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Thoughts On the Zoe Quinn Issue?

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by TheAverageMan, Aug 19, 2014.

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  1. TheAverageMan

    TheAverageMan Shark Slayer
    1. DUCKS - We Love DUCKS

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    Just curious what your thoughts are on the whole issue.
    Apologies if this thread would be considered rude in some way (for whatever reason), but I'm just honestly curious about other people's opinion on this.

    (I already got banned from the Depression Quest Steam Forums :I )
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2014
  2. Anonymuse

    Anonymuse Arsonist

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    It's all really melodramatic, but the power abuse is unreal. She seems like an insufferable cunt, and is a horrible person for cheating on her boyfriend so many times. Also, she's used her influence to wipe out competitors and get favourable reviews. All in all, a total bitch.
     
    PUNK123 and TheAverageMan like this.
  3. Bint

    Bint Haxor

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    All i've heard about the issue is that neckbeards were sending her death threats and even tracking down her home address and actually visiting. I can't say what sort of person she is but either way there are a lot of trolls out there giving her shit for simply existing it seems and that's pretty darn fucked up.
     
  4. GrieverJ

    GrieverJ Arsonist

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    www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-51PfwI3M

    Watch this.

    As is discussed in the video, this issue isn't about her personal life or how many guys she fucked. This isn't even about her being a complete hypocrite and essentially shitting on everything she claims to believe in. This is about a complete lack of professional integrity in gaming journalism. This is about censorship on a massive scale, about mods of numerous popular websites deleting thousands of comments in an attempt to cover it up. Post a negative review for her awful creation (I refuse to call it a game) on Steam and you get deleted, post a comment on the issue on Reddit or /b/ and you get deleted.

    This can't be allowed to stand. If her and her worthless boytoys get away with this bullshit then it sets a precedent, that you can just do these kinds of things and the white knights will sweep it under the rug for you if someone calls you out. I encourage people to post this video on any and all relevant websites and forums. Call attention to the sheer abuse of power that's going on. Do not let this issue be ignored. I'm pretty sure there's a lot more skeletons in this graveyard than we're seeing right now, and we'll only know for sure if we keep digging.
     
    tlc2011, PanduhsFTW, Beef and 3 others like this.
  5. ParaLogia

    ParaLogia tired Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

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    Be careful, who knows if her influence extends to the KAG moderation staff! :kappa:
     
    Anonymuse likes this.
  6. Anonymuse

    Anonymuse Arsonist

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    @Geti is her boyfriend I hear... CONSPIRACIES
     
  7. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    Honestly, I'm always disgusted with the casual misogyny that goes on in and around these forums, but it's always been very hard to consolidate videogame communities with things like empathy for people. I'm still always surprised how many otherwise good natured, funny people it comes out of, every single time an issue like this comes up.

    My opinion the reddit "crusade" against her is ridiculous manbaby bullshit, and incredibly callous to target at a person with a public history of depression, especially in part for making a game about her mental illness - no matter what she's done to who, harassment and personal threats are never justified.

    Re: censorship - that word doesn't quite mean what you think it means. You have your right to freedom of expression, I have my right to this website and everything hosted on it.
    Example: I'm going to start locking and banning this if discussion continues along the lines of "insufferable cunt" and "something must be done". I'm not likely to delete as I want my stance on this public.

    Feel free to call me a white knight, I'm not going sit and watch a community I've helped create deliberately harm someone over their strong feelings about whatever they think someone has done to their precious videogames.

    You have the option to go and talk about how much you hate someone and agree with internet harrassment on your own forums, hosted on your own machines - your respective government is unlikely to censor it. I won't have it here.
     
  8. TheAverageMan

    TheAverageMan Shark Slayer
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    While I do agree that most videogame communities have problems empathizing with other people (though, I honestly doubt the majority of gamer's personalities are similar to their real life ones), I wouldn't call this incident misogynistic (at least I don't see the misogyny on this forum as you said). For example, the phil fish incident, people were just as prone to freaking out just and it wasn't regarded as misandry -same thing applies to the chap who released his "game" on steam as early access and it caused an uproar since there was literally nothing to do in the game, and people were getting super mad.

    There are some stupid people that are like "this just proves women can't make games blah blah blah", but those people are retards who aren't a majority and I don't think they reside on this forum. I just think it's sort of stupid that when someone bashes a male (ie phil fish), it's a "normal" thing to do, but when it comes to a female it's somehow misogynistic? Unless I'm interpreting what you said the wrong way, I really don't see the misogyny with a big community like /r/gaming since they are more concerned about gaming journalism as whole, while there definitely is a percentage of people who are sexist against women in the gaming communities but I don't think they make a majority, just because a few drops are dirty, doesn't make the whole ocean the same.

    In short, I don't really see the misogyny on this forum, unless what anonymuse and parialogia said is somehow sexist?

    You're not wrong, same as the mods on /r/gaming weren't technically wrong to censor everything because they "own" that subreddit, but it is an assholish move.

