So tweeted Brianna Wu, along with a series of explicitly threatening tweets she received, and
The police just came by. Husband and I are going somewhere safe.
Warning: explicit sexualized violence.
Can we take this seriously now?
Butterflies and Wheels
Gnu atheism, women's rights, internationalism, universalism, and gossip
We can’t take it seriously. We can never take any threat of violence seriously until after it has been perpetrated. And even then only if there is video evidence of a smoking gun, and the act was witnessed by ten men of good character.
Until that moment it is only a joke. Or something.
Even afterward it isn’t a systematic widespread problem, because it was just a lone madman.
The fact that the mad are encouraged to act by others is, and can never be, an indication that those others are in any way a problem or responsible.
I don’t know how we break out of that narrative, but we see it over and over again, and it needs to be broken out of.
Have there been civil lawsuits where one who threatens violence can be held liable for expenses and pain and suffering when some has to leave home for personal security?
What amuses me (for certain non-funny values of “amuse”) is the inevitable plaintive cry of “But she didn’t use the hashtag #GamerGate, therefore it’s totally unconnected!”. It never ceases to amaze me that people are still trying to disassociate the hashtag from the original purpose, which was to drive certain women out of the public sphere with threats and intimidation.
If they really cared about “corruption in journalism”, they’d damn well start a new hashtag.
This bullshit is particularly strong with the people who don’t follow the playbook to condemn the threats — they just are outraged that people are making connections between online threats and #GamerGate. How dare she!
Examples taken from your link to the Twitterz:
Nothing says “Not Misogyny!” like prioritizing your hashtag over credible threats against women. *Snort*.
Argh, typo in the first line, that should be “she didn’t use the hashtag”. Stupid fingers.
I’ve said similar things before, and I’ll say this again now. If I was a game reviewer, award panelist, or publisher who’s sleeping with indie game developers in exchange for good reviews, awards, or contracts; Gamergate wouldn’t worry me. What’s the worst that will happen? If anybody finds out, Gamergate will go after her, not me. Then I can continue to get all the quid pro quo sex I can extort.
So… she posts a couple of memes that were critical of #GamerGate on twitter.
#GamerGate then flood that meme for a bit, before doxxing her.
Person who does not use the tag #GamerGate advertises the fact that he somehow now knows where she lives and threatens to come over and kill her.
Alright! So let’s imagine that this guy has nothing to do with #GamerGate and just wanted to make death threats against anybody at random, ok, cool.
So where did he get that information in order to make the threats credible? Even if he is not even remotely associated with #GamerGate, who was it that made her information public so that some random person outside of their control could do this?
This deniability seems rather implausible.
I see the solemn minute of non-death threats in memory of Frederic Tamler Sommers is over.
Can’t mourn all the ruddy day…
wow, that’s just stunning, in its lunacy. that said, these sound like the mad keening of a 16 year-old boy, in his parent’s basement, thinking he’s actually part of “Tron”. I almost wish one of these pathetic assholes would threaten my 21 year-old, gamer daughter, so we could track him down and make an example of him to his fellow, pathetic whiners. as prof. loomis says on LGM, “heads on pikes!”.
One of my favorite quotes from Ta-Nehisi Coates:
It appears that we also live in a country that may well be offended by sexism, but it’s very much more offended that anyone might actually charge as much.
@colin parry
Actually I’ve never heard a 16-year-old filled with such hatred, bile, disgust. False bravery? Tough-guy languange? Smarmy or “hip” violent humour? Maybe, but I think most 16-year-olds don’t express themselves like this. And I’ve heard plenty of 30-50 year olds spew this kind of shit. Although the author may be young, attaching this kind of thing to youth is only really an attempt to excuse the behaviour. Yes, some young men (and women) use crude and violent language, but reading those tweets I don’t think they have anything to do with youthful naivete or bravado. That person is fully responsible for their disgusting behaviour.
Just sayin’.