m19 said:
When Jack Thompson was being harassed, threatened, had games made about him where you could beat him up no one was calling for us to police the entire internet. No one was dismissing the entire community.
And since you mentioned something an MRA may say. They receive threats too and plenty of them. But you would rarely see the media come out with a head line, "Man threatened by viscous feminists".
Agreed. It's rare enough that I can only think of one example off the top of my head.
And that's not me being disingenuous. I literally can only think of one instance where a man being threatened by feminists made the news, at least recently. It was that Richard Dawkins incident, where he invited that girl up to his room for a drink.
But now that a woman's feelings are at stake suddenly we are being held to a higher standard and told to shut up because we are siding with abusers. Suddenly everything anyone says is discredited. That's a double standard.
...no, you're right. It is a double standard that when a woman threatens to rape someone, she's not taken seriously. But I thought I made it very clear that behavior like that was unacceptable no matter
who it was.
I agree that this shouldn't be about gender, but unfortunately, it is, and that attracts certain kinds of people. It's a feedback loop; the less you tell them to calm down, the more people think that it's acceptable, then more people with that mindset join the 'party', and they drive out the more moderate people who would be willing to speak out, until what used to be a fairly diverse community ends up having only one or two mindsets. I even used The Tea Party as this sort of behavior in action. I'm not just asking you to do everything you can to stop this behavior because it's reprehensible; I'm asking you to do it because if you don't, it will drown out your own voice. And you seem like a pretty reasonable guy. I don't want you to get drowned out.
Ironically calls to police the internet comes from people who don't engage with it. The same people who close down comments sections of their articles and rarely respond to anyone expect us to go around telling people to stop. What is it exactly that we are supposed to do? Say that harassment is wrong? We been collectively saying that for along time.
Yes. You tell them to stop. But you don't
just tell them to stop. You beg them to stop. You
plead with them to stop. You make them understand that there is a way that you have chosen to conduct yourselves, and that their behavior isn't adhering to that. You explain to them that people pay more attention to inane death threats than actual, real discussion, and that their actions are doing more to harm the cause they're championing than help it. You sit them down and you
tell them that their behavior is
unacceptable, that it reflects poorly on you and the rest of the group, and that you will not be having it.
And if that doesn't work, you
demand they stop. You
demand they stop because they are
embarrassing themselves. Because they are embarrassing
you. Because for every person who will be cowed into silence by being threatened with murder or rape, two or three or five or ten more moderate, more reasonable people are going to leave the discussion, most of them from your side. Because
they make
you and everyone else who believes as you do, look like a
clown. And you repeat it as often as you can, to as many people as you can, with as much conviction as you can possibly muster. You make sure that there is
no question in
anyone's mind how you feel about harassment.
And this is something I thought I explained very clearly. So far as the #gamergate thing goes, I am genuinely indifferent. Is there corruption in journalism? Probably. There's corruption everywhere. If I'm going to combat corruption, I'm going to start a big higher up than an indie game reviewer[footnote]Say at...News Corporation[/footnote]. But people being harassed so much that they have to leave their homes?
That is unacceptable. That is not how we should conduct ourselves, and it is not something I will let slip through the cracks if I can help it.
Because the fact of the matter is, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of
this part of our culture, what we are, being the most prominent. I'm tired of every month hearing some new horror story about someone being harassed and threatened and pelted with contempt and aimless rage that they just have to
leave. I'm tired of everyone in my family over the age of fifty being worried about me going on a killing spree because I'm 25 years old and still carry around a battered DS. But more than anything else, I'm tired of it because
we're better than this.
mitchell271 said:
You know, ever since this bullshit started, I've been thinking that I'm just going to stay away from any discussions about gaming for a while, and maybe even permanently. If gaming has such a vocal community of children (or at least, they have the maturity of children), I want to distance myself from them as best I can. So, thank you to the OP and most of the people posting here for rational thought.
This is literally the
worst course of action you could possibly take. If the people around you are acting like children, you don't bow your head and ignore them, you stand up and tell them to
sit down and act like adults. You don't raise your voice, you don't flip your lid, you just affix them with a stare that could peel the paint off of a wall, and you make them
know that there will be repercussions if they continue their course of action.
Don't let yourself be intimidated. Stand up and say something, and say it loud and often. Because this problem won't go away on its own.
I feel like I'm missing out on all the fun now! What did the PM say exactly? 
