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Zoe Quinn #meToo / Alec Holowka suicide -- Update: Article questions ZQ's account of events (link in OP)
- Status
KiNeMz
Banned
Stuchinoko
Member
I miss the old wild west internet before Facebook, before Twitter. When social interaction was just gaming forums where everybody called each other stupid faggots and nobody took it seriously.
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
This shit really gets to me, I mean I don't know the guy but it really stings. In part it's because I had a similar experience to
EviLore
in some ways, albeit on a much smaller scale, of running a forum and attracting a hate mob. It was pre-Twitter and the forum was smaller but it still happened. I banned people, and ended up with a hate mob of about 10-20 people ringing my employer telling them I fucked kids [I don't] to get me fired etc (I wasn't too smart about hiding my identity - I thought I was posting among friends - I was young and stupid). That was horrific, I honestly wanted to kill myself at points because I couldn't see any way it would ever go away (it took about 10 years to eventually start to die down). And that was a tiny mob. Now in the Twitter era it's thousands of people all over the world wanting you dead. I honestly don't think I'd have survived such an experience.
My second reason for feeling real sympathy here is that in my youth I fucked crazy. Nobody told me about the risks, and I was young and stupid. Further, I lacked confidence so I was in a beggars-can't-be-choosers situation (and I suspect this is true of many of the victims of #metoo witch hunts). One particular ex stands out as she faked cancer and her friend's death. She was a pathological liar, with the choker and the danger hair. Honestly, I'm so glad it was pre-twitter, because she'd have eventually burned me to the ground with false accusations. That said, even now, I know that if I ever become notable in any way, she's going to be on Twitter and my life will fall apart. That's a hell of a burden to face. It means that I must live my life avoiding anything that might see my name become known outside of close friends, family and work colleagues.
Honestly this whole fucking mess upsets me on so many levels, that people can be so cold and heartless while pretending to have the most empathy of anyone alive, signalling their virtue and empathy for all to see, all while leading the baying mob.
EviLore
in some ways, albeit on a much smaller scale, of running a forum and attracting a hate mob. It was pre-Twitter and the forum was smaller but it still happened. I banned people, and ended up with a hate mob of about 10-20 people ringing my employer telling them I fucked kids [I don't] to get me fired etc (I wasn't too smart about hiding my identity - I thought I was posting among friends - I was young and stupid). That was horrific, I honestly wanted to kill myself at points because I couldn't see any way it would ever go away (it took about 10 years to eventually start to die down). And that was a tiny mob. Now in the Twitter era it's thousands of people all over the world wanting you dead. I honestly don't think I'd have survived such an experience.My second reason for feeling real sympathy here is that in my youth I fucked crazy. Nobody told me about the risks, and I was young and stupid. Further, I lacked confidence so I was in a beggars-can't-be-choosers situation (and I suspect this is true of many of the victims of #metoo witch hunts). One particular ex stands out as she faked cancer and her friend's death. She was a pathological liar, with the choker and the danger hair. Honestly, I'm so glad it was pre-twitter, because she'd have eventually burned me to the ground with false accusations. That said, even now, I know that if I ever become notable in any way, she's going to be on Twitter and my life will fall apart. That's a hell of a burden to face. It means that I must live my life avoiding anything that might see my name become known outside of close friends, family and work colleagues.
Honestly this whole fucking mess upsets me on so many levels, that people can be so cold and heartless while pretending to have the most empathy of anyone alive, signalling their virtue and empathy for all to see, all while leading the baying mob.
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Ivory Blood
Member
I know it's off-topic to this thread, but seriously, thank you for keeping Neogaf alive.
I've been a silent reader from 2012, when I first discovered this forum, but couldn't register as I didn't have a paid email. Still it was the best place for games and news about gaming, so just reading discussions people had was enough for me. Then it started getting more and more rough around 2016 american elections until it resulted in everything that happened. Last year I finally registered both here and on era but posting there was... well not eye-opening, but quite an entertainment in seeing how many lunatics I can block. But since I started visiting and posting Neogaf frequently, not one person here, even if I disagree with them or what they are saying, is on my ignore list. I don't need it because we can talk.
The tides are turning, the tragic shitshow happening right now will hopefully give pause to at least some of the "journalists" and maybe even Reeera itself from trying to ruin any more lives, and more people will awaken to the simple truth there are human beings just like them behind the monitor on the other side.
GHG
Member
If you wanted to interact with your friends online it was via MSN messenger and if you wanted to interact with randomers it was via forums of common interest (or WAP chatrooms if you were on mobile).
