#Gamergate Discovers Its Ideal Audience: A Completely Mindless Bot

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Tom Scocca

10/15/14 03:00PM

Filed to: ELIZA

The open secret about the fabled Turing test is that the standard of humanity gets lower all the time. Even as computers become more and more sophisticated about replicating human communications, humans are becoming less and less sophisticated communicators.

Nowhere is this more true than in the realm of #Gamergate. The trolls and true believers are so eager for an audience—and so deeply uninterested in what anyone else has to say to them—that some ingenious soul has now tricked them into arguing their case with an Twitter bot that runs ELIZA, the antique and rudimentary chat program. And ELIZA seems to be winning.

Conor Tom Scocca 10/17/14 11:28AM

There will never be a critique of ethics in video game journalism where a few trolls don't target the person in the spotlight. If the journalists bother writing a story about the fact that their ethics suck the story is definitely going to be about the fact that everyone who thinks they've been behaving unethically is a troll. I don't even care about video games. I just see the fact that everyone is trusting what is literally the most corrupt news source out there to report on itself because it gives them a feeling of self righteous outrage to do so, and it makes me worry that the only reason conservative politics are dumber than liberal politics is that nobody's tried constantly lying to the liberals yet.

Tom Scocca Conor 10/17/14 11:41AM

Don't you even care about video games. you just see the fact that everyone is trusting what is literally the most corrupt news source out there to report on itself because it gives them a feeling of self righteous outrage to do so, and it makes you worry that the only reason conservative politics are dumber than liberal politics is that nobody's tried constantly lying to the liberals yet?

justknowokay Tom Scocca 10/16/14 03:59PM

Yes, we've established that a large number of the stopgamergate posts were done by bots, though I doubt that's what you meant to imply when you ran this latest hit piece to protect your friends over at Kotaku.

Tom Scocca justknowokay 10/16/14 04:15PM

We were discussing you, not me.

Tyrion's Beetle Chat Tom Scocca 10/15/14 03:23PM

Tom, why is this subject suddenly receiving so much press? I think I've seen more Gawker coverage of it in the past few days than in the entirety of whatever prior duration this has been ongoing. Clicks for days, or something?

Bill Dingus Tyrion's Beetle Chat 10/15/14 03:27PM

Probably has to do with the death threats against multiple game devs/journalists in the last week, all coming from the gamergate movement.

raitchison Tyrion's Beetle Chat 10/15/14 03:34PM

It doesn't hurt that Gawker, mostly via Kotaku, was under the microscope as part of the whole thing. Both for the (perceived or real) breach of ethics on the part of their writer as well as poor transparency and for being involved in the "death of gamers" nonsense which is what spawned "#GamerGate" in the first place.

I don't identify with "#GamerGate" but this blitz on Gawker sites today seems to reek of desperation. It seems that they are trying (and I suspect succeeding) in portraying anyone who does identify with "#GamerGate" as the kind of troll that sends death threats, despite my belief that those tools who harass or make threats make up less than 0.05% of all the people who have ever used the "#GamerGate" hashtag.

Either that or it's just business as usual for Gawker (more clickbait than you can shake a stick at).

Tyrion's Beetle Chat Bill Dingus 10/15/14 03:37PM

From these very articles it is indicated threats were being tossed around from the onset.

Bill Dingus Tyrion's Beetle Chat 10/15/14 03:42PM

You're right, there were death threats (even before #GG suddenly decided to become about 'ethics') but the threats against brianna wu last week and sarkeesian cancelling her talk yesterday, in addition to mainstream news talking about it over the weekend, have made a lot more people aware of it because of how close together the events happened. (at least that's my guess as to why it's suddenly blowing up outside of just gamer circles)

NeverthoughtIdsaythis raitchison 10/15/14 03:46PM

Yet the 99.95% of people who supposedly aren't harassing/threatening female devs/journalists have been stoically silent on the matter, and really haven't engaged anyone asking why they haven't distanced themselves from the hateful misogyny in a meaningful way. Most of what I've seen are people saying the women are making it up/calling for more threats because it's getting them press...

It's a big story, it's really fucked up, and it happened on their doorstep. Why wouldn't they cover it?

Zippy Zanderhoff raitchison 10/15/14 03:50PM

The funny thing is that when Kotaku wasn't reporting on the GamerGate thing right away, those in the movement were "just asking questions" on why Kotaku wasn't covering it.

Now that it is being reported on, now there's scrutiny for the fact that it's being covered.

