Misogyny and other gender issues. - The Bear and Badger

Brooks

Scroll up man.

Brooks

Well, after paging back now.

Yossarian

I haven’t seen any evidence in this case that ‘the mob’ was anything other than people calling out shitty behaviour on social media. If it moved beyond that into harassment, that’s different, but if not, I don’t think that ‘the mob’ can be held responsible for this.

Tempy

Vela wrote:

The mob is the people uninvolved. People can (and should) make allegations. People should also have presumption of innocence and legal rights. People who are neither witnesses or friends should mind their own rather than hound others on social media.

That is the mob, and it is never satiated because the individuals have no accountability or ability for introspection. It also provides cover for people who pretend to be woke who also go on to commit their own abuses.

Like the mob now loudly calling for Quinn’s death I guess

Tempy

Not that I want to wade in indelicately on this, but I don’t know what the expected course of action for people who have been abused is. Is it to keep quiet and circulate stuff in private, like folks did for years with Alexis Kennedy allowing him to carry on the same pattern of behaviour? If going public risks inciting a mob, what’s the other option?

Vela

Tempy wrote:

The mob is the people uninvolved. People can (and should) make allegations. People should also have presumption of innocence and legal rights. People who are neither witnesses or friends should mind their own rather than hound others on social media. That is the mob, and it is never satiated because the individuals have no accountability or ability for introspection. It also provides cover for people who pretend to be woke who also go on to commit their own abuses.

Like the mob now loudly calling for Quinn’s death I guess

No, those are an entirely separate level of unhinged.

Tempy wrote:

Not that I want to wade in indelicately on this, but I don’t know what the expected course of action for people who have been abused is. Is it to keep quiet and circulate stuff in private, like folks did for years with Alexis Kennedy allowing him to carry on the same pattern of behaviour? If going public risks inciting a mob, what’s the other option?

Police?

regmcfly

This is an inherently shitty decision emboldened by another more upsetting one. The question about the cycle of abuse is probably most important here. In order to break it, it must be addressed and dealt with. The bit that is being missed most across the internet is that the dead man's sister asked for no targeting in her final tweet. This was a troubled man who troubled others - and this doesn't make his actions okay.

regmcfly

And given the absolute shower of shite Quinn has had since the GG pish, including being no longer able to vote as your address has to go on record, it must have been something else for her to go on record with her claims.

regmcfly

Aside from dealing with this shit in work I have no voice about how this actually affects people so I should probably learn from a couple of weeks ago and shut up now.

djchump

Vela wrote:

Police?

C’mon, don’t be that guy.

hunk

What reg said. Once exposed, suicide is always a risk factor. I mean look at Epstein....

cosmicjellybean

It’s awful, all of it, and I hope everyone, and Quinn, is ok and getting professional help.

The amount of vitriol surrounding Quinn is staggering, and I don’t think personally I could deal with any of the shit they go through on a daily basis. It also reaffirms what stops people coming forward in the first place, say something and you will have to pay the price for it.

b0r1s

Agree with Reg here too. Though I’d add Twitter has some responsibility as well. It’s had lots of cases now where open abuse is allowed on the platform and rarely removed. Not sure what or how it can be controlled but when you read that the algorithm is designed to create conflict it’s clear Twitter wants the controversy.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/22/tech/twitter-algorithm-political-rhetoric/index.html

mistercrayon

It’s too easy to invoke Pandora’s box with the internet.

It feels like there were already networks that partially warned against the various individuals talked about last week. In one case it seemed like even when people were warned about a guy they still went with the guy.

It is troubling that even within these networks there seems to be a sense that they can only deal with it if uninvolved Parties (ie the whole Twitter world) voice their condemnation. Which doesn’t even make sense. There’s such an imbalance between the actual danger posed by any of these people and the amount of voices called to condemn when it seems perfectly possible that the people within those communities can and do have the apparatus to deal with it.

Perhaps if the intent was merely to be informational- help women or other men to be better or help break out some of this is justified but if it’s intended to break or cut out a person by using the whole world to ballast the justification then that is wretched.

Tempy

At a glance I saw far more support for the victims than blanket condemnations. Condemnations tended to be "we unequivocally stand with the abused" rather than "fuck kill destroy the abuser".

This all seems to just be speculations and reckons though, and is sort of leaning towards "they shouldn't speak out becuase bad things could happen." What's the current alternative? Twitter is and will be for a long time the place where networking is done for people in Games and Tech because it's instant and global. Women are afraid to speak out because of the power these men hold. Alexis Kennedy's immediate resonse to the allegations was "I will get legal help to silence this defamation", Jeremy Soule just rebuffed it with "that wasn't my read on the situation". It seems pointless to fold Holowka's specific case into this, which is clearly intertwined with a lot of people - when his siter explictly stated that she stood with those he had hurt, she (and Quinn) beleived in rehabiliation over time, stated this many times, and Alec chose to make a decision because he was a damaged person who felt he couldn't go on.

This isn't due to a mob baying for blood, in my eyes. And It makes me uncomfrotable that so much of the reaction to it seems to be trying to assume bad faith on those coming forward.

Yossarian

What Tempy said. I haven’t seen any evidence that this was anything beyond warning other people or offering support for the victims of abuse.

