Panel about online harassment cancelled... by threats made online of violence at SXSW

[Teelie]

After receiving threats, SXSW cancels panel about online harassment

The irony is thickly applied here. And surprise, surprise, it is almost certainly related to GamerGate and "gamers" who threatened to commit violence at the actual show.

Of course I doubt any of them would have actually shown up and done anything more than be mildly irritating but given the violence (and threatened violence) we've seen happen already at shows it isn't something to be dismissed either.

As the March kickoff for the weeks-long 2016 South By Southwest festival approaches, its disparate sections—music, film, and interactive—have begun announcing confirmed panels, speakers, and showcases. SXSW Interactive appeared prepared to host a panel about the hot-button topic of online harassment and abuse, but that plan changed on Monday when a festival director officially announced that the panel, along with another tangentially related panel, had been canceled due to allegations of "numerous threats of on-site violence."

SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest posted the news at the festival's official blog, though Forrest didn't confirm whether the threats were linked to both panels that he confirmed received the axe: "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games." After describing SXSW as a home for "diverse ideas," Forrest also described a desire to maintain "civil and respectful" dialogue.

"If people can not agree, disagree, and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised," Forrest wrote. "Maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session."

The Level Up panel would have included Online Abuse Prevention Initiative founder Randi Harper as a panelist and was advertised as "a panel from experts on online harassment in gaming and geek culture, how to combat it, how to design against it, and how to create online communities that are moving away from harassment."

Harper posted an alleged copy of a cancellation e-mail sent by SXSW organizers that included similar language to the public statement. The private e-mail went so far as to mention "sessions... that focused on the GamerGate controversy," though Harper pointed out that her panel's description never used the G-word.

Meanwhile, the description of the SavePoint panel included topics such as "the current social/political landscape in the gaming community" and "the journalistic integrity of gaming’s journalists" without clarifying what social, political, or ethical viewpoints would be addressed. One of the panel's creators, Perry Jones, posted openly at Reddit's KotakuInAction last week to ostensibly link the panel to the GamerGate hashtag. He wrote:

Why is the panel not just called "#Gamergate?" A comment below said it best. While we aren't explicitly a GamerGate organization, we do hold many of the movement's beliefs; unethical gaming press, free speech, free creativity, and breaking the "white gamer" stereotype. We share these beliefs, but we aren't stupid. We know that much of the mass media has portrayed GG in a very negative light, and our fear was that any submission with the name #GamerGate on it would be discarded immediately. So before we even drafted the idea we came up with a clever sounding title that could draw attention.

We have reached out to SXSW with questions about the nature of the threats, along with the seeming disconnect between a panel about online threats being canceled around online threats, and we will update this report with any response.

Ars Technica

 

[Snow Queen]

Oh are they still pretending GamerGate is anything other than a cover to harass people?

 

[Pink Ranger]

Why is it so damn difficult to arrest even one person for this ****? If our group of moderators, mainly consisting of runners up from the Fitness America pageant (I assume), can track down IP addresses and identify PBUs, can't the law enforcement agencies just identify and arrest even one guy, ONE GUY, for this?

Just one guy. Arrest him, makes a big deal of it, put his weak little ass in jail for a couple of nights to scare the **** out of him, make an example of him, then let him off with the usual light punishment for such an activity. One of the central principles of criminal justice is its general deterrent effect, and that much is badly needed now.

 

[Teelie]

The problem is an IP address proves nothing. It could be spoofed, a proxy, might not be the person who is associated with that IP address who is responsible (ie; a parent of a trollish child or someone with a weak/nonexistent WiFi password or someone at Starbucks) or any number of other possibilities.

This is why anonomity is so great and so terrible. Proving who is behind a comment is not always straight forward.

 

[Pink Ranger]

That's what police investigations are for. If that same level of fatalism applied to child pornography investigations, nobody would ever get successfully prosecuted for those either. Like with child pornographers, these guys are not seasoned criminals and will piss in their pants and confess in under 5 minutes with a cop. That's only IF law enforcement starts taking things seriously.

Hell, we don't even need to have successful prosecutions for a deterrent effect to happen. Images on youtube of police carrying electronics out of somebody's house and some skinny little weeping **** being thrown in a squad car would decrease the bravado some of these idiots.

 

[Teelie]

This is not the same level as child porn and the police are woefully inacapable of dealing with even real life stalking and harassment threats let alone those that are done online.

It also takes a lot of resources to catch pedophiles online and it barely makes an impact. There are far more people stalking and harassing on the internet than there are looking at child porn.

Prosecuting them wouldn't help either. It doesn't stop them because they think they can get away with it. Just look at the frenzy of "SWATers" to get an idea of how impossible that would be. Even the ones who get caught frequently don't get charged with anything, or are in another country and are either not extradited or it isn't worth the effort.

 

[Marvolo]

Police are really behind on cyber crimes. Most think its a bit of a joke or something that isnt worth their time. Our justice system hasnt caught up with the times and the online social movement.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Police are really behind on cyber crimes. Most think its a bit of a joke or something that isnt worth their time. Our justice system hasnt caught up with the times and the online social movement.

Exactly. It's a matter of effort and priorities, not doability and technology. If you want to find out how effective cyber-crime enforcement can be, identify yourself as a Muslim and send a bomb threat to an AIPAC fundraiser. Or send a rape threat to an FBI agent's daughter. Suddenly these laws will become enforceable.

 

[terry78]

It's about geeks harassing other geeks at a video game event. Kids being kids to most of the population.

