So last week, the Society for Professional Journalists had ethics week, complete with their own hash tag (#SPJEthicsWeek). Once GamerGate got wind of it, they – in their typically fair-minded and even-handed manner – proceeded to dogpile the hashtag to such a degree that the organizers of the event felt compelled to abandon the hashtag. As one person from the SPJ wrote:
Abandoning the Twitter hashtag was simply the best course of action once the posts became sexist, homophobic, threatening, pornographic and – frankly – disgusting. I received some concerning messages, which were mostly deleted within a few hours. One person told me on Twitter, “man have you seen the giant mudslide of reckage[sic] we know as your (expletive) wake?”
This is, of course, not a new phenomenon. #GamerGate recently dogpiled the Calgary Expo. They recently dogpiled the GDC hashtag, and then got the vapors — lawd have mercy! — when the game development community openly rejected and shrugged off their attempts at intimidation and obfuscation. #GamerGate dogpiled AbleGamers, for the crime of saying ‘we’d really like to NOT be associated either way with this brouhaha.’ In short, attempting to bully people on twitter is pretty much the MO for this hashtag. In fact, leaders of their cause will happily direct these efforts, and then act SHOCKED when overzealous followers take it too far.
Not all members of the SPJ were so dismissive. One member in fact embraced the idea of giving gamergate a chance to speak, albeit perhaps not as warmly embracing GamerGate as the jubilant threads on KotakuInAction may lead you to believe.
SPJ should comment because so much of GamerGate is unethical. That’s what ethics codes are for. Let me turn the question around: If we talk about ethics only in polite company, what does SPJ gain then? …
6. Good GamerGaters aside, you’re exposing SPJ and yourself to the web’s worst attackers. Don’t you care?
Of course I care. I don’t want SPJ to suffer. I sure don’t want me to suffer. But I believe it’s unethical to ignore ethical problems out of fear or disgust. Plus, if we say nothing, we’ve just handed the Internet’s biggest assholes the blueprint for how to intimidate journalists: Be really evil, and we’ll be really quiet.
Still, his proposed plan is — well, one not to be taken particularly seriously. He’s setting up a panel at a conference he’s running, but pretty much putting it on GamerGaters, and asking them to come up with their own panel members. Their proposed list of potential nominees includes a games journalist who was actually fired for ethics violations, and an ex-journalist who thinks Gamergate compares favorably to MLK’s dream, for example. As of yet, I’ve seen no plans to find someone to actually represent the other side’s point of view appears to be in the plans, but to be fair, the real work is being done by some secret committee, and who knows what plans they’ll come up with. At any rate, I don’t know of a good reason why this group’s viewpoints need to be legitimized, or why any games journalist would sign up for the litany of abuse that comes from being on that panel. So yeah, expect this to be another 60 minutes of undiluted misinformation with little to no semblance of actual ethical issues plaguing the games industry. Huzzah!
But hey, let’s go back to Journoterrorist, who is putting this shindig together (despite, I imight point out, his own self-admitted checkered relationship with the topic)
How definitive and important can you be when you ignore people who come to your hashtag during Ethics Week — a week you tout as “a means of placing a spotlight on our ethical responsibilities and reaching out to the communities we serve”?
Well, first and foremost, the question I have is whether or not these people actually care about the topic at all. Because they still don’t understand ethics in journalism. Period. This week they launched Deepfreeze.it, a website devoted to capturing all of the journalistic sins of the gamergate era gaming press. Wander through and you’ll discover that, among other things:
- They still think that giving a review that you disagree with is an ethical breech (long-time readers may remember how gamergators were advocating that Nintendo take punitive action against Polygon unless they gave better reviews – something that most assuredly IS unethical behavior).
- They still think that writing op-eds that you disagree with is unethical, For that matter, they still think that the ‘gamers are dead’ articles are about all gamers and, for that matter, included the words ‘gamers are dead’.
- They still think that being on an industry mailing list is inethical collusion, rather than being, you know, pretty fucking normal for industry professionals in any industry.
- They still think that having opinions about overt sexuality in games is unethical.
- They still think that having opinions about Shirtgate is unethical.
- They still think that blocking an abusive hate mob on twitter is unethical.
