The Internet Hate Machine Strikes Again! · 2:21am Sep 9th, 2014
So, after many, many years of arguing over Magic cards, Dungeons & Dragons, fighting in the comments section of news articles across the internet, defending Twilight Sparkle getting wings, and otherwise being a total dork, I have at long last managed to make someone hate me enough to doxx me... for editing Wikipedia. Specifically, the articles about Zoe Quinn and the whole GamerGate nonsense - if you're not familiar with it, trust me, you're not missing anything, it is stupid internet drama at its finest which has somehow managed to get itself into Time magazine, The Guardian, Al-Jazeera, and numerous other sites, primarily via the power of the Streisand Effect.
And yes, for reference, it was, in fact, people involved with the social justice movement who doxxed me.
Good job, internet!
Anyway, for those of you who aren't aware, this isn't really a secret identity - my Deviantart page has my real name on it, as does my Skype account, Google Plus account, and many other places - but, hey, at least they tried, right?
I'm making this post mostly to let you guys know that, yes, I was doxxed, and no, it isn't a big deal. Someone sent me a private message - which I greatly appreciate! - and I just wanted to make it clear that yes, I am aware of this and, no, in fact, I am not freaking out over this.
I am not linking to the site in question, and I would appreciate it if others did not as well - not for my sake, but because they also doxxed another Wikipedia editor who is, according to the doxxers, both a minor and transgendered, going so far as to link to photographs of them. This is obviously Not Cool™ because it puts them in an extremely awkward situation if people around them IRL don't know. It would be best to avoid increasing the profile of said page for their sake; it doesn't even make the first page for me. If you must link to the page elsewhere for some reason, use Do Not Link.
And yes, this means that some people involved with the social justice movement doxxed a transgendered teenager because they said something they didn't like on Wikipedia.
Stay classy, internet, stay classy.
Wow... I'd say I'm sorry it happened to you, but it appears you don't care. However, that is absolutely reprehensible that they'd do it in such a way as to put that other Wikipedia editor in a shitty situation like that. I am very sorry that that happened...
Also, despite reading the Do Not Link website, I don't understand what its purpose is.
What does doxxed mean?
Wow. I didn't even know there was a word specifically for that. And now that I do, I realize that I may very well have a case of doxxophobia.
In any case, sorry it happened, but I'm glad to hear it's not that big a deal for you.
Hey, look, people are still being ass holes to each other. Thank God, I was starting to get worried about us for a second there.
2439760
Google and some other search engines rank search results by, among other things, who links to which pages, using what language, and how much they link to them. Do Not Link's purpose is to prevent the Google bots from picking up on a link to the website, in question; thus, you can link to something like this, or a hate site, or something else which you don't want to rise in the Google search results, but DO want to have people see for some reason. It is frequently used to link to sites like Stormfront and other such places, as well as in cases of doxxing, to avoid further propagating their message.
2439766
Doxxing is the release of personal, private information online. Name, address, telephone number, ect.
A lot of the time, it is the power and shock of revealing to someone that they aren't anonymous on the internet; the idea is more or less to scare them, though it sometimes leads to other forms of harassment (Swatting, prank phone calls, and even sometimes threats over the telephone or by other means). It isn't terribly effective against me because A) I'm not trying to be anonymous and B) I have no illusions about my personal anonymity, as I have figured out ways via Google to get all of this information anyway.
In this case, they found my business records with the State of Oregon, which was a lot of work when they could have just looked at my Deviantart account.
Glad to see that the Internet is the same as always.
2439760
It prevents the link from getting 'heat' from the traffic. If the link is posted normally, 'heat' will gather and boost its ranking on search engines, thus exposing the information to more people.
*By heat, I mean traffic statistics, which are used in calculating the page rank of a website.
2439788
2439806
Oh, alrighty. That makes much more sense now. Thank you both!
SJW's have always been worse at doing shit like this man. They have a FAR more aggressive "conform or die" mentality. Same reason they threatened a 13 year old with death because he defended a comedians right to tell offensive jokes.
What were you doing that got them so worked up? I've gotta figure out how to blame you here.
2439788
Huh.
This actually freaks me out a bit.
I'd HATE for anonymous people on the internet to know where I live or what my telephone number is.
2439824
I just wrote a big, long explanation because I felt like a short one didn't do it justice, but I'm not really sure if you WANT to know about the whole thing, because it is stupid as hell.
