notes ethics policies and suchlike, as well as having its founder be someone who used to work for The Wall Street Journal. On the other hand, the site is very new, having been founded only this year, and lacks the notability necessary to earn a Wikipedia page; its page is a redirect to Walt Mossberg, and doing some Googling, they don’t seem to be widely cited by other news sources, or anyone, really. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Opinion

Indian Express It’s not a game by "express news service" (?) is an editorial. We generally avoid using editorials as reliable sources. Article makes note of harassment and depicts it as a culture war, doesn't really talk about corruption in journalism at all. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Questionable due to extreme bias

The Week

How to stop misogynists from terrorizing the world of gamers by Ryan Cooper characterizes the GamerGate folks as "the gamer Taliban", which really doesn't encourage me as to the value of this source; they don’t appear to make any attempt at looking at “the other side” at all.

This is worse than Breitbart, and also quotes some statistics which have been specifically called out as misleading by other sources, such as Slate. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Vox

It's not just Jennifer Lawrence: women in pop culture are under attack by Todd VanDerWerff discusses the harassment of women in the media. It talks about the harassment of Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, and has a couple paragraphs about each, characterizing the attacks on them as being "fuelled by conspiracy theories". It was published prior to their other article on this subject matter, which goes into much more detail about the subject matter and presents both sides.

Factual issue: the article notes "After she left her home because of threats of extreme violence on Twitter, more than a few people accused her of making those threats up. (Why she would do this, exactly, was never explained. These "controversies" run on the same fuel as conspiracy theories.)" This is a bit problematic, as Google could have easily answered the question of why people were making these claims. A quick Google search found a number of articles from late August stating why people were suspicious, suggesting that the reporter here was just being lazy (or possibly didn’t want to mention the actual reasons cited).

That being said, I think their further article about this - posted several days later, on September 6th - may have been the result of them looking into it more; this article doesn't really talk about it much outside of the context of harassment as relates to another person, and doesn't really seem to be focusing on the subject so much as mentioning it as other examples. I noted the other Vox article further down the page in the "presents multiple perspectives" section. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

About the letter against harassment

Business Insider

Game Developers Are Finally Stepping Up To Change Their Hate-Filled Industry by Karyne Levy makes brief note of the harassment of Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Fish in the context of harassment, also noting the Sony Oline Entertainment’s exectutive who got his plane diverted due to a false bomb threat. Doesn’t really talk about GamerGate as a whole, seems to be focused on the letter primarily. It also makes note of the counter-letter, about games journalists and developers not stereotyping gamers, which it noted as having more than 3,000 signatures (elsewhere, it notes that the other letter got “over 2,000”). Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

PC Magazine

[Gamers Sign Open Letter Against Online Harassment by Chloe Albanesius is about exactly that. It has a couple paragraphs about Sarkeesian and Quinn being harassed, and briefly notes the controversy. Cursory, but has no major issues; however, it isn’t really focused on covering things “as a whole”. [[User:Titanium Dragon|Titanium Dragon]] (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Cursory Mention

The Telegraph

Perv shaming your bottom pincher is a low blow by Radhika Sanghani (the same writer who is noted below in the "shows both sides" section) talks about GamerGate in another article, which is about a woman posting personal details of a man who she claimed groped her bottom. The article makes note of harassment directed at Zoe Quinn over her sex life, but the mention is much shorter and is talking about the specific issue of Quinn being harassed, rather than the larger issue of GamerGate as a whole. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Time

These Girls Are Fighting Sexism With a Video Game About Tampons by Eliana Dockterman makes very brief mention of GamerGate, specifically citing the other Time article written by Leigh Alexander. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

PBS

Why video gamers are speaking out about sexual harassment discusses sexual harassment in gamer culture; it talks about GamerGate related stuff briefly, describing the harassment of Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, notes the GamerGate perspective that it is about ethics in game journalism, and cites Dan Golding of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival in Australia as being about males fearing becoming irrelevant in games culture. The rest of the article is about unrelated instances of sexual harassment. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The Telegraph

Misogyny, death threats and a mob of trolls: Inside the dark world of video games with Zoe Quinn - target of #GamerGate by Radhika Sanghani is actually a very decent source. We have the writer not only interview Zoe Quinn, but also seek out members of GamerGate to get their comments and feedback, and sort of does a back and forthing thing. While a lot of it does focus on Quinn's claims, there are considerable notes about GamerGate claims as well.

