Kotaku UK apologises for an article featuring an interview of Laura Kate Dale with TotalBiscuit - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE]Yesterday we published an article which has attracted a great deal of anger, and I wanted to address that as soon as possible. The piece in question is an interview with John Bain, aka TotalBiscuit, a YouTube personality and PC gaming critic, on the subject of harassment in gaming communities and specifically the mod tools available to creators and how they could be improved. The subject of online harassment is the focus of an ongoing series of articles on Kotaku UK that, before this, had covered smaller creators who have found themselves vulnerable to abuse. The interview was published because it provided a different perspective on the failures of online tools in managing harassment. I felt that Bain, who has used these services since inception and built a huge audience, could offer unique insight into how Twitch and YouTube could improve in the future. Much of the criticism we received centred on the decision to publish an interview with someone who has been identified with the Gamergate movement on the anniversary of the hateful post that spawned it. This timing was an unfortunate coincidence. I didn’t realise there was any significance to yesterday’s date until people began pointing it out post-publication, and this was a failure on my part.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/08/17/on-our-totalbiscuit-article[/url] But how did that harassment start in the first place? Guess what... [media]https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/897886510409687041[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/897920997470474240[/media] [media]https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit/status/897921234482061312[/media] :incredible:

Tb wasn't even a prolific gamegater, he only supported it at the beginning iirc.

Spineless bullshit. Ridiculous that they can't even stand up for their own writers being harassed for doing literally nothing wrong.

I'm glad to see Laura turn herself around after the run-in with the Xbox presenter at [url=https://archive.is/PaenI]Eurogamer 2013[/url].

Five Guys.

I still don't fully understand the gamergate stuff. I looked at the wiki article but it is really poorly written and it does make it look like people were mostly just defending themselves.

Absolutely ridiculous, this article was part of a Kotaku anti-harassment articles they've been writing. They needed the perspective of someone high profile on how they deal with twitch/youtube/twitter harassment, so they got an interview about that from TB. [img]http://puu.sh/xcsTX.png[/img] And this is just heartbraking. [img]http://puu.sh/xct2y.png[/img]

[QUOTE=aaro1450;52583818]I still don't fully understand the gamergate stuff. I looked at the wiki article but it is really poorly written and it does make it look like people were mostly just defending themselves.[/QUOTE] Gamergate is a mess, as a lot of #hashtag movements are. It started out with that whole business of a developer and a journalist having a relationship that wasn't disclosed, and it started this debate on conflict of interests and journalistic integrity. It only lasted a very short while until it lead to some real bullshit going down, harassment and it even got political attention.

I'm surprised kotaku is still a thing, definiately one of the worst video game websites out there.

[QUOTE=aaro1450;52583818]I still don't fully understand the gamergate stuff. I looked at the wiki article but it is really poorly written and it does make it look like people were mostly just defending themselves.[/QUOTE] "Gaming journalism is shit" effectively turned into a sexist harassment campaign because of opportunist arseholes and journalists who didn't like their jobs being put in question smearing the idea. People like Milo Yiannopoulos jumped in seeing an opportunity for more fame. Effectively very quickly there was a shift, what started as "gaming journalism is bad" vs "no it's not" turned into the "alt right" vs "SJWs". This happened because there was a political element in it because the whole thing was directed at a fair few women including Zoe Quinn. Not only that but the journalists had a lot of power because of their writing and could frame the discussion as whatever they liked, anti-GGers ended up with interviews on the bloody Colbert Show. Neither side were particularly in the wrong, besides the obvious harassers, but because of how discourse works on the internet no proper conversation was happening and it just became 2 identical sides fighting over nothing and hating each other. This was where a shit ton of the YouTubers today known as "skeptics" gained their fame, they basically rode off the controversy and contributed their normal kind of discussion to the mix, which in turn made everything worse. Worth noting I was part of Gamergate until I realised how it was all just toxic it all was. TotalBiscuit was in favor of the "gaming journalism is bad" part, but distanced himself from it when he started seeing the harassment elements because obviously he is very against that.

The problem with gamergate is that the people involved suck on both sides. It's a relatively moderate subject, but people on both sides are fucking nutjobs who dox each other over fucking videogames. Ultimately it's just another fucking culture war

[QUOTE=aaro1450;52583818]I still don't fully understand the gamergate stuff. I looked at the wiki article but it is really poorly written and it does make it look like people were mostly just defending themselves.[/QUOTE] Essentially Zoe Quinn slept with 5 games journalists (hence five guys, burgers & fries) for positive articles about her text adventure game called "depression quest". It was found out about; #gamergate grew from that However as with any sort of internet movement its incredibly easy for 3rd party trolls to just take the moniker or imply that your part of said movement and harass people using it as decoy. It genuinely was about ethics in game journalism and game journalists not disclosing ties or relationships to developers they cover in their articles. Now, its used as a boogyman with all the misinformation and Absolute shitshow that went on around it. But this is just a watered down version of my perspective of the events.