The shortest explanation which would make any sense is that the event which set the whole thing off was slut-shaming by Zoe Quinn's ex (as well as a rant about how she violated all of the principles of social justice that she advocated for, as he, too, was involved in the social justice movement - ironically, something which has been almost completely ignored by the internet), which makes it impossible to write the article without mentioning it, because it is at its core two competing stories - the social justice types are enraged because they see the whole thing as her sleeping with people who advanced her career, and therefore slut-shaming, while the gamers are enraged because she slept with people who advanced her career, and therefore corruption. And naturally, the former see the later as nothing but horrible, misogynistic pigs while the latter see the former as using feminism as a shield against criticism of bad behavior.
Some folks are very, very adamant that no mention be made of this in the article, despite this being the source of the entire thing, and protest the idea that any mention be made of the allegations of industry corruption, because clearly, the whole thing is slut shaming. And then they want to use articles which are basically rants about how all gamers are sexist pigs as sources.
It isn't pretty.
I'm honestly very surprised that the GamerGate people aren't piling in and yelling about how horribly corrupt the whole thing is, but oddly, almost all of the issues have been from the social justice types. I was really expecting wading into the article to have to defend the article from the gamers, but it really has been quite the reverse.
I've actually been pretty polite all told, and trying to play nice despite people accusing me of being a misogynist.
There are also a lot of other Wikipedia issues which are involved as well behind the scenes, and much as I am saying that the SJWs are behaving badly, some of them have been helpful; it really has mostly been two or three people who were jerks, and one of them has gotten more civil after several folks told him to simmer down (though he is still getting in arguments, at least they aren't resulting in accusations of a conspiracy anymore). A lot of what goes on behind the scenes at Wikipedia is really bizarre if you aren't familiar with Wikipedia rules and culture.
EDIT: And while I said "who advanced her career", there is no clear causal link between her sleeping with them and them advancing her career - it is very likely that the whole thing is people not being able to keep their pants zipped - but when you sleep with someone right after they write a positive thing about you in the press (which happened), or right before they hire you (which also happened), that looks really bad.
But a lot of the people involved don't want to actually understand the other side's point of view.
Also, most of the controversy isn't even really about Zoe Quinn anymore, if it ever really was. She just was the spark to set off some long-term resentment.
2439857
What really surprises people, I think, is that so much information is out there; a lot of doxxing is really about compiling information which is on obscure places on the internet. That's why I was amused that they went to such great lengths as to find my stuff via the State of Oregon, because I know of much better ways to get that same information.
The main thing is finding some thread which connects someone with a real name; if they have your real life name, they probably can find out your address and telephone number somehow.
Dropping dox is reprehensible. We are pseudonymous for a reason.
This might sound a bit like a No-True-Scotts-Man, butas a skeptic, it could be a case of scummy ponies using good name for making themselves look good, but ruining the good name they use.
Social justice is a good thing, but these are scummy ponies using the name. I am a skeptic. I require evidence before accepting claims. Deniers (those that refuse to accept claims despite the affirming evidence) call themselves skeptics because it sounds better than denier. This makes us skeptics look bad. I shall give an example:
Back in 1903, a skeptic upon hearing about the flight of the 1st airplane, would be skeptical. After observing the flight of the airplane the skeptic would accept the claim that denser-than-air travel is possible.
In 2014, a denser-than-air-travel-skeptic in an airport ranting and raving about how denser-than-air-travel is impossible while airplanes take of and land is not a skeptic but a denier. Particularly, this is a denser-than-air-travel-denier.
This could be a real offshoot of the Social Justice Movement like the GenderFeminists are an offshhot of the Feminist Movement:
Femism started as a movement for equality between mares and stallions. The genderfeminsists are a bunch of extremists believing that all stallions are evil suppressors and rapists. The greatest accoplishment of the genderfeminists was the sinking of the Equal Rights Amendment:
It takes ¾ of the states to amend the US-Constitution (other ways exist, but we talk about the path of the Equal Rights Amendment). At 1st, states signed on rapidly, but with the extremism of the genderfeminists in the news, states stopped calling for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment and states rescinded their support. Then genderfeminists stole defeat from the jaws of victory:
At its peak, 35 of the 38 states needed to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment ratified it, but the shenanigans of the genderfeminists caused ratification to stall and 5 states to withdraw support.