We just used to chat shit, make jokes and have fun. It was a hoot.
Witnessing the evolution of the Internet first hand from those days to the monster it is now has been something.
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Dontero
Banned
That was because of banning of talk about this subject. The point i made was that if things were allowed back then to talk in thread whole situation would be just normal gaming drama that would go away after 2-3 days as if nothing happened. I was back then in thread and i remember people more or less calmly talking about this then suddenly mods started to ban people left and right.
Like you said it was silly subject. Someone slept of with someone, who gives a shit.
The bannings and thread nuke is what gave made people give a shit.
It was then that neogaf and rest of big name sites completely banned talk about this subject. Which in return sent people in frenzy.
I mean there was 20k comments topic on reddit in which 20k people deleted their own posts to signal that they oppose sites censoring people speech due to this internet ban on talk about some silly game drama.
While i agree on everything you said earlier this is not something i can agree on. I saw many cases of you personally banning people in True Believer style. It is ok, you learned you lesson in rolling with wrong people and everything is fine now. While i certainly can believe that some mods were doing stuff behind your back i won't believe that they didn't have at least some sort of tacit acknowledgment in your own behavior which made them free to do what their forum believed in.
It is ok, like i said. You learned your lesson about people, and neogaf is again great place to be and talk about games, nothing to be shamed about anymore. I had few mistakes in my life too. Left wingers also seems to be coming back slowly to offtopic space and even politics which is great news as while i am certainly centrist-right i don't like to be in echo chamber which breeds circlejerk and non critical thinking.
cheers
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nush
Member
Stuchinoko
Member
They only cared about their own image. They knew sticking with Alec would paint a target on their back as "rapist enablers." It's clear they didn't give a shit about him.
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
Men rarely do.
Absolutely. She deleted her twitter out of fear obviously. The thing is he was Canadian and I'm not sure if the same laws apply there for suspected rapists!
What lesson is there to be learned here? That people are shit to one another?
Jesus christ... the guy said if, and it's like technically 50/50 whether the accusation was groundless or not. This "believe the victim" shite WTF reminds me of a cult or something - god exists - don't question it.
I won't "believe" shit like a fucking lemming, I'll take everything into account, including facts or anything else you have to back up any claims. I'll use judgement like any sane non-beaten-into-submission person would.
What are Resetera saying? If groundless accusations did lead to a death - that's ok?? They really seem to be like a hate group at this point. Only a matter of time imo till it implodes. Most of the users know it isn't right but also know they risk their account for daring to say anything. That's untenable, and I don't think devs from big companies are gonna want to be seen to be attached to this shit either.
Stuchinoko
Member
No bro, you always gotta BELIEVE WOMEN. Even if there's zero evidence to back up the statements and the accuser is a known pathological liar.
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
Zoe Quinn is fucking evil.
Boss Mog
Member
4 is being pretty generous. I guess some guys are really desperate though.
Dontero
Banned
She wanted to communicate with broad public and received feedback. There is no rule that says feedback can only be positive.
So she wanted to be public person without downsides.
Why do you think celebrities walk with guards ? Because out of 10 000 people 1 is rapist/murderer. If you have 10 000 people talking about you then you should expect problems ahead.
Psykodad
Banned
The basis for justice in Western society is that one is innocent until proven guilty.
Burden of proof is on the accuser and as long as there is no factual evidence, the accused is innocent.
Your point goes completely against our justice system.
H
hariseldon
Unconfirmed Member
You did the right thing. For years I wanted to be a game dev but honestly I look at the industry and I'm glad I build software in other spheres where all I have to worry about is my boss occasionally being an asshole. And yeah the money and the hours - I looked into it and it's not for me. Working outside of games I get to work sensible hours and take home a fucking good salary that enables me to give my wife and those I care about the good things they deserve.
You think I went around banning people like an extremist? Cite specific examples or back off (preferably move over to the MetaGAF thread, since we're getting off-topic). I banned 40 people a year from 2013-2017, and nearly always advised restraint from the mod team in daily moderation discussions. The number of bans I reduced, vetoed, or overturned far exceeded my ban count. I've never liked banning people. I had no interest in destroying the community or killing off all our long-time users en masse. Every time I uncover one of those incidents my blood boils.