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52583829]Gamergate is a mess, as a lot of #hashtag movements are. It started out with that whole business of a developer and a journalist having a relationship that wasn't disclosed, and it started this debate on conflict of interests and journalistic integrity. It only lasted a very short while until it lead to some real bullshit going down, harassment and it even got political attention.[/QUOTE] Sure you're allowed to talk? I remember you as being [B]HEAVILY [/B]biased about it all. [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Personal callout - People can contribute to a thread without needing your say so" - icemaz))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=Van-man;52583857]Sure you're allowed to talk? I remember you as being [B]HEAVILY [/B]biased about it all.[/QUOTE] That's my perception of it, which is hardly biased because I was never part of it or against it, you must be confusing me with someone else - but could be a massive missrepresentation of it all. Feel free to propose an alternative explanation. [editline]17th August 2017[/editline] I'm genuinely curious about what you guys think I said wrong?

[QUOTE=proboardslol;52583855]The problem with gamergate is that the people involved suck on both sides. It's a relatively moderate subject, but people on both sides are fucking nutjobs who dox each other over fucking videogames. Ultimately it's just another fucking culture war[/QUOTE] I feel in addition to what you just said that a lot of the people who were part of it were just bitter at reviewers who felt they given a game too high a score and decided almost automatically that they were paid off and this before we even get into the right-wing nut jobs.

[QUOTE=aaro1450;52583818]I still don't fully understand the gamergate stuff. I looked at the wiki article but it is really poorly written and it does make it look like people were mostly just defending themselves.[/QUOTE] It's identity politics with bullies on each side of the fence. But to boil it down to the essentials: Zoe arguably emotionally abused her (ex-)boyfriend during their relationship, he then wrote a blogpost "exposing" her and her multiple relationships that she had with games journalists, then we had multiple games journalists (most notably Leigh Alexander) who within a very short time frame all published articles which essentially denounced gamers/the gaming community as a whole. And after that point it just became more and more internet drama which some people used to gain fame. Yahtzee said it best some time ago. [QUOTE]We live in an age where mass communication has counterintuitively turned all attempts at verbal debate into a basketball game where the teams are on different courts, and stand around a basket racking up meaningless points and throwing shit over the dividing wall. [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Genericenemy;52583875]I feel in addition to what you just said that a lot of the people who were part of it were just bitter at reviewers who felt they given a game too high a score and decided almost automatically that they were paid off and this before we even get into the right-wing nut jobs.[/QUOTE] The other problem is that gaming journalism has always been terrible, even before the association with left wing identity politics. Zoey Quinn and Anita Sarkisian gave a lot of right wing people an ideological strawman for their attacks, but the fact remains that gaming "journalism" has always been an opaque, dirty business in which publishers paid off "journalists". If you want honest game information today, you should look up lets plays and ignore any of the commentary, or watch the review of a trusted review[B]er[/B] and not a review [B]site[/B]. If the game seems fun to you, buy it. Dunkey has a great video on it: [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lG2dXobAXLI[/media] Ultimately, gaming is a crappy culture IMO. It's fun to play games with a handful of friends, but I've never liked online communities of gamers. It's rife with meme culture and toxicity.

I'm still out of the loop with all the this stuff I just simply never got it

[QUOTE=MrJazzy;52583829]Gamergate is a mess, as a lot of #hashtag movements are. It started out with that whole business of a developer and a journalist having a relationship that wasn't disclosed, and it started this debate on conflict of interests and journalistic integrity. It only lasted a very short while until it lead to some real bullshit going down, harassment and it even got political attention.[/QUOTE] It started as #FiveGuys and that movement only realized that at least one person slept around (not going to name her) in order to get connections in the industry. Soon after people dug up just how incestuous and and awful without disclosure the entire 'games journalism' industry was, and soon after that the "Gamers are dead" articles came out from a bunch of different outlets at the same time. Then you have Gamergate pop up, on top of the basis of all of that, with the sole goal of integrity in games journalism. Of course games journalists and indie devs claimed harassment and (demonstrably) falsely claimed harassment and ignored all calls for them to disclose. So, the movement started going after advertisers of these websites, which shut them up pretty quick about the whole issue (and crippled kotaku during Hulk Hogan's case), although a few still continued on rambling. Then the FCC updated their guidelines thanks to the outcry and now disclosure is a thing. There was a lot of awful shit that came out of digging into journalists' pasts, but the bad thing about the movement was that it was headless. This not only made it easy to defame it - for a headless movement can't defend itself - it also made it easy to infiltrate it. You see people like Milo come into this group, Gamergate, and offer them music to their ears: all these journalists are colluding, and they're doing it because of their evil liberal agendas, and they're out to get you and your hobby. Milo and others managed to fool the base of gamergate that they were on the same side, integrity, right? Yeah, it's pretty obvious now in hindsight that they were only there to further their own agendas and names. [editline]17th August 2017[/editline] Also, this is where a lot of 'youtube cynics' got a significant amount of their viewer base. Literally just shit talking and dismantling these games journo's. It's not very hard, you can imagine. And now they're still around and without some easy target it's incredibly obvious to see just how dumb they all really are.