Tempy

The fact that Quinn & Co disappearing isn't becuase they're guilty of the guy's death, it's because they know for a fact that the fucking army of channers and GGers was aiming itself af them the second the story of the allegations broke, and right on cue you have folk like The Quartering painting a target on her instantly, conveniently ignoring all the context around events.

1*-SFB-Vu4Jv9zB4DPpyMJZw.png

Cancel culture can be weaponised, obviously, but this seems an incredibly bad situation to start bringing that discussion into when the clear through line is that abuse is present in the industry, people are performatively woke, and GG is still right there, harassing people in a manner that to me, at least, far outweights the dangers of "cancel culture".

If said culture was so powerful, how is Nick Robinson still on half a million subs and raking in cash and followers despite being "cancelled", and so on.

Tempy

Yossarian wrote:

What Tempy said. I haven’t seen any evidence that this was anything beyond warning other people or offering support for the victims of abuse.

I’m sure they have. The thing is trying to unpick which are sock puppets and which are damaged people and which are just assholes. If you look at almost any article or tweet about this stuff they’re flooded with people calling for justice for Holowka, which given his sister’s comments seems a bizarre angle. But it’s because the narrative was built 5 years ago.

djchump

The irony of an online mob agitating for justice against what they perceived to be another online mob agitation will be lost on them. Self-awareness not GG’s strong point.

mistercrayon

Twitters bluntness and it’s known that cranks can be unintentionally called to arms because those cranks want to be seen as “supportive” and “right” and “just” (note: gamer gate ostensibly on the basis of “ethics”). While it is possible that people can come out unscathed it is not surprising to me that the worst outcomes are possible and those outcomes do and have felt foreseeable.

Yossarian

It’s public approbation for bad behaviour. It’s what society does, it’s just that now we do it online.

Frankly, if you’ve treated people badly and people are calling you out for that on social media, maybe it’s better to just take a break from Twitter for a while?

As I say, if it crosses over into actual harassment, it changes things, but I have no issue with calling out abuse publicly, or people choosing to condemn the abuse of others.

JonB

Tempy wrote:

At a glance I saw far more support for the victims than blanket condemnations. Condemnations tended to be "we unequivocally stand with the abused" rather than "fuck kill destroy the abuser". This all seems to just be speculations and reckons though, and is sort of leaning towards "they shouldn't speak out becuase bad things could happen." What's the current alternative? Twitter is and will be for a long time the place where networking is done for people in Games and Tech because it's instant and global. Women are afraid to speak out because of the power these men hold. Alexis Kennedy's immediate resonse to the allegations was "I will get legal help to silence this defamation", Jeremy Soule just rebuffed it with "that wasn't my read on the situation". It seems pointless to fold Holowka's specific case into this, which is clearly intertwined with a lot of people - when his siter explictly stated that she stood with those he had hurt, she (and Quinn) beleived in rehabiliation over time, stated this many times, and Alec chose to make a decision because he was a damaged person who felt he couldn't go on. This isn't due to a mob baying for blood, in my eyes. And It makes me uncomfrotable that so much of the reaction to it seems to be trying to assume bad faith on those coming forward.

Well said.

mistercrayon

Yossarian wrote:

It’s public approbation for bad behaviour. It’s what society does, it’s just that now we do it online.

Frankly, if you’ve treated people badly and people are calling you out for that on social media, maybe it’s better to just take a break from Twitter for a while?

As I say, if it crosses over into actual harassment, it changes things, but I have no issue with calling out abuse publicly, or people choosing to condemn the abuse of others.

“Just” online. please.

Yossarian

Well no, I fully expect that someone in that position would also be receiving opprobrium offline too, I would expect that if they walked into a party they’d find people disapproving of them there too. That’s what happens if you treat people badly.

Yossarian

False accusations = wrong.

Harassment = wrong.

Disapproval of an individual’s bad behaviour in public = fine.

RedDave2

Yossarian wrote:

False accusations = wrong.

Harassment = wrong.

Disapproval of an individual’s bad behaviour in public = fine.

Taking the gender/sex assault side of it, how does someone prove they re false accused on twitter? I'm assuming there is no burden of proof for the accuser and once the lie is out, how soon before the truth catches up? And if enough people believe the lie, is it possible to ever prove the truth? .

#richardgeregerbal

Yossarian

While that’s a valid question, there’s no suggestion that it’s relevant to what’s happening here.

GooberTheHat

I would have thought that the risk of litigation for making public false allegations would be a considerable factor in dissuading people.

Yossarian

Not just that, there’s a hell of a lot of personal and professional fallout for making these sorts of accusations. It’s not something I’d subject myself to on a whim.

Tempy

People tend to make these accusations in light of significant private discussions having led them to believe that it is the right time to come forward and corroborate on supposition. Given the abused have often already suffered the professional consequences (see the people who reported the negative fallout from being caught up in Alexis Kennedy’s behaviour) in the form of lost job opportunities, being black listed, losing contacts etc I believe they are taking enough of a risk given the dynamics of the industry. I am sure there are liars and frauds out there but I am also sure it’s a significantly slim amount of people and again, doesn’t really seem to fit with the current allegations.

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