You can't win with whiny people on the internet. If you don't report on their bullshit, then they accuse you of a cover-up. If you do report on them and don't agree with them, then it's obvious that your'e out to get them.

#GamerGate deserves to be taken as seriously as any other recent movement or quasi-scandal that tries to use the "gate" suffix to imply severity.

MarcabExpat Tyrion's Beetle Chat 10/15/14 03:54PM

Because multiple death threats in a few days? If you'd been paying attention, you'd know the whole thing is coming to a head. If you don't care about that, you should probably just stop paying attention again.

madeofradiation raitchison 10/15/14 03:54PM

All the bored teenagers who don't resent women and are actually concerned about ethics in video game journalism should drop the hashtag advocacy. The name is toxic and trying to stick with it and post endless "nuh uh" replies is a lost cause. Anyone who still associates with the "movement" is a misogynist, a fool, or both.

Those "death of the gamer" articles were celebrating the ubiquity of gaming and saying the title is needed as much as someone being called a "telephone user." Anyone who read past the headline would have seen that.

GamerGate keeps being news because its zealots keep finding new ways to embarrass and debase themselves.

raitchison NeverthoughtIdsaythis 10/15/14 04:06PM

Well I suspect that the majority of people who originally identified with "#GamerGate" are currently backing slowly out of the room because the whole thing either is or is being unfairly portrayed as such a cesspool. This is why I pointed out that the campaign to disparage "#GamerGate" was appearing to be successful.

As for accusations of the threats being made up or exaggerated, I totally get that when the reports are coming from someone with an honesty problem.

Luxurytweeting Bill Dingus 10/15/14 04:13PM

It's a little more than that.

Guys threaten to kill developers all the time over all manner of stupid shit. A game advertised as 1080p that downgrades to 720p at times, a lack of true widescreen, broken promises about control schemes, pushed back release dates, etc.

The thing is, nobody is actually going to kill anyone over these things. When people say the president of Blizzard should be shot for botching the launch of Diablo III, that's just a hormone-soaked mind impotently lashing out in everyday anger in the only way it knows how to handle that situation.

This is different. Why?

Because these guys don't hate men.

These guys LOATHE women.

Some of them do it because of their mothers. Some because of their sisters. Some because they were "nice guys" in high school and didn't drown in pussy as a result.

Wherever it comes from, it's there. These guys buried themselves in video games to escape the world that wasn't being "fair" to them and distract themselves from the crushing loneliness brought on by their refusal/inability to develop a personality women might find compelling and intriguing.

Now... Now these, these women... These bitches... These cunts... Want to step into their world? Like they have the fucking right to make video games? To talk about video games? To criticize video games? To criticize gamers? No, no, no. This isn't their world. How dare they think they can take all these guys have left?

No. Someone is gonna pay for this.

That's what makes this different. The first scenario is anger + testosterone. That's what results in tweeted death threats, screaming fits, holes in walls (if you add alcohol to the mix).

The second one is hatred + rage + testosterone + a feeling of persecution + a feeling of being cornered. That's a bad combo. That's the combo that leads men to do unreasonable things. Things like track down addresses and phone numbers of not just their targets, but also their target's families. Add to that a several-thousand-member "movement" egging them on and being egged on? It's not hard to imagine one of these guys taking the next step and actually hurting someone.

Bill Dingus Luxurytweeting 10/15/14 04:21PM

Thank you for saying it more eloquently than I could have :)

Tom Scocca raitchison 10/15/14 06:51PM

I don't identify with "#GamerGate" but

That is interesting. Please continue.

raitchison Tom Scocca 10/16/14 11:41AM

I did, at length.

What's your point?

Tom Scocca raitchison 10/16/14 12:03PM

Why are you concerned about my point?

Zippy Zanderhoff Tom Scocca 10/15/14 03:17PM

Is it winning? Or is that what the evil cabal of SJW shadow cultiststhat run Gawker media and its subsidiaries want us to think? It's all part of the plot to...destroy video games...or something?

JOURNALISM ETHICS!
BENGHAZI!

#GamerGateRedux

(Actually, I think #Gameghazi would be a better hashtag)

HighFives Zippy Zanderhoff 10/15/14 03:43PM

#GAMERTRAILS
#CHEMGATE
What are we talking about again?

Zippy Zanderhoff HighFives 10/15/14 03:46PM

#GameLandingHoax
#GamingLizardPeople

I don't know, man. We're through the looking glass now, people.