There were a ton of mod actions per day and we were on ancient software that had mostly non-existent logging and was heavily reliant on self-reporting, so a lot got lost in the fog. Abuse happened. Misrepresentation of the facts happened. The problem in that whole GG mess specifically was that I stopped looking at the Anita Sarkeesian clusterfuck threads and mainly went by the discussions in our moderation slack channel. Few people on the mod team bothered to even look at those threads, either. It was mainly 2-3 mods who "handled" those, and we lost a ton of reasonable users there. I should've paid closer attention, absolutely. Those threads escalated hostilities, and a lot of people had legitimate reason to be upset after being treated unfairly, but no one outside of the GAF bubble ever came to me speaking reasonably. It was all people raging and trying to smear my character. Battle lines had been drawn.
ROMhack
Member
Because they care more what the gaming community at large thinks of them rather than their (presumed) friend.
They're all a bunch of narcissists who use the internet to masquerade their complete failings as human beings. Utter shit bags, the lot of them.
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MeatSafeMurderer
Member
Well you don't need to prove innocence on his part, if she cannot prove her claims his innocence is simply assumed. You need to prove malicious intent on her part.
The Scrivener
Member
Add engadget to the SJW list:
www.engadget.com
"The fear of retaliation from extreme corners of the internet remains, but the industry's response this week has been a fucking relief, to put it lightly. It feels like GamerGate's toxic cloud is finally dissipating. It feels like, maybe, we can breathe."
Yeah, not all of us.
Emerging from the shadow of GamerGate
On August 26th, game developer Nathalie Lawhead published a blog post accusing legendary Skyrim composer Jeremy Soule of rape. It's a detailed account of the events leading up to and after the alleged assault, which Lawhead says took place in 2008, when she was in her mid-20s and trying to break...
www.engadget.com
"The fear of retaliation from extreme corners of the internet remains, but the industry's response this week has been a fucking relief, to put it lightly. It feels like GamerGate's toxic cloud is finally dissipating. It feels like, maybe, we can breathe."
Yeah, not all of us.
Stuchinoko
Member
Add engadget to the SJW list:
Emerging from the shadow of GamerGate
On August 26th, game developer Nathalie Lawhead published a blog post accusing legendary Skyrim composer Jeremy Soule of rape. It's a detailed account of the events leading up to and after the alleged assault, which Lawhead says took place in 2008, when she was in her mid-20s and trying to break...
"The fear of retaliation from extreme corners of the internet remains, but the industry's response this week has been a fucking relief, to put it lightly. It feels like GamerGate's toxic cloud is finally dissipating. It feels like, maybe, we can breathe."
Yeah, not all of us.
Ah, they're still peddling this facetious lie years later. Got caught engaging in nepotism between journalists and developers - "yeah but this one person out of thousands said a mean word, it's just a harassment campaign!"
Dontero
Banned
If this is true then maybe i am wrong. Usually i saw people being banned after you said something and assumed it was you who banned them but it must have been some other mods stepping in. Since usually there was no info who banned whom i assumed it was you as usually that stuff happened directly after you said something.
Yeah it is offtop as hell. Ending it now. Cheers.
ROMhack
Member
Reminds me, my mum was talking recently about a guy she works with who was accused of rape 15 years ago (an event that happened even earlier). He almost lost his job as he had to get acquitted through the courts meaning that his then boss had to serve as a character reference for him. Of course the case was thrown out because there was no evidence to support the case. To this day though, he won't step foot in the town where the accuser lives as he knows people believed her and fears he has a 'reputation'. It was made even worse as another employee found out and left her job because she said she couldn't work with an accused rapist -- this happened after the court case when he was deemed innocent. Apparently she came into work one day and made a big scene about it and the guy was in the back crying because of the sheer stress of the situation.
I'm mentioning as I think it's worth realizing that these things existed in the pre-internet times. As is usual though, social media amplifies the issue enormously. It's terrifying really.
I'm mentioning as I think it's worth realizing that these things existed in the pre-internet times. As is usual though, social media amplifies the issue enormously. It's terrifying really.
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Dr Kaneda
Member
When so much toxicity constantly surrounds you in various forms or various times, then at some point you need to stop point the finger at others at look at yourself. So many people have come and gone in Zoe Quinn's life, and yet they're ALL to blame for the various issues surrounding her? Why not look at the common factor in all these cases. Zoe Quinn.
Hypereides
Gold Member
Ain't that the truth.
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Scopa
The Tribe Has Spoken
Well, that’s eye opening.No bro, you always gotta BELIEVE WOMEN. Even if there's zero evidence to back up the statements and the accuser is a known pathological liar.
Also, nice cankles Zoe.