- They still think that journalists being friends and having drinks with devs is unethical, instead of, you know, how journalists farm sources and get leads in EVERY FUCKING JOURNALISTIC FIELD EVER.
They then go on to post a list of blacklisted journalistic outlets. This is a hashtag that goes into a frenzy if anyone implies that #gamergaters should be considered blacklisted or boycotted.In short, DeepFreeze.it is a standing testament to the power of gamergate as a journalistic watchdog. It is a watchdog that will randomly bark at rocks and tree stumps, and then act utterly unsurprised when it doesn’t get a scooby snack for its troubles.
So, yeah, I’m sure it’ll be a great panel.
Fair enough critique — your criticism of my professional reputation and my organizational skills are spot on, but your opinion of Deep Freeze is exactly why I believe a journalism ethics debate is well worthwhile.
Thanks for stopping by.
Pinsof was fired for exposing a fraudulent charity fundraiser. That’s a hell of an “ethics violation.”
Trying to generate clicks by writing a review that the author doesn’t sincerely believe in is unethical, though, of course. A Suicide Girls fan posing as a sex-negative feminist is a bit rich.
Of course you’d ignore the sections of GJP about journalists telling others what to cover, inserting themselves into a story, shaming other journalists for allowing discussion, and trying to get journalists fired.
It’s funny that you would link to Jason Schreier for one proposition that they weren’t arguing, since Schreier wrote the unethical and sloppy story about Brad Wardell’s settlement that you relied on to further defame Wardell in your crusade against Milo.
You link to Boyer and can only criticize the mention of the Autoblocker, which doesn’t even have it’s own page on the site, because there’s no claim that it is in itself unethical. Nor does the page about the autoblocker on the separate wiki saying anything about it being “unethical.” Merely noting it on the page is not an accusation of an ethics violation.
Moral panics are ofen insincere clickbait. If sincere, just stupid, but not unethical.
The “Our Enemy, the gamers” page goes into detail about prior antipathy toward gamers that ran during ad campaigns for the very publishers that were being defended. That many of these articles were a deflection from the general journalistic silence about Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn. Still, there’s no suggestion that they are inherently unethical if they were written sincerely and without ulterior motives.
And of course they never suggest that merely being friends is unethical. But positive reviews and coverage of friends without disclosure, and without recusal in special cases, is. And of course they are correct.
You try to cherry pick and you still have to misrepresent. I should have expected nothing less. Bravo.
Even if we do agree that Pinsof committed an ethics violation, so what?
Chris Kluwe kept saying yesterday that nobody clamors for unethical journalism. And he’s right.
But we have to agree on what ethical journalism is. No sin is unforgivable, but you have to ask first.
Don’t pretend that Pinsof didn’t admit what he did wrong and hasn’t done everything in his power to correct it.
Why do you think you need to defend Pinsof, or anyone else?
At any point are you intending to show respect toward anyone you don’t have to look in the eye?
I don’t particularly need to defend anyone, but why shouldn’t I defend Pinsof?
He’s a neutral journalist who has a mild antipathy toward Gamergate as well as a healthy distaste for the people smearing us. I was among those who recommended him .
I find Damion’s attempts to smear him rather smug and unseemly.
Pinsof exposed a fraudulent charity without considering enough the harm it would cause to the person he exposed. He apologized to the person he exposed and was forgiven. Damion failed to critically read a Kotaku article (the fact that the lawsuits were filed contemporaneously was in the Kotaku article itself, but unfortunately contradicted at the beginning of the article), smeared Brad Wardell just to take a shot at Milo, and had to apologize. I wouldn’t suggest that this forever disqualifies Damion from commenting on journalistic ethics.
I mean, if someone had recommended The Ralph Retort as a qualified commentator on Gamergate in a panel on journalistic ethics, I wouldn’t be arguing with any exposure of the irony.
And, yes, I am quite capable of showing respect with people actually interested in conversation
rather than demagoguery. You asked me a sincere question that wasn’t loaded, and I gave an answer.
Is it OK if someone who actually owns his own blog expresses strong opinions on his own blog?
Why don’t you have a blog? You probably should get one, if you have this many opinions. You seem very rigid and push-button deterministic on subjects that affect human lives. People are not so black and white.