The majority of feminists, many of whom are stallions, who support Equality between stallions and mares started calling themselves EquityFeminists for distinguishing themselves from genderfeminists. The EquityFeminist Christina Hoff Sommers documents the emergence of genderfeminism in the 1960s and its growth in the 1970s, when it killed the Equal Rights Amendment in her 1994-Book, “¿Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women”. The subtitle of the book is a reference to how with female genderfeminists in Feminism derailing everything, ¿who need male misogynous pigs?
2439932
I know; in fact, I remember the time I accidentally found out all the personal information of a guy on this site, which...wasn't a pleasant feeling.
2439908
Oddly enough, on Tumblr, I've heard rumors that Zoe Quinn had allegedly mentally abused her ex-boyfriend (the info is all publicly available on the ex's blog, apparently), and I'm...really confused by the fact that neither side mentions this at all
2440540
Zoe Quinn's actions are pretty indefensible on the whole, honestly. But...
The news doesn't report on it because Zoe Quinn being an awful person isn't news - no one cares. Zoe Quinn isn't famous or important. So why should they report on it?
The GamerGate people don't care that Zoe Quinn is a horrible person because they're more interested in the whole corruption of journalism angle. Also, frankly, it just kind of goes without saying - the basic assumption they make is that she is a terrible human being. So they don't talk about it because they all agree on this point.
The social justice folks aren't saying it because, well, they're defending her.
So, no one is talking about it because it is either not interesting to them or because it would work against their point.
The reality is that while Zoe Quinn set this whole thing off, it isn't really about her at all - it is a fight over corruption, disrespect, and social justice.
2440603
Your argument sounds correct, accurate, and...it makes me extremely sad.
The worst part, for me, is that at least in the abstract I'm in actually in favor of the ideals that Social Justice claims to represent...but the actions of its loudest proponents are so bad and nonsensical they make me want to turn my back on the whole thing :-(
Maybe this is a byproduct of the fact that in a large enough groups, douchebags always rise to the top (or, rather, they become more visible)?
Or is it the fact that there's a toxic mentality that attaches a moral dimension to belonging to groups you didn't choose to belong to?
(instigating the sad, sad things that are Oppression Olympics and reverse racism in select groups) (hells, cishet white truscum is a slur no matter how you try to frame it).
2440629
The sad fact of the matter is that the social justice movement is somewhere in between a cult and identity politics. It shares many similarities with a cult. Consider a list of warning signs from cult education:
A lot of them apply, and several which don't, don't because they aren't really a coherent group. They also frequently engage in Love Bombing of new/existing members, as well as social ostracism of people who disagree with the movement, encouraging people to cut off contact with or behave aggressively towards people who don't kowtow to the group's line.
Indeed, you can see in one of the logs with Zoe Quinn that her ex put out that she encouraged him to keep quiet - and to help her keep Bogg's wife quiet - because it would "damage the movement" and they would lose an "important voice" for feminism in gaming if it came out, which is classic cult behavior (and indeed the behavior of abusers in general - the defense of priests by the Catholic Church to suppress reports of child molestation is another prominent example of this sort of thing).
The other half of it is identity politics, which is basically all about promotion of a group's self-interests at the expense of everyone else.
That's what's wrong with the social justice movement - in the end, they aren't actually interested in social justice, they're interested in themselves, as seen by their frequent attacks on people, including minorities who they are supposedly protecting, who don't get in line with them. The doxxing of the person in question in this instance is a great example of that - were someone else to doxx a trangendered teenager, they would be outraged. But because they did it, it was okay, because it was to help the movement.
That's not to say that people don't advocate for these things, but that the sort of tumblr groupthink of the so-called Social Justice Warrior types is not really useful or healthy, and isn't really about making the world a better place so much as making themselves feel special and important.
I'd say "fuck Zoe Quinn," but I think she'd try to take me up on it if she thought I'd plug her game.
Her aside, I've never really trusted gaming journalism with opinions on games because most of them are sponsored by one developing group or another. Sponsorship lends itself to bias a lot.
Holy crap!
Just five minutes ago, I read a mention on ED of someone getting doxxed for editing that article, then I decided to check if anyone on FimFic has mentioned the whole GamerGate shitstorm, found your blog, and realized one of the victims was actually you (the screencap on ED would have given it away as well, but I only looked at the tagline at the time). Small world...