    I wouldn't call you a white knight, not wanting other people to hate another person is a good thing (unless that person is Hitler or something), her ties with gaming journalists doesn't really justify hate at all.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2014
  9. ParaLogia

    ParaLogia tired Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

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    My previous joke post was written after listening to half of the video that Griever linked. I see that it was a joke made in bad taste.

    I decided to read more into the issue, from more sources than one. The fact is, there is just so much clamor all over the place that the actual facts are unclear.

    @Geti is right, in that it is wrong to harass anyone over the web, as so many people have. I don't think misogyny is the main problem with the posts, but it does leak through in some of the language. I doubt anyone in this forum is acting like the people that Bitch_Pleasicus described, but we should still be aware of the effect of our words.

    That brings us to the question, "What should we be discussing, then?" Here are a few things that are okay to talk about:
    • (Flimsy) YouTube copyright claims
    • Nepotism/Cronyism in gaming journalism
    • Steam's imperfect Greenlighting system
    • Censorship Overzealous moderation in some places
    • People overreacting [edited]
    TL;DR Remember that you are talking about a human being. If you wish to judge her, then leave. But if you want to discuss anything related to the points I listed, go ahead.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2014
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  10. GrieverJ

    GrieverJ Arsonist

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    @Geti I think you misunderstand the point here. Sure, some other places this story was posted (reddit in particular) devolved into people planning personal attacks on her, which is unconscionable and really won't help the problem (although it's hard to find the truth since she deliberately doxxed herself and then lied about it to play victim). Depending on the rules of the forums, mods are probably right to lock/delete that kind of talk. That doesn't explain why any and all posts on the subject, including those with no calls to action or rules violations, were instantly deleted. When it gets as widespread as it was, and across public forums that supposedly pride themselves on freedom of speech, I'd consider it censorship, but that's really just a battle of semantics.

    This isn't about her being a female, nor is it really about her at all. Quinn is merely a symptom of the real problem. Video game journalists with no professional integrity or ethical standards are the problem. Rampant nepotism is the problem. It's easy to brush it off as a small indy games issue, but the longer you leave the cancer there the more it grows. That's why I don't want this to be ignored.
     
  11. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    GrieverJ: instant deletion of anything about a particularly sensitive public issue could simply be damage control. These things explode easily and I was affiliated with reddit I'd be pretty upset that a lot of the hate mobs had been directly sourced from there and were publicly associated with my brand.


    Re: Cronyism - I'd say there's significantly more in gamer communities than within the gaming press, though there's a lot of it in the indie higher ups. I'm not personally familiar with how the bigger games companies handle things but I think it's probably safe to say they get an easy ride because of who they are sometimes too.


    Re: Games "journalism" - the scare quotes should be indicative here. Games journalism at a mainstream level is the same clickbaiting bullshit as every other internet news site, with some games features that may or may not have been sponsored by the developer. A handful of places have tried to change that with varying individual successes, but if you think that that's relevant or that this is even a potentially exemplary case by any measure, you're blind or naieve and I have some bad news for you about how advertising works.

    If this was about the games journalism the hate mobs and youtubers alike wouldn't be discussing contested nepotism claims as The Facts/An Affront To Games. If it was about the games journalism the main source of The Facts wouldn't be her ex, she wouldn't be being personally doxed or harrassed en masse, and this topic wouldn't be about "the Zoe Quinn Issue".


    The reason I feel the internet response at large to the issue is largely misogynistic is that this wouldn't be happening if it was a man "caught" in the same situation, not on a comparable level and not with the same techniques.

    Even if I was suspected of having sex with reviewers for positive reviews or with prominent figures in the scene for support I don't believe I'd have a hate mob at my door shouting slurs or flinging threats; I probably wouldn't have them sending nudes to my friends or stealing my accounts either. If MM and I were both suspected of having sex with the same reviewer for extra super positive reviews I don't believe we'd get anything short of several high fives - and that is really problematic.


    The whole issue as far as I can put together is a petty ex shaming and humiliating her in public and using the anonymous internet whipped into a frenzy about Justice as a tool to achieve that. Unfortunately the anonymous internet doesn't really care if it's real justice or not as long as it's justice (as exemplified recently with a lot of misinformation spawned from anon's Justice campaign around ferguson).


    Re: Misogyny on these forums - apart from some gendered slurs and a focus on her (irrelevant) personal life, this thread has been more or less clear of outward misogyny, which I guess is good. I was referring to past events both here and on IRC where I've been disappointed by the lack of awareness and empathy displayed by members I would have expected better from.


    Sidenote: I wish these things involved less typing.
     
  12. ParaLogia

    ParaLogia tired Administrator Global Moderator Forum Moderator Tester Official Server Admin

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    Well, I can't really reply to those points without talking about stuff I don't know much about, so I won't. I was just picking out some stuff that others have mentioned, which won't result in warning points for the user. I edited my post to reflect that.

    We probably weren't on the same page, because I wasn't even thinking about the people outside of KAG. :ehh:

    Since I don't really have anything substantial to contribute here, I'll be un-watching this thread now.

    Agreed.
     