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;52583778]Five Guys.[/QUOTE] Really? You fucks are still at it? [highlight](User was banned for this post ("Flaming" - Mezzokoko))[/highlight]

[QUOTE=ForgottenKane;52583894]It started as #FiveGuys and that movement only realized that at least one person slept around (not going to name her) in order to get connections in the industry. Soon after people dug up just how incestuous and and awful without disclosure the entire 'games journalism' industry was, and soon after that the "Gamers are dead" articles came out from a bunch of different outlets at the same time. Then you have Gamergate pop up, on top of the basis of all of that, with the sole goal of integrity in games journalism. Of course games journalists and indie devs claimed harassment and (demonstrably) falsely claimed harassment and ignored all calls for them to disclose. So, the movement started going after advertisers of these websites, which shut them up pretty quick about the whole issue (and crippled kotaku during Hulk Hogan's case), although a few still continued on rambling. Then the FCC updated their guidelines thanks to the outcry and now disclosure is a thing. There was a lot of awful shit that came out of digging into journalists' pasts, but the bad thing about the movement was that it was headless. This not only made it easy to defame it - for a headless movement can't defend itself - it also made it easy to infiltrate it. You see people like Milo come into this group, Gamergate, and offer them music to their ears: all these journalists are colluding, and they're doing it because of their evil liberal agendas, and they're out to get you and your hobby. Milo and others managed to fool the base of gamergate that they were on the same side, integrity, right? Yeah, it's pretty obvious now in hindsight that they were only there to further their own agendas and names. [editline]17th August 2017[/editline] Also, this is where a lot of 'youtube cynics' got a significant amount of their viewer base. Literally just shit talking and dismantling these games journo's. It's not very hard, you can imagine. And now they're still around and without some easy target it's incredibly obvious to see just how dumb they all really are.[/QUOTE] Pretty much what I said wasn't it?

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;52583856]Essentially Zoe Quinn slept with 5 games journalists (hence five guys, burgers & fries) for positive articles about her text adventure game called "depression quest". It was found out about; #gamergate grew from that However as with any sort of internet movement its incredibly easy for 3rd party trolls to just take the moniker or imply that your part of said movement and harass people using it as decoy. It genuinely was about ethics in game journalism and game journalists not disclosing ties or relationships to developers they cover in their articles. Now, its used as a boogyman with all the misinformation and Absolute shitshow that went on around it. But this is just a watered down version of my perspective of the events.[/QUOTE] This is incredibly correct. It did achieve a lot - it made it hard for Gawker to fight against Hulk Hogan and got the FCC to change its guidelines. However it just became more and more dysfunctional as more people tried to join the movement and use it for their own ideals. If anyone wants to know what the exact information that came out that caused such an uproar was, this website is great: [url]http://deepfreeze.it/[/url] It holds a record of a significant number of games journalists and what they're done that either is or could be dubious. I mean, look at Nathon Grayson's article: [url]http://deepfreeze.it/journo.php?j=nathan_grayson[/url] [editline]17th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=MrJazzy;52583914]Pretty much what I said wasn't it?[/QUOTE] I didn't say you were wrong, I wanted to elaborate. Most people still don't know much about what happened and actively avoided it at the time because you only heard two things about it: "[I]Gamergate is a bunch of women-hating terrorists![/I]" (actual quote) and "[I]Games journalists are the enemy of all gamers![/I]" You'd want to fuck off from that lmao

Yeah shame on TB for being a totally rational figure during GamerGate. People that have any connection to that date need a reality check, it was a shitty hashtag used as an excuse for people to embroil themselves in daily internet drama by siding with 2 camps full of trolls. TB took the right stance of asking for better journalism in the industry, but clearly that's still shit and all the e-celebs that gained any notoriety during the hashtag's popularity have just been hopping from one controversy to another starved of attention and trying to get more of it. Anita especially, that girl has done jack shit for her entire career besides finding new controversies to attach her name to like it's building up her portfolio. When she does panels it's usually just an echo chamber, say anything against the hivemind and you'll be ousted. When she shows up at game studios it feels more like a PR stunt, practically being used a golden seal of quality for them to slap on themselves once and go "Hey look we're not misogynists here! Please buy our games, Anita approves". Spore as a controversy accomplished a lot more for the industry, at least at the time it seemed like we were going to see a push for better game journalism following the onslaught of negative user reviews. I recall the MSM even picking up that story and focusing on the right elements of it.