By the way, I was thinking about mentioning the issue in my own blog. Not because I want to perpetuate the drama, but because the whole "lack of journalistic integrity in video game-related publications" issue got me thinking about whether the brony community could use similar scrutiny. Yeah, I know it may sound silly at first, but this community also sets a lot of money and publicity and whatnot in motion from time to time (conventions, charity events, game development, etc.), and with most of its members hooked on the "leave bronies alone!" rhetoric (understandable, since it still tends to get bad press in the mainstream media), we seldom get to hear about real "sins," so to speak, committed by certain individuals who either identify as "bronies" or as "supporters of bronies," even though there have been examples in the past. Now, I'm not saying I've been the most inquisitive when it came to these matters, and there were probably multiple places where they did get publicity, but I do remember there being little to no mention of these incidents on the most popular brony-related sites (e.g EQD).
All that said, do you think it's worth the trouble?
2452130
Oh boy, I'm on ED now? Yay, I am internet famous.
Maybe someday I'll even have my own article, and then I'll be a real boy. Or, dragon. Or whatever.
Honestly, as far as the fandom goes... ehhhh. Dunno, really. I mean, we all heard about DashCon or whatever the ballpit thing was. I'm not sure how much interest there is in such things in the brony community, to be honest; if someone is scamming people out of money, obviously that is worth mentioning, but... yeah.
Or were you referring to the GamerGate thing? Because in that case, I think that the gaming journalism outfits need to clean themselves up, or, alternatively, if people are angry about them and they refuse to change, people need to create better ones.
2452130
Incidentally, where on ED did you find the screencap? I'm looking through the GamerGate article but not finding it.
2453493
It's in the image gallery at the very end ("pics"). Expand and scroll down to the last (latest?) image. Tagline is "SJW's doxing a 10 year old tranny for editing Zoe's wikipedia article"
2453486
Both. Or, to be more specific, create a parallel between the GamerGate drama and the bronies' own "news sources." ED alone has two articles about subjects that used to be heavily featured on places like EQD (I won't name any names). Then, once the shit hit the fan, all discussion of these subjects vanished. Not another word. It was as though the most popular sites wanted to avoid talking about anything negative in order to fabricate a flawless public image of bronies. Understandable and not exactly unwarranted, given all the bad press they get, but it also draws the kind of criticism that is a lot more difficult to defend oneself against.
The brony documentary made a couple of years ago is another example. Aside from the usual childish poo-flinging in the mainstream media, a lot of people, bronies included, criticized it for doing an extremely biased representation of the fandom. Instead just providing an inside look with a neutral tone, which would help, they said it basically went "BRONIES ARE AWESUM! FUK U IF YOU HAET US!!11!1!" and completely omitted mention of the "darker sides" of the community. The creators had a good point about that stuff already having plenty of "coverage" thanks to people calling bronies "gay," "pedos," etc., but if we can't come clean about all this, then how should we expect anyone to take us seriously?
I do praise EQD for how they reacted to the whole "Fighting is Magic C&D" incident. They told everyone to calm down and face the facts. Well done. At the same time, however, most of this stuff is retroactive. They promote charities and whatnot without a hint of suspicion, then commence radio silence once something takes a wrong turn. They promote game devs without any sign of all the legal concerns they were later "experts" of once the C&Ds rolled in.
The GamerGate issue proves two things: 1) internet news media is far from ineffectual (being able to turn certain games into huge hits, and their creators into "the face of indie gaming") and 2) it becoming corrupted has plenty of repercussions. Now, I'm not saying the brony community suffers similar problems at the moment (then again, how could we even know?) However, the amount of money and fame that gets thrown about from time to time makes this scenario just as risky as the aforementioned scandal. Maybe it's time we took a look at ourselves. For all I know, it's unnecessary, but I'm sure it can't hurt.
2453943
Equestria Daily is, fundamentally, a very elaborate blog. Sure, there's an editorial staff and such, but it isn't... well, meant to be a "news source" on bronies, at least not in the conventional sense of such. It is run by one person who is clearly involved in it all.
That's really the thing - people have these ideas about these places, but they aren't really supported. How many games journalism outlets are there in reality which actually have professional standards? If there are even five, I'd be shocked. Kotaku is classified as a gaming blog site by Wikipedia; it isn't even close to the equivalent of CNN.
There's nothing wrong with news blogs, but you always have to remember that they are ultimately blogs and not real news sources. They aren't generally trying to be, either.
