Was it fair how Jack Thompson was treated?

[aliengmr]

People seem to be forgetting just how angry Jack Thompson was. The media was probably wise not to talk about his death threats, as Jack was out to sue the shit out of everyone. Thankfully he lost his license to practice law. That doesn't make the death threats okay, but that dude was losing his mind at the end. It was probably best just to ignore him at the time.

If Twitter were around then, the outcome might have been very different.

 

[Silvanus]

So the fact this reached the Red Cross and reached a level that they felt they had to issue a statement like that says nothing about the concern?

Not on its own, no. People believe countless baseless and inaccurate things, and organisations are frequently required to dispel rumour.

An example: every year, the British tabloids run the same story about how charities are supposedly banning Christmas from their shops across the UK. The organisations have to dispel these rumours. They have not a grain of truth to them, and it lends the rumours no credence that the organisations must do so.

 

[Dragonbums]

I am wholly neutral to Anita. The only reason I come off as "pro" is because I can't wrap my head around why people continously blow up her videos to such insane heights. They are nothing special, and there are so many other people who talk about this that are better at it than her. I can't even get mad at her. I don't' see the point. Unlike Thompson where he couldn't be ignored because he had very real legal, censoring power, Anita is someone who you can ignore and she goes into obscurity. Yet we keep bringing her back to the forefront again and again and again.

I don't actively seek out Anita's stuff, I mostly share your opinion when it comes to her. Her videos are dull and in terms of feminist theory she doesn't present any interesting angles. My main problem with her is the excess Kickstarter money rather than her approach to feminism (though that irks me too). It's a problem I have with many Kickstarter projects, huge sinkholes of money and promises that aren't fulfilled. I know I repeated the £150k point over and over again but I have talked to a few backers that felt regret for their donations. They're probably a small minority but they're there.

I'm probably not helping by talking so much about her but I figured if most of the "discussion" was between paranoid idiots that think feminists are coming to take their stupid power fantasy games away the least I could do is offer a somewhat sober point of view.

I can see where your coming from. We clearly agree on the fact that she is made a bigger deal as it is. I guess I'm just tired of her being talked about as a thing when ignoring her would of solved the problem. This isn't directed at you but as us as a community. Me talking about Anita also contradicts my own point but....what can ya do. It's just that all the info coming in about current Anita news aren't her fans, aren't people who dislike her, or even people who criticize her. It's people who hate her so much they will dig through years and hours worth of shit she said once upon a time and rage like crazy about it....just...how is this productive? I would go insane doing that.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Jack Thompson deserved most of the flak he got, including being disbarred and all that. It was not right that he received death threats or other threats of violence.

I agree completely. The man was out to create a moral panic just to further his own career, and he didn't care what lies he used to do it. That the bulk of his work has been completely destroyed and his name turned into both a cautionary tale and a joke goes a long way in any argument about his conduct and the way he was treated. Violent threats are always inexcusable, though.

I have to admit it really creeps me out how much Leigh Alexander reminds me of him. Thank god she isn't a lawyer.

captcha: egg on. Really, captcha? I think tensions are high enough as it is.

 

[Toilet]

What if I said it's okay to have negative depictions of women in games and media as long as people are educated on why it's bad and how it's not real. Anita and her ruse crusaders aren't educating, they are simply saying pointing and saying "This is bad for women, don't do this." without further explaining why it's bad in detail without saying "This enforces the patriarchy, its caters to straight white males."

Watch all of Anita's videos and count how many times she says "straight white males" and then you'll see why so many gamers are mad, it feels like an attack. When you imply a culture is sexist or misogynist you also imply that people in the culture is sexist and misogynist as well which is the wrong approach. Educate and don't attack and gamers wont get all defensive and attack back.

 

[Something Amyss]

Weird. One of my latest blog posts included saying that Thompson's treatment wasn't (wholly) right. However....

I think the biggest difference between Jack Thompson and what you mention is that Mr. Thompson was actively trying to have video games censored under a law forbidding their sale to people under a certain age, if they could be sold at all. Given Mr Thompson was an actual lawyer under the bar, he posed what could be considered a real and emminent threat to not only video games, but culture as a whole, given his status.

On the other side, I haven't actually heard anyone I would take serious on the feminist side advocate for banning video gamjes with negative depictions of female characters. They mostly just ask for stronger, or at least more fairly treated, female characters in video gaming.

Nailed it in one.

That being said, I don't condone the way Mr. Thompson was treated.

I just want to say that this is a guy, however, who claimed that video games made us violent and were murder trainers. He then encouraged making a game where the player shoots up developers. He was a bully and a thug who harassed people. And while I don't condone the notion that two wrongs make a right, I suspect if the current group of people in question had done anything actually approaching that (rather than conspiracy theories), we'd be having a very different discussion right now.

As it is, it's like saying racists on Xbox Live are just as harmful as the KKK.

I also have to agree with Netrigan.

If you're upset at the man for saying video games cause violence and want to show video game players are peaceful folks, then death threats are not a particularly good way to prove your point.

