This is the same kind of deluded apologism that the gamer gate crowd uses and it is dangerous. How can anyone judge the credibility of a threat made by a stranger on the internet? A threat is a threat.
I disagree completely, especially in the eyes of the law. If a comedian says he's going to kill someone, nobody is going to prosecute him. Threats have to be creditable. The tweets posted by Kurt all make some reference to his baseball career and then try to use that to make sexual jokes about his daughter. They are just terrible jokes and should be socially ostracized, but we should not be using the legal system to punish these kinds of tweets. The line is too unclear. None of the posted tweets contain any serious threat that doesn't contain some baseball innuendo, at least the ones Kurt published. There is a difference if someone said e.g. "I'm going to rape your daughter when she gets here" and that tweeter lives in the town of the school. One might be able to consider that creditable. We don't prosecute people who make others scared, we prosecute people that we believe have a creditable chance of harming another human being.
The question is, do these type of comments on Twitter cause harm? If you've read anything by people being subjected to online bullying and harassment then you know that it does cause psychological harm by itself. Especially when a number of people all start in on one person, but even one person can cause a lot of fear and harm from cyber stalking someone. Does someone doing this deserve to have their life ruined, probably not, but they should not be free from all repercussions.
KotakuInAction is one of the major GamerGate organizing sites – that's like telling someone to go to the Scientologist Temple for opinions on Dianetics.
… and, yes, it's rather relevant: GamerGate started with a bunch of people on 4chan attacking a stranger on social media at the behest of her ex-boyfriend but it escalated quickly to coordinated harassment on a bunch of different forms of electronic media and attempts to bring it close to home with real-world stalking at work & conferences, SWATing, etc.
That's the problem here: the people who started it might have had no intention of anything beyond enjoying making someone else unhappy but they repeated things widely and loudly enough that other people fell for the cover story and escalated it further.
Quite the opposite, Zoe Quinn herself has been discovered to have played a role in SWATing her critics [1]. Incidentally, KotakuInAction has been featured elsewhere today [2]. I agree with your last sentence.
“Quite the opposite” ignores that people involved with GamerGate have actually SWATed people (see e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/gamergate-...) and has engaged in all of the other activities I listed. Even if true, a single incident doesn't magically cancel out half a year of real harassment no matter how many times GamerGaters have tried use that logic to avoid addressing bad behaviour by their fellows.
That said, you're linking to a post written by Mike Cernovitch, one of the more vociferous people in GamerGate, where he's making the popular argument that he's the real victim here.
Again, let's review the evidence: if you read more than the headline it's immediately obvious that there was no actual SWATing or even threat to do so and, more importantly, none of it was done by Zoe Quinn. The person who actually posted his address used the information which he'd listed on a business directory before removing it and apologizing:
The key thing, of course, is that he wouldn't have been able to use a stranger’s actions to justify the anti-Zoe hate campaign. If you read it closely, notice how each claim in the article starts with something true but then adds unsupported insinuations that Zoe was masterminding it in an effort to shift the ire to her rather than the person who actually wrote the post.
I agree that there was no actual SWATing in Cernovich's case. He has been reported to the LAPD (probably several times) for harassment. However he has been doxxed, and I don't know how you're saying none of it was done by Quinn. Quinn has 52K followers on twitter. I think I can conclude that her tweets are widely read. And she has repeatedly publicized dox articles. Does that make her any less guilty than actually writing those articles herself? And Quinn herself admits that doxxing and SWATing are a package deal. SWATings are usually initiated as an anonymous tip, "stranger's actions", as you put it in a different context. I don't know how the law works in the US, but if it were up to me, I'd hold the doxxer responsible for it.
The Guardian article is probably right in naming baphomet (on 8chan), but then follows it up with some very shady language to link it with KiA. I have visited baphomet a few times, and they seem to be doing their own thing, whatever that may be.
As far as I know, Reddit has very strict policies in place to discourage doxxing (except on r/doxme). KotakuInAction, the one you called gamergate's organizing site, cannot be involved in doxxing. Though I'm not a regular reader, I visit it every few weeks to see what they're up to. Not only have I not seen any doxxing there, I have seen threads discouraging such behavior. Also see their Rule #2: "This is the quickest way to a ban, not just from us, but the Reddit admins. Seriously, don’t do it. Take every effort to ensure that your posts do not include any personal information, especially in screenshots."
No, I didn't mention that link, which btw isn't from reddit but from someones blog. (I haven't made up my mind on that one but it seems he makes a leap yes.)
I'm trying to point out that you are acting as if you have already made up you mind: whatever the facts, gg-ers are wrong.
In this case it seems you are, among other things, denying that KiA is Subreddit-of-the-day. Which is very easy to prove.
I suggest you read through this very carefully and find out exactly what you commented on instead of jumping to conclusions[1]. Because, you know, -this isn't reddit.
[1]: Protip: This often a good idea elsewhere as well.
I misread the original post. I apologise, you are correct about the second link. I stand by my comments on the first link, but I've been very silly in commenting about the second one. Sorry about that.
What? He's providing the link to reddit to prove that Zoe Quinn called in a Swot team. The source is reliable for matters on Reddit, but that's not what we are discussing.
> KotakuInAction is one of the major GamerGate organizing sites – that's like telling someone to go to the Scientologist Temple for opinions on Dianetics.
The ideaisn't too bad in this particular case when the question is "what do gamergaters write?" : )
> repeated things widely and loudly enough that other people fell for the cover story and escalated it further.