I’m not suppressing Damion’s opinions. You’re free not to read mine if you so choose and he’s free to suppress mine in his space if he so chooses.
I have no particular reason to have my own blog. I’m quite happy to express my opinions on the blogs that I read and on twitter when I feel I have something to contribute.
Why you believe I think people are black and white I have no idea. I guess I’m just some rigid asshole who defends people against what I perceive to be straw man arguments, unfair smears, demagoguery, and uncritical regurgitation of the claims of others who have similar antipathy toward Damion’s targets. If you wish to diagnose me, you’re free to explain the basis of your evaluation.
You’re not suppressing anything, you’re just coming to this blog with an awful lot of contempt and a big chip on your shoulder. Everything you write amounts to, “no that’s absolutely wrong I am absolutely right and here’s why, and I’m also going to say really horrible things and curse a lot, especially if it’s Damion replying to me.” It’s like you’re on a crusade to make Damion feel bad about posting on his own blog.
It’s a waste of time, but then you don’t see the point in having your own blog, because I suspect your only purpose this week is the above. If Damion wasn’t posting, you’d have little to say. From one pedant to another, it’s unseemly.
If you want me to curse at you, I can. Go ahead and give me smug answers, accusations of ignorance, and unfair smears of individuals. Tell me I don’t know anything about the first amendment. As of now you’re merely being condescending, so I’ll hold off on the vitriol. I can refrain from saying the f-word if people are so sensitive.
Damion responds to me more than others do. He says things worth responding to but is smug and dismissive, so I respond in kind. I don’t respond to every single person because I didn’t want to completely blow up the comment feed.
I’m not trying to make Damion feel bad about posting on his own blog, I’m trying to make him feel bad for unfairly smearing people and for making straw man arguments.
I’m not a blogger. I talk on forums and other people’s blogs. I talk less on popular forums because other people are generally already saying what I have to say.
God forbid I read a significant amount of sites that I’m skeptical of and offer my opinion if I have something to say. People are free to block me from commenting on their sites. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Pinsof was fired for outing a transexual. He was explicitly forbidden from doing so by his editor-in-chief, because it was not only unethical but also opened up his site to enormous legal risk. On the way through this journey, Pinsof had a huge, public twitter meltdown. People on GameJournoPros did not collude on him getting fired – they were commenting on a highly public kerfuffle in the game journalism sphere. It would be kind of like saying the NFL press is somehow colluding for on a private email list saying that Tom Brady is in some deep shit for deflating footballs.
There’s already broad agreement of what ethical journalism actually is. The SPJ is actually proof of this. Deepfreeze.it shows that #gamergate is trying to expand this to include ‘opinions that don’t agree with ours’. This is specifically NOT best practices, and is an attempt by #gamergate to try to chill free speech that doesn’t agree with the mass market.
Saying that Dragon’s Crown is sexist is not creating a ‘moral panic’. It’s fucking accurate. Hell, I’m pretty sex-positive and *I* think so. Whether something is good content is actually worthy debate.
There are plenty of journalists who have admitted to their mistakes and owned up to them. However, only Pinsof gets a pass. Because he generally agrees with the hashtag. And so, despite having a serious breach of ethics, Pinsof does NOT have an entry on deepfreeze.it.
Pinsof outed a transsexual . . . who was running a fraudulent charity. I mean, you can’t really leave out that part if you want to get the whole story, can you?
There isn’t some specific ethical standard written in stone against outing a transsexual. Chloe was running a fraudulent charity in order to get reassignment surgery. There was no way to expose this without outing her. It was clearly a gray area and Pinsof decided that it was the wrong thing to do mostly because he didn’t like the people who were glad that he did it. No one would have had any grounds to sue them and that’s a ridiculous justification for firing him.
As for the rest of it, who cares? If you have some rage against Pinsof because he validates Gamergate claims on occasion, that’s your problem.
I mean, just like you say Milo shouldn’t have left out some details in his article about Brad Wardell, because they change the context just a little bit, likewise, oversimplifying what Pinsof did rather muddies the picture.