    FuzzyBlueBaron and Geti like this.
  13. Andr01d

    Andr01d Bison Rider

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    Geti, totally agree with you. I remember a similar time when I pointed out that a lot of the Nazi sympathizing on this forum was in bad taste and was met with a barrage of ":^) #rekt #2012"

    I think that a lot of these types have gravitated to sites like 4chan where they mistake ironic shitposting for actual beliefs, and think that they're among their own kind. Of course this is a self fulfilling prophecy as the actual racism, sexism and homophobia have taken over from the ironic shitposting.
     
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  14. Geti

    Geti Please avoid PMing me (poke a mod instead) THD Team Administrator Global Moderator

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    Reddit also helps people form echo-chambers for their views and attract people with similar views (mens rights subreddit being the most obvious example) - but of course people have been forming their own online communities in many ways for decades now.

    I'm really not sure how to feel about this kind of internet community sometimes; there are lots of harmless or positive uses (see: we're on an internet forum right now) but of course it's also been used for distribution of hate speech and child porn, and often even in seemingly nice communities you'll see unexpected outbursts of racism or misogyny that largely go unchecked.

    The practice of building swastika's ingame for fun serves as a KAG-specific example; even done ironically it's unhelpful trolling at best, deliberately hurtful and indicative of a harmful ideological standpoint at worst.

    A reasonable read on recent and past issues with misogyny in videogame culture, pretty long. The comments are less hellish than you might expect.

    In current news, Zoe is still unable to go home due to threats on her life and otherwise from people with access to her address.
    Of course, these people are just interested in integrity in games journalism though. Really. That's all they want. They promise.
     
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  15. Anonymuse

    Anonymuse Arsonist

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    I've definitely found that reddit is a massive circlejerk as a whole, and it's hard to get nice fresh opinions out of the mass of constantly repeated propaganda/views. And if there is a new look at it, be assured it's almost definitely downvoted to oblivion.

    Even in supposedly harmless subreddits like TwoXChromosomes and the men's rights subreddit you mentioned, there's obfuscated misogyny and misandry (funny how my spell check doesn't count misandry as a word, what a joke). I guess the point of my post is that reddit is a shit factory, and it only rewards people who shitpost/mimic things that the mass populace can easily agree with and upvote, re-establishing their own sense of self-righteousness.
     
  16. Andr01d

    Andr01d Bison Rider

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    Nice article Geti. If I were to summarize this viewpoint, and also what amounts to my main problem with internet commenters, it's that everyone always has an issue with something, and they always seem to inexplicably think that their opinion is important to anyone besides their mom. Every youtube video I see, or article I read, there's some comment like "that was ok but I would prefer x y z" LITERALLY NO ONE CARES. These people are the classic critics that can't do anything themselves and feel the need to weigh in on the most minute details of anything anyone else does. Unfortunately by giving them a space to do so, and countless examples of others doing so, we've created a culture where everyone feels that their opinion MUST be heard, even if it's on something irrelevant to their life, even if they have to fabricate some sort of problem with it to feel superior, etc.

    It's that sort of single-minded , unwavering certainty that you MUST be the most important person on the planet that really drives me up the wall. That total inability to see yourself as others see you, be self-critical, realize that your viewpoint is just one of many possible ones, that others can see right through your facade of "I'm always right" because they, unlike you, have no vested interest in you always being right.
     
    Last edited: Aug 28, 2014
  17. [​IMG]
     
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  18. Anonymuse

    Anonymuse Arsonist

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    Was a good read. Makes me want to browse more and try to navigate the bad shitposts.
     
  19. Andr01d

    Andr01d Bison Rider

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    Having read over most of her ex-bf's Moby Dick-like blog post about it, I'm forced to conclude that I don't really care about any of this.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2014
  20. GrieverJ

    GrieverJ Arsonist

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    @Geti This woman is obviously a pathological liar, and has previously been proven to have faked attacks on herself in order to gain sympathy. She runs with a crowd of professional victims. Why should we believe a single thing she says at this point?

    -snip-

    Even if you don't care about corrupt video game journalists/bloggers, if you care at all about video games (and you clearly do because you're here) you should care about this issue. Because the longer it goes on, the more dangerous it gets to gaming as a hobby. This barrage of articles all claiming that 'gamers are over' was posted on a dozen or more websites, all within a day or two of each other. You really think that's a coincidence? They've already tried silence and censorship and neither worked, so now they're trying to counterattack by calling all gamers misogynistic, hateful people. Unfortunately, there are enough of those around that they can trot them out as 'evidence' that they're right, and use that to spin their ridiculous narrative: that they're all just poor innocent victims, and it's us vicious, evil gamers who are abusing them.

    Furthermore, word out there is that Quinn is going to fake being 'attacked' by a group of white male gamers at PAX. She'll take the stage the next day wearing fake bruises and the like with Anita Sarkeesian and continue the whole denouncing gamers business, dragging the names of some well known youtubers (who will be coincidentally 'mentioned' by her 'attackers') through the dirt because they called her out on her bullshit. Now, that's just a rumor at this point, but it's certainly believable given her past actions. Keep a watchful eye over the next few days, see what happens.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 1, 2014
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