Indeed. It seems we do more as a community to augment the stereotypes than the "other side" does.

 

[WhiteNachos]

Thompson also (claims to have) received death threats and the gaming media was all too happy to stand by and let it happen.

Let it happen?

How exactly could they have stopped them?

Dude was getting threats by email. How exactly would the press be able to stop it from happening? Condemning it doesn't guarantee it'll stop.

The gaming media could - and should - have run some articles about it. They could've sent the message that sending death threats to a guy who claims that games make people violent only makes the gaming community look bad.

This was several years ago, I'm pretty sure there were some but I'm not 100% sure. But you have to remember that this was before twitter took off and Jack didn't have a youtube channel. If he was getting any threats they were either sent to him by email or made in the comment section of articles on gaming websites, made by people who assumed Thomspon wasn't reading them. He shared the threats he got through email but not all the time.

And still most of those threats were and are empty anyway. They'd just be a hater venting through email or an internet tough guy. They were easy to ignore and still are. Still, saying that gaming websites need to have condemned them is like saying that regular Muslims need to make public condemnations every time Muslim terrorists do something rotten when they have no connection to the terrorists other than a shared religion.

Do they need to react every time some shmuck sends empty threats while trolling or venting on the internet?

Why not? Jim Sterling certainly took a position like that in his Jimquisition-video The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade, and Bob has also taken a similar position in plenty of his GameOverthinker videos (see Building A Better Gamer for a good example).

Why not? Well imagine if every time someone who shares your hobby called someone a fag on the internet you had to make a comment condemning them. You'd be doing it all the time.

There's no guaranteed way for people to stop the abuse coming from people they don't know. They can condemn them and ask them to stop but asking is all they can do. That's my point. We can't stop these people from being gamers and we can't stop them from sending abuse if they wanted to. We can't take away their internet, we can't take away their email and we can't take away their games. The justice system could, so all we can do is report them to the police if they're sending threats or repeatedly sending abusive message which would constitute harassment (at least in the US, maybe your country doesn't have as strict free speech protections).

 

[WhiteNachos]

I just want to say that this is a guy, however, who claimed that video games made us violent and were murder trainers. He then encouraged making a game where the player shoots up developers.

For the record he was not serious about this. He was trying to make a point, and he called the idea 'a modest video game proposal'.

 

[Something Amyss]

Anita and her ruse crusaders aren't educating, they are simply saying pointing and saying "This is bad for women, don't do this."

Okay, point to where she specifically said "don't do this."

To the contrary, it looks like the real Anita is doing exactly what you say people should do--make people be cognizant of such tropes.

I'm guessing you meant Anita Strawkeesian?

 

[WhiteNachos]

Anita and her ruse crusaders aren't educating, they are simply saying pointing and saying "This is bad for women, don't do this."

Okay, point to where she specifically said "don't do this."

I can't think of an instance where she says that word for word but she says that doing some things is irresponsible and she says that other tropes can/will have a negative real world impact, so she might as well.


Edit: And he wasn't talking about Anita Sarkeesian he was talking about Mrs. Bath (sorry, couldn't resist).

 

[Toilet]

Anita and her ruse crusaders aren't educating, they are simply saying pointing and saying "This is bad for women, don't do this."

Okay, point to where she specifically said "don't do this."

To the contrary, it looks like the real Anita is doing exactly what you say people should do--make people be cognizant of such tropes.

I'm guessing you meant Anita Strawkeesian?

Read the rest of my post. Concentrate real hard on the parts where she says "straight white males" (or variations of the phrase) in her videos because that is a specific.

When you say a culture is sexist you also imply that the people inside the culture are also sexist. Therefore it feels like an attack which which is not helped by her constantly calling out "straight white males" in her videos. You can't educate your audience if you alienate a good chunk of your audience.

I don't disagree with Anita, I'm saying her vidoes could have been handled better that doesn't alienate half her audience. Watch Laci Green and her channel on youtube for a much better example. In the video I have linked Laci says "Shitty commercial after shitty commercial using women's bodies to sell everything from A to Z." where Anita likes to punctuate her examples with a "straight white male" which is alienating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4dPB9MVS8&list=UUJm5yR1KFcysl_0I3x-iReg

 

[Something Amyss]

Read the rest of my post. Concentrate real hard on the parts where she says "straight white males" (or variations of the phrase) in her videos because that is a specific.

That doesn't address my question or change your statement.

However, if you feel you you're being attacked by repetition of a phrase, then clearly gaming is attacking women and you're validating Anita Strawkeesian. Have some self awareness.

 

[Toilet]

Read the rest of my post. Concentrate real hard on the parts where she says "straight white males" (or variations of the phrase) in her videos because that is a specific.

That doesn't address my question or change your statement.

However, if you feel you you're being attacked by repetition of a phrase, then clearly gaming is attacking women and you're validating Anita Strawkeesian. Have some self awareness.