Katsura
Member
That's a very generous description of what Anita did so let me add my version - Few people really gave her any attention pre gamergate. There'd be the occasional article about her videos on Eurogamer (has that place ever not been cucked beyond belief?) but as far as i could tell, most people had no idea who she was or what she was about. So then gamergate happens and Anita makes sure to put herself right in the middle of it. She went on the Colbert show, she posed for Twitter pics with Joss Whedon, who of course turned out to be a creepy cheater, directly mocking gamergate and was generally egging gators on as much as possible. Now that people did pay attention to her, a few things about her came to light. For one, she had previously been part of a ponzi scheme as evidenced by youtube videos of her participating in it. Secondly, it became clear that she did not write the feminist frequency videos. Jonathan Macintosh did. Third, she was never a gamer, by her own admission. Finally, it was also pretty clear she never intended to start any dialogue as all her videos had comments disabled. All in all, she appeared to be there simply for the money while acting like Jonathan's puppet. In other words, she was actively making gaming worse in order to get paid
That's not to say Zoe isn't far worse because she clearly is.
As for the threats and abuse, i never condoned any of this behaviour and i would never participate in it. However, i can understand peoples frustration because they could see all the collusion, clear as day and proven by the gamejournopro leaks, but no one was held accountable. Even with evidence of them fabricating threats, nothing happened because it became clear they had infested top positions in dev companies, media and gaming organizations such as the indie game awards. Gaming sites kept running articles about 'toxic gamers', media as a whole portrayed the thing as a harassment campaign by misogynist gamers and Zoe, Anita and to some extend Wu kept pulling in large amounts of money from patreon
Finally about Zoe using the abuse as a shield, i'm not sure it mattered. She was already protected by all big gaming sites and we know they fabricated a lot of the alleged abuse. As far as i'm aware, no one was ever convicted (perhaps even charged?) for making threats against those 3 grifters
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Most of this could've been resolved peaceably if there had been more transparency and communication in both directions. There are a great many things I identified where I could've personally done better, and that's all been incorporated into how things are done now. For what it's worth, out of the >1000 bans I've reviewed and overturned via the Ban Justice project over the past year, only two or three have been my bans. It's okay to hold me accountable for everything that happened, though. I certainly hold myself accountable.
I apologize for how you were treated in that KCD thread. You're a good poster and have a reasonable perspective. The witch hunt against KCD and Vavra were absurd, and it's one of my favorite games of 2018 besides. Cheers.
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
The two co-developers of NitW sure come out of this looking like they are almost the most responsible. If the guy still had his job he wouldn't have done this.
They were so scared for their own public image that they dumped this guy without hesitation, thinking they had skillfully cleared their names. Little did they know they are now even worse off.
They were so scared for their own public image that they dumped this guy without hesitation, thinking they had skillfully cleared their names. Little did they know they are now even worse off.
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V1LÆM
Gold Member
wtf who is this
Horrible tragedy.... Internet has become toxic and cruel.
It's difficult to find answers in these circumstances where everyone involved is a victim in some way but in general I feel like these matters should be handled through authorities the precise moment they happen.
I see that there are cases where abused people are not believed and that adds to their sorrow but using Twitter to tell these stories years later knowing that there is hate/mobbing culture behind it that can destroy a person's life seems just like a form of revenge rather than justice.
Now one person is dead and the other will probably have to live with some form of remorse for the rest of her life.
It's difficult to find answers in these circumstances where everyone involved is a victim in some way but in general I feel like these matters should be handled through authorities the precise moment they happen.
I see that there are cases where abused people are not believed and that adds to their sorrow but using Twitter to tell these stories years later knowing that there is hate/mobbing culture behind it that can destroy a person's life seems just like a form of revenge rather than justice.
Now one person is dead and the other will probably have to live with some form of remorse for the rest of her life.
Bonfires Down
Member
You’re acting as if they did this lightly. If they had not cut him off this would have followed them forever. And they obviously had enough inside information to believe that the accusations were true. Or are we going to bully them too until they commit suicide?
The internet mob is the problem, but it’s a problem that might be impossible to solve.
Barnabot
Member
R.I.P. Alec.
It takes a grade A coward to do a vile thing such as rape.
And it takes another grade A coward to make such a serious accusation such as rape via Twitter without any proof and then delete everything after the accused gets himself killed by suicide. At least I know latter really happened in this story.
And now I really wanted the cops to investigate further that rape allegation to bring justice since the rape accusation is still there.
It takes a grade A coward to do a vile thing such as rape.
And it takes another grade A coward to make such a serious accusation such as rape via Twitter without any proof and then delete everything after the accused gets himself killed by suicide. At least I know latter really happened in this story.
And now I really wanted the cops to investigate further that rape allegation to bring justice since the rape accusation is still there.