[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52583741]Tb wasn't even a prolific gamegater, he only supported it at the beginning iirc.[/QUOTE] He never supported it, and went out of his way to stay out of it. His view was that you don't need a hashtag in order to fight for ethics. Regardless that didn't stop anti-GG from claiming him to be a GG figurehead because "oh he's all about ethics therefore he must be a Gamergater which is secretly not about ethics and is evil". He made a lengthy post about this a while back when James Portnow of Extra Credits labelled him a Gamergate leader. [url]http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1skam53[/url]

[QUOTE=gazzy_GUI;52583856]Essentially Zoe Quinn slept with 5 games journalists (hence five guys, burgers & fries) for positive articles about her text adventure game called "depression quest". [/QUOTE] That's not actually true. Nathan Grayson never wrote a review of it. What other 4 guys were "involved" in?

[QUOTE=SassPD22;52583982]That's not actually true. Nathan Grayson never wrote a review of it. What other 4 guys were "involved" in?[/QUOTE] An article doesn't have to be a review to be positive coverage. I'm pretty sure he was the one who wrote a post about how Steam Greenlight was adding about 40 more indie games. And out of those 40 games, he just so happened to pick DQ for the banner image. Despite it being text-only and being made in an afternoon or two. And of the 3 games he called out by name in the intro, he just so happened to pick DQ again. Sure, it's not "11/10 best game ever", and it's not like he and Zoe were in it for the money. It was nowhere near as bad as the Kane and Lynch negative reviewer getting fired, or No Man's Sky getting 9/10's across the board. But it was still unfair to the other ~40 indie games, since they had put time and effort (and graphics and gameplay!) into their games, but the one that got the most attention in the article [I]just so happened[/I] to be made by someone the article writer was fucking. If he had just mentioned "by the way DQ also came out which was made by a very [I]close[/I] friend", it would have been fine, since then we'd at least know he was biased. Leaving out that mention makes it seem like DQ is so much better than the other 40 games - and since DQ was made in an afternoon or two and is a text adventure, that's kind of unfair.

On top of that wasn't he also on the judging panel of one of the indie festivals DQ won "best game" at, while also being listed in the game's credits as a financial backer? Pretty sure the whole sleeping together thing, [i]if true[/i], was just one out of many ethical failings on Grayson's part when it came to DQ.

[QUOTE=Last or First;52584019]An article doesn't have to be a review to be positive coverage. I'm pretty sure he was the one who wrote a post about how Steam Greenlight was adding about 40 more indie games. And out of those 40 games, he just so happened to pick DQ for the banner image. Despite it being text-only and being made in an afternoon or two. And of the 3 games he called out by name in the intro, he just so happened to pick DQ again. Sure, it's not "11/10 best game ever", and it's not like he and Zoe were in it for the money. It was nowhere near as bad as the Kane and Lynch negative reviewer getting fired, or No Man's Sky getting 9/10's across the board. But it was still unfair to the other ~40 indie games, since they had put time and effort (and graphics and gameplay!) into their games, but the one that got the most attention in the article [I]just so happened[/I] to be made by someone the article writer was fucking. If he had just mentioned "by the way DQ also came out which was made by a very [I]close[/I] friend", it would have been fine, since then we'd at least know he was biased. Leaving out that mention makes it seem like DQ is so much better than the other 40 games - and since DQ was made in an afternoon or two and is a text adventure, that's kind of unfair.[/QUOTE] OK, then what are the 39 other games? It's possible that he thinks DQ is the best of the bunch. Besides, the game is free.

So in other words, a person who is a self-proclaimed embodiment of anti-harassment incited harassment against the writer of an article on anti-harassment because it featured a person she didn't like? :thinking:

[QUOTE=bananaslamma;52583741]Tb wasn't even a prolific gamegater, he only supported it at the beginning iirc.[/QUOTE] He wrote very long pieces about how the whole thing was stupid on both sides but he also severely despises game journalism as a whole and frequently calls them a dying breed so he's an easy target for the fuckwits who still care about Gamergate and use it like it's their all-powerful smoking gun.