As for Schreier, I don’t care about Dragon’s Crown issue, I’m more interested in his acknowledging sloppy reporting for their story on the Brad Wardell settlement. As for sexualization, people are allowed to have differing opinions. I’m sure some people just want to shut down sites they don’t visit. I honestly don’t care – it doesn’t invalidate criticisms that people are making insincere arguments to generate clickbait. I wish everyone would just realize that Gawker and Jezebel are terrible and stop visiting them, as that would partially restore my faith in humanity, but I have no active boycott.
I’m sure some assholes just want to shut down sites, and as I’ve said multiple times, going after advertisers is a tried and true progressive tactic. You just like to act as if gamergate invented censorship, when it’s the gamergate affiliated sites that have been actually shut down because critics don’t think they have a right to exist. I don’t like it. I criticize it. But it has nothing to do with the specific content represented on deepfreeze.it.
Insincere clickbait if insincere clickbait. If it is sincere, that’s not unethical, it’s just sad.
“Insincere clickbait if insincere clickbait. If it is sincere, that’s not unethical, it’s just sad.”
Sorry, how are you determining if a review is sincere or not? What does that even mean?
Also most of these articles only generate such huge buzz because the morons in GamerGate make such a big deal about them. A paragraph comment about a sexist story or art becomes some massive scandal because GamerGate freak out. Are you actually arguing that GamerGate freaking out about a review score is the fault of the game journalists?
As Damion says this boils down to little more than “I didn’t like that … ETHICAL VIOLATION!”
If people actually have useful, constructive opinions, then they should express them.
But they shouldn’t use Gamergate as a talking point. Because GG isn’t about expressing opinions. It’s about noise and chaos.
Cormac,
Insincerity would honestly be hard to prove. Either a clear ulterior motive or a change in character of the reviewer. Even a change might be real, though.
I think whining about opinion pieces is mostly silly if they don’t involve bad statistics or false and defamatory claims.
I’m not fond of boycotts, regardless. I go to any site that has content I want to read, I don’t contact or boycott advertisers (and I think it’s generally awful). I can’t convince people not to do it, but I can at least be satisfied when the targets of it have advocated the same tactics be used against others.
Damion,
You may have also noticed in the blog that you linked to that the posts about gaming and journalistic ethics were attributed to Gamergate. The abusive content was not.
You’re smart enough to know that third-party trolls have inserted themselves into various Gamergate causes. You used to be inclined to acknowledge this.
The journalist heading an ethics committee was smart and ethical enough not to make a baseless accusation.
Why are you now so quick to believe that genuine Gamergate supporters were the ones posting pornography and disgusting content on the hashtag? That was the content blamed for abandoning the hashtag. The gaming-related content was not.
Did you at some point just stop caring entirely about treating Gamergate supporters fairly and checking your factual assertions?
Oh, I am fully aware that GamerGate has a long history of maintaining a seperation between their rank and file, and the anonymous attackers who habituate /b and use gamergate’s hate list as a missile guidance system for them to pour their aggression into. I am also aware that there are plenty of gamergaters who pile on abuse and bile from their actual accounts – you can also wander over to KiA and see them being awful, and being in general supportive of people who are, for example, awful to Zoe, Brianna or Anita.
There are ALSO trolls throwing in for the lulz attacking people of both sides — GNAA and the AyyTeam often get mentioned — but these guys are showing up specifically because they are spoiling with a fight for the trolls that post on behalf of /gg. The idea that the existence of these people proves that there are not awful abusers within the gamergate ranks is laughable.
At this point, the only people who are fooled by this line of reasoning is apparently gamergate rank and file, such as yourself. The rest of the world has since determined that #gamergate is like Pig Pen – a nasty swarm of shit always seems to surround everything they try to do, and surprise surprise, it always seems to hit their enemies, but always with just enough anonymity that they can claim to be unaware of it.
So, some gamergaters and anonymous people target anyone that gamergate attacks, just like anyone who is targeted by a popular blog then gets targeted, and Nero and some other people say some mean things about Zoe Quinn from time to time. Therefore, gamergaters were the posters of porn and blatant homophobic and racist content on another hashtag. Great logic. Nice deflection by misrepresenting my assertion.
But, hey, I see that really that’s just your justification for not caring anymore. Anything that you can blame on gamergaters, you will. Nero likes to troll and so we’re all responsible for any harassment and abuse of anyone that has ever been criticized by gamergaters.