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Kamina
Golden Boy
How is this not partially Zoe’s fault?
She decided to publicly accuse someone randomly instead of dealing with it privately like a normal person would and ultimately caused this disaster.
Zoe has blood on her hands, though i am sure she can live with it, now that she is “media relevant“ again and might get SWJs to support her out of pity.
She deactivated her twitter to not get flooded by the backlash, only to come back in a month claiming how hard this was on her and how much she was harassed during that time, while not even considering for a moment what vile harassment Alec must have endured in the past days due to her accusation.
She decided to publicly accuse someone randomly instead of dealing with it privately like a normal person would and ultimately caused this disaster.
Zoe has blood on her hands, though i am sure she can live with it, now that she is “media relevant“ again and might get SWJs to support her out of pity.
She deactivated her twitter to not get flooded by the backlash, only to come back in a month claiming how hard this was on her and how much she was harassed during that time, while not even considering for a moment what vile harassment Alec must have endured in the past days due to her accusation.
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The Scrivener
Member
Look at this crap:
It's all sex sex sex. She got $85k odd so far. And the details say she hates sexism. What a weird youknowwhat. Good riddance ZQ.
But let's stick her on stage at all the game conferences and praise her talents.
She's a fucking hack. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's professional fakers.
"Using long-abandoned Full Motion Video (FMV) game techniques" & at the same time on the same page, give me money because "Modern-day FMV games are relatively uncharted waters".
It's all sex sex sex. She got $85k odd so far. And the details say she hates sexism. What a weird youknowwhat. Good riddance ZQ.
But let's stick her on stage at all the game conferences and praise her talents.
She's a fucking hack. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's professional fakers.
"Using long-abandoned Full Motion Video (FMV) game techniques" & at the same time on the same page, give me money because "Modern-day FMV games are relatively uncharted waters".
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lifa-cobex
Member
Mister metokur
Aka, Internet Aristocrat
aka, Jim
He's been around for god knows how many years doing videos on exceptional people.
He was the guy who did the infamous Quinnspiracy saga that pretty much shoved Gamergate into gear.
the Guynecologist
Member
.
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No bro, you always gotta BELIEVE WOMEN. Even if there's zero evidence to back up the statements and the accuser is a known pathological liar.
Oh... Come on... how... Why did this women have any credibility left at all with anybody, in order to even make the claims against Alex? Much less weaponize a social media mob of "followers" and "believers". If you lie once you'll do it again, etc. She needs to be held accountable. Unfortunately Alex's sister's own message makes that look unlikely.
GreyHorace
Member
I'm really sorry to hear that. It takes a special sort of person (or persons in this case) to harrass a guy over a fucking forum. Like shit, what kind of person goes to such lengths, even calling your employer, just to fuck with you?This shit really gets to me, I mean I don't know the guy but it really stings. In part it's because I had a similar experience to
This is why I believe online interaction should always be in a professional capacity. Don't get to familiar with people you interact with online. You never know if it's a complete lunatic on the other end. Only get personal online with people you can trust. I was unfriended by a guy whom I thought was my friend all because we had differing political beliefs. Woke me up to the realization that I really don't know the people on my friend list.
rabbity-thing
Member
Man these are dark times.
the Guynecologist
Member
.
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Ar¢tos
Member
Nah, better let HER fall into oblivion.
People like HER don't go down silently, too much pressure and SHE will probably off HERSELF in the way that will cause the most damage and inconvenience to the world, because even in death SHE must be the center of attention. SHE would probably explode HERSELF in a primary school or jump in front of a train.
Rien
Jelly Belly
He made a comment that isnt very rich now.
I dont believe he is happy about it tho, others there surely are, dont think PT is all that bad.
But I said that because I hope that he get some selfreflection and think twice when he assumes and post stuff like that.
BitDust
Member
When tragic events like this happen, what's left is the bitterness that comes from the lack of evidence and a real trial. A person with mental illness like Alec was probably living on the edge of a cliff his whole life, he just needed a push to end everything. Brains like that works like a storm, whatever you put in it can easily develop into something dangerous for himself and others.
He was a game creator, someone who had the sensibility to create a game like Night in the Woods and whoever worked with him knew what kind of person and problems he had. I just see an abusive behavior towards this kind of people who are easy to drive to a final act like he did.
He was a game creator, someone who had the sensibility to create a game like Night in the Woods and whoever worked with him knew what kind of person and problems he had. I just see an abusive behavior towards this kind of people who are easy to drive to a final act like he did.
Stimpak
Member
- Status