Frankly, the real problem is single-source news - if you only ever read one source, how much news are you going to get?
As far as legal stuff goes - frankly, they don't care. They aren't responsible for other people breaking the law, and if they link to cool stuff, they're very unlikely to get sued. And most of this stuff isn't the sort of thing which even brings about lawsuits.
I would be VERY leery of donating to ANY charity promoted by anyone, ever. Unless they're reputable, and they have an independent reputation for being reputable, I just don't trust them.
2453958
This is kinda straying into the argument about how several gaming news websites said stuff along the lines of "well if you don't like how we do it, then GTFO (and make your own)." Places that have a ton of traffic do have (indirect) influence over what becomes popular. This, in my opinion, should warrant a level of responsibility from those who operate them, if for nothing but to avoid looking bad if they're otherwise innocent, in the same way that when EQD's creator got featured on the brony doc, he (presumably) did not make a fool of himself and give his blog a bad name.
Sure, it's "just a blog." It's a blog that hyped an ill-fated brony convention while it was coming up and ceased all mention of it afterward. But I'm not trying to have a go at EQD here. Not even at the "bigger names" in the fandom in general. My point is this: so far, the majority of the brony fandom's "calls to action" have been toward external entities. Meanwhile, (a portion of) gamers are now stuck in this internal "culture struggle" or whatever after they realized how an alarming number of their influential members placed their own interests before that of the whole community. It was a colossal nosedive for their reputation, particularly for that of the whole "indie scene." Perhaps this is the first real sign of another crash in the VG industry that many have expected for years.
Maybe it would be neat to see a similar moment of introspection among bronies. Is it okay that certain members make money off the fandom? And I don't just mean scamming, but by riding the coattails of a successful franchise in general. Are we giving to the right charities? The right game devs? Are we still all about "love and tolerate"? The "EQG hate discussions" certainly don't give me that impression. Will this end up as a dying fad eventually?
Are bronies dead?
Okay, I cluttered up the comments here for long enough. Maybe I should go and write that blog after all...
2453978
Well, I wouldn't promote dubious charities, but I'm me. I don't really even promote non-dubious charities.
Thing is, they get excited about stuff. Afterwards, when it was a disaster... how much was there to talk about, really? Other folks were covering it. I thought it made a post about it being a mess and then was done with it. You don't really need 24/7 coverage of people doing stupid things; we already have 24 hour news networks for that.
Thing is, your responsibility is ultimately to your readers, because if your readers stop trusting you and stop visiting your site then you stop mattering. That may seem silly, but, well, that's the way it is. If their offense is so bad that they lose readers, they get punished by losing money.
As far as the "culture struggle" goes - honestly, I see that even outside of it. The problem is that the so-called "social justice warriors" are no different from the tea party crazies - they're tribalistic fanatics. And there's lots of tribalism online because it is easy to find an echo chamber for yourself.
I doubt that any of this will really crash the industry - frankly, if they fall, it will be because people are producing lots of cheap, lousy games. I think the AAA industry is fine. I think that the indie game devs need to clean house - or have thier houses cleaned. But frankly, I think eventual bankruptcy is all the justice needed.
Hasbro is ultimately in charge of whether or not people making money off of all this are legit; I do object to people making products which compete with Hasbro, but if Hasbro isn't supplying something, I just have to wonder: why aren't you doing this, Hasbro? Why did it take so long to decide to make plushies?
I don't give to charities; who you give to is your own business.
Game developers who are making pony games are attempting to get C&D orders unless they have permission from Hasbro. Giving money to any of them is likely a poor idea.
The community has never been about love and tolerate.
And yes, the fad will die eventually. In fact, it is already kind of dying a bit now; the peak of interest was last December according to Google Trends.
2454012
AAA is doing just fine. They learned their lesson, and will just keep smothering us in comfortable mediocrity.
The "indie scene," on the other hand, is bound to meet its day of reckoning. Among other things, it has to answer for why it still tries to pass itself off as "indie" when it now plays with far bigger toys and uses tactics that puts EA to shame.
2454012
I wrote that blog I mentioned I might do. Just thought I'd mention in case you're still interested in this mess.
Saw you being talked about in the GamerGate threads on reddit, and I want to thank you, for standing up to what's right and not being afraid of assaults to your person. Keep fighting the good fight.