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What Is Gamergate, and Why? An Explainer for Non-Geeks


Stashed in: Women, Awesome, Sexism, New Yorker, Games, Haters!, Bullies, Trolling!, Tech

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Pretty evenhanded rehash of Gamergate, one of the big events in the Summer of Online Misogyny.

Wow, this is about the evil that an unaccountable online mob can do.

#Gamergate actually began in August as a pernicious attack on one female game developer, Zoe Quinn, and her sex life.

Quinn has been the victim of death threats and harassment since she began trying to publish Depression Questa text-based game partially based on her own experience with depression, in 2013. Last month, the New Yorker attempted to explain why Quinn and her game inspire such outrage among gamers —Depression Quest is not a "real game," it's "just words," its portrayal of depression is too personal to be relatable—but it's hard not to look at the last several weeks of chatter in the gaming community and not come to the conclusion that it's about the fact that she's a woman.

Zoe Quinn on what it's like to be targeted by every hater troll in the world:

http://vice.com/read/we-talked-to-zoe-quinn-about-whats-next-for-the-gaming-world-999

Here is the latest victim http://kotaku.com/another-woman-in-gaming-flees-home-following-death-thre-1645280338 

Breanna Wu, driven from her home by death threats to her husband and her. 

That is terrible. And it's unclear how to make the online mob stop.

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