This is a mixture of primary and secondary source material; we have some stuff which is directly attributed, as well as the journalist's notes on the matter.

This source notes that Zoe Quinn claims that it is misogyny and about attacking women, while it notes that the GamerGaters percieve it as being about journalistic integrity and ethics, as well as being angry about being attacked and criticized by gaming journalists websites. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The Washington Post

With #GamerGate, the video-game industry’s growing pains go viral by Sarah Kaplan discusses the issues involved. It starts off noting harassment, but it also does go into the claims of GamerGate folks talking about uncritical promotion of games like Depression Quest.

Some minor factual issues here though which may be a little problematic: it notes that Quinn "didn't set out to be [at the center of it]", which is technically true but a little bit misleading, given her history of conflicts with folks. It also is unsure about who coined "GamerGate", noting Quinn's claim that it was all orchestrated by 4Chan but also noting that Adam Baldwin (who actually coined the hashtag) claimed credit. As this is something which can be empirically verified, it is a little troubling that they contrasted it with Quinn's claims.

That being said, the article does draw on material from a wide variety of sources, so it may just be that they were making note of everything. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Vox

#GamerGate: Here's why everybody in the video game world is fighting by Todd VanDerWerff talks about the harassment of and treatment of women in gaming, but also spends a great deal of time (actually, maybe more time) describing the GamerGate side of things, and talking about greater issues of games journalism and ethics in games journalism.

This is a pretty solid source and appears to cite a wide variety of sources. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Herald Sun Internet is too often a land of men with bad attitudes by Alice Clarke is about bad things happening to women on the internet, and uses Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian as examples, as well as the celebrity photo leak. The primary thrust of the article is that bad things happen to women on the internet at the hands of men, but it spends about a third of its length discussing GamerGate issues.

It quickly goes through the spark that set off GamerGate – Zoe Quinn’s ex posting about her cheating on him, gamers deciding that it was an example of corruption, and then the subsequent harassment and hacking. Also mentions the attacks and death threats on Anita Sarkeesian for criticizing games. Does not mention the word GamerGate, but is clearly discussing it. Titanium Dragon (talk) 03:55, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Opinion

Times Live (South Africa) Gamergate, Ethics, and Hate by Bruce Gorton is another opinion column.

Starts off by saying part of the blame for the toxic gaming community is the press itself, and notes “games media has always had a dodgy relationship with ethics.” It also notes the “sheer distain” that the gaming media has shown for gamers, and notes their lack of credibility, and that their lack of credibility has compromised the ability for the media to report on and be trusted in any way, including about important social issues.

It notes that game marketing reinforces sexism, and that popular types of games draw in more men than women.

It notes that there are issues with sexism in the gaming community, but notes that games jouranalists writing about it has no credibility because they have no credibility in general due to the corruption of games journalism. Titanium Dragon (talk) 04:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Asian Age

Is it a fair game? by “Age Correspondant” mentions harassment of Sarkeesian and Quinn, and notes that she has little support in the community, noting that support for them was a “minority”. It made note of the criticism of Anita Sarkeesian, such as her misrepresenting the content depicted in the videos and her lack of reliability - for instance, noting that the section she showed from Watch Dogs was misleading, because the sequence was about shutting down a sex trafficking ring in the game – i.e. depicting it as wrong and evil. It notes the lack of uniqueness of gaming, and how it is no different from the rest of culture in terms of misogyny. It also makes note of the idea that games like Grand Theft Auto as exploiting “sex sells” and selling to “geeks” and “otaku”, depicting them as power fantasies of frequently bullied individuals, and that the games in question objectify everyone.

Cites a wide variety of folks on the subject matter, from internet video makers to scientists to games journalists. Pretty solid source overall. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

The Washington Post

How the Gaming Community Destroys Its Heroes by Andrea Peterson is about people leaving the video game industry. It very, very briefly mentions both Zoe Quinn and Phil Fish, but gives no details and instead links to other sources on the subject matter. Not really taking any sort of position on anything. Titanium Dragon (talk) 13:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Wired

Building a Gaming Con for an Ostracized LGBT Community does not include the word "GamerGate" and has a single paragraph which mentions that Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian had been harassed, up to and including death threats. The article is primarily about a LGBT gaming convention. Titanium Dragon (talk) 02:49, 5 October 2014 (UTC)