Okay, fair. I was wrongfully strawmanning. You're being obtuse and putting across my view is pointless if you're going to cherry pick my argument and purposely not understand.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

There's no guaranteed way for people to stop the abuse coming from people they don't know. They can condemn them and ask them to stop but asking is all they can do. That's my point. We can't stop these people from being gamers and we can't stop them from sending abuse if they wanted to. We can't take away their internet, we can't take away their email and we can't take away their games. The justice system could, so all we can do is report them to the police if they're sending threats or repeatedly sending abusive message which would constitute harassment (at least in the US, maybe your country doesn't have as strict free speech protections).

Thing is: the gaming press not only didn't condemn that Thompson was being harassed and threatened by some gamers, but refused to so much as acknowledge that it was happening. And it's funny that some of your other points like:

And still most of those threats were and are empty anyway. They'd just be a hater venting through email or an internet tough guy.

or

Well imagine if every time someone who shares your hobby called someone a fag on the internet you had to make a comment condemning them. You'd be doing it all the time.

There's no guaranteed way for people to stop the abuse coming from people they don't know.

are decried as excuses in other contexts. If someone reacted similarly to news of, say, Anita Sarkeesian being threatened then it wouldn't go over so well. Watch the Jimquisition-episode The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade to see what I mean.

 

[CaitSeith]

Was it fair how Jack Thompson was treated? In my opinion, mostly. When you said "treated" I suppose you meant "harassed". Well, Jack Thompson wasn't just harassed. Countless times the industry and the community tried to have open dialog, middle ground offers and projects beneficial for both parts. His usual response has been "screw you, murderers trainers!". So the gaming side was mostly fair in their ways on dealing with him; he wasn't.

Captcha PS: which one is hardest? Food for the thought...

 

[CaitSeith]

I didn't disagree with Thompson's attempts to prevent minors from accessing violent (or "mature", to be more precise) videogames. Here in Australia, it's illegal to sell M and higher rated games to minors.

I get that US free speech law made things muddy, but I'm of the view rating boards' ratings should be legally binding.

Thompson was kinda crazy, but that didn't make him completely wrong.

But that was just an insignificant part of his agenda. His main goal was to ban the "mental masturbation" that the public called videogames.

 

[WhiteNachos]

There's no guaranteed way for people to stop the abuse coming from people they don't know. They can condemn them and ask them to stop but asking is all they can do. That's my point. We can't stop these people from being gamers and we can't stop them from sending abuse if they wanted to. We can't take away their internet, we can't take away their email and we can't take away their games. The justice system could, so all we can do is report them to the police if they're sending threats or repeatedly sending abusive message which would constitute harassment (at least in the US, maybe your country doesn't have as strict free speech protections).

Thing is: the gaming press not only didn't condemn that Thompson was being harassed and threatened by some gamers, but refused to so much as acknowledge that it was happening.

Bullcrap. I just googled Jack Thompson threats and I found several articles from 2005-2006 from game sites talking about them.

And it's funny that some of your other points like:

And still most of those threats were and are empty anyway. They'd just be a hater venting through email or an internet tough guy.

or

Well imagine if every time someone who shares your hobby called someone a fag on the internet you had to make a comment condemning them. You'd be doing it all the time.

There's no guaranteed way for people to stop the abuse coming from people they don't know.

are decried as excuses in other contexts. If someone reacted similarly to news of, say, Anita Sarkeesian being threatened then it wouldn't go over so well. Watch the Jimquisition-episode The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade to see what I mean.

Point is that getting empty threats from strangers on the internet isn't a huge deal. It's kind of strange that 'woman receives abuse on the internet' is now news when people have talked about how terrible the people in comment sections are for a long time. SNL even did a sketch on it in 2011

Edit: I meant it wasn't a huge deal which explains why gaming sites didn't talk about them non stop.

 

[CaitSeith]

When you say a culture is sexist you also imply that the people inside the culture are also sexist.

No! No! And 100 times no! Only those who get easily offended (and potties) see it in such generalized way.

EDIT: Ok, I thought a little about it, a I still stand that it's not implicit. But people can perceive it easily like that, unless they already have the idea that people and culture aren't the same thing.

 

[CaitSeith]

It's a common sentiment in the anti-Anita crowd that I have come to despise. I actually don't know what Anita hopes to achieve because she never focusses on the big picture or on any end-goal (much like Jack Thompson).

I mean...she just makes videos about Tropes relating to women in gaming. It's like asking Yahtzee or Jimsterling, or the staff at Extra Credits what their "end goal" or bigger picture is. They just talk about shit.

She has an end-goal:

So too resonates the fleshing-out of her broader mission statement: To reclaim Feminism as a mainstream movement by wrenching it away from the arcane stuffiness of older Academia (I'm paraphrasing, since direct-recordings were not allowed as is standard practice for such presentations) and the angry-killjoy stereotypes foisted upon it by the Backlash Era [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postfeminism] of the 80s and 90s; and to do so by using the familiar language of movies, games and television - pop-culture, she opines, is what pedagogy is.

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