 

[Teelie]

It's far more than kids being kids. The very real problem of death threats, harassment, mysogny and bullying aren't just childish antics.

 

[terry78]

Exactly, but I'm saying on the outside looking in that is what it's perceived as.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I admit it, coming from outside the gaming community myself, I had to read several different sources several times over before I could even nail down the basic facts of what happened here.

 

[Teelie]

The gaming community is merely the face of the deeper, more insidious issue here. Before it was gamers the face was Anonymous and the chans (which arguably are still behind it) and after this it will be some other group, likely the unfortunately named "Men's Rights Activist" group(s) before yet another face is applied to the same ugly troll behind it all.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I just wanted to add that police in two different, disparate countries (Canada and the Netherlands) were able to work together and track down and prosecute one single guy in Europe who was cyberstalking and sex-stalking a teenaged girl in Vancouver, who eventually committed suicide.

So yes, it is possible to prosecute these cases, only if the "conventional wisdom" of law enforcement didn't dictate that adult women are less worthy of legal protection than girls.

 

[Teelie]

A major part of the problem too is the mentality these women (or men, they are stalked and harassed too) somehow bring it on themselves merely by being online or "provactive."

 

[Pink Ranger]

A major part of the problem too is the mentality these women (or men, they are stalked and harassed too) somehow bring it on themselves merely by being online or "provactive."

Pretty much that's been the unfortunate attitude. And governments and law enforcement wonder why cyber-vigilantiism exists.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Hire extra security and keep going with the show, just to piss them off next time.

I still don't understand what this gamergate thing is.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Hire extra security and keep going with the show, just to piss them off next time.

I still don't understand what this gamergate thing is.

If you're a non-gamer, it's a bloody headache to try and understand, but as a concerned citizen it is worth learning about in order to be outraged.

 

[Black Narcissus]

If you're a non-gamer, it's a bloody headache to try and understand, but as a concerned citizen it is worth learning about in order to be outraged.

I'm a non-gamer. I did play the arkham games tho. Heh.

Would you mind giving me a quick recap?

 

[Pink Ranger]

I suspect there are a couple of people here who know the situation better and are slightly more objective than me, so I will invite them to give SLJ the rundown.

 

[Black Narcissus]

I suspect there are a couple of people here who know the situation better and are slightly more objective than me, so I will invite them to give SLJ the rundown.

All I heard was that this video game critic chick slept with some dude and gave a postive review to that guy's game. Is this the gist of it? t:

 

[Teelie]

Not even remotely close. First, Zoe Quinn, the "game critic chick" never slept with him. Her ex-boyfriend started that nasty rumor as revenge with the help of some chan folks who created GamerGate as a smokefront to harass her. It later expanded to "legitimate" criticism of gaming journalism in that it held a kernel of truth to the otherwise fake story behind it about how gaming journalism is a lot of paid reviews (graft) and mostly useless (like most journalism these days).

 

[Teelie]

SXSW Interactive changes tune, announces day-long Online Harassment Summit
Canceled panels return along with 19 more speakers; SXSW is "truly sorry."

They had a change of heart and found some backbone. The summit is back on and stronger than before.

The SXSW Interactive 2016 festival began announcing panels and discussions last week, but two of those—one specifically about online harassment and abuse and one with apparent ties to the GamerGate hashtag—were canceled on Monday due to "threats of on-site violence."

After a massive outcry about the cancellations, which included threats from Buzzfeed and Vox Media to pull their support from SXSW, that decision was reversed on Friday—and then some. SXSW Interactive Director Hugh Forrest posted an announcement that the two canceled panels would not only return but be rolled into an all-day Online Harassment Summit—which, at this point, includes 25 announced speakers in all.

"By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry," Forrest wrote in the announcement. "While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, canceling sessions was not an appropriate response. We have been working with the authorities and security experts to determine the best way to proceed."

The previously canceled panels would have weighted the explicit concerns and recommendations of anti-harassment advocates with a conversation about open-ended topics like "the current social/political landscape in the gaming community" and "the journalistic integrity of gaming’s journalists." The latter panel's moderator eventually took to GamerGate-affiliated forums to seek support for its content. Forrest noted that with the panels' reinstatement, SXSW would "work with both groups to develop the most productive focus for their appearances," but based on the list of 19 new speakers, we expect the Online Harassment Summit will now focus largely on the harassment half of the original plan.

Those speakers will include known anti-harassment advocates like Congresswoman Katherine Clark, Stop Online Violence Against Women founder Shireen Mitchell, and game developer Brianna Wu, along with former Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, former White House video game czar Mark DeLoura, and representatives from Facebook, the ACLU, and the Anti-Defamation League.

One returning panelist, Online Abuse Prevention Initiative founder Randi Harper, took to her Twitter account on Friday to praise SXSW for creating the summit, though she added that while she had encouraged SXSW to also reinstate the GamerGate-linked panel, she "didn't expect them to be at the summit" and denounced the movement's supporters for "being the ones that perpetrate" online harassment.

The Online Harassment Summit will be livestreamed across the Internet and is free for non-attendees to watch.

Ars Technica

 

[Pink Ranger]

You godaaaamn right.

 

[Thundercrack85]

Exactly how credible are these death threats? I mean, has any of these video game internet personalities actually been harmed? Has anyone ever?

Every time I read about them – and thanks to Anita Sarkeesian, they seem to be on every damn gaming website – they never seem to amount to anything.

I can't help but imagine some 14 year old eight states away writing them.

If real journalists were this easily intimidated, we'd have no news.