The Internet is toxic, but its toxicity is usually equal opportunity
One of the more annoying trends in our society has been the substitution of action with rhetoric. This has really taken off in the age of Twitter where people think hashtags are a replacement for actually doing something.
Today I read an Opinion Piece on Polygon called “No Skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry” by a woman named Brianna Wu. It's an article I recommend checking out.
However, I do have some criticisms of the piece. For starters, it is a bad piece of journalism. It relies completely on sensationalist emotionalism to back up its blanket assertion (“the daily harassment of women in the game industry”).
Such articles, even opinion pieces, are apparently not open to discussion. As soon as I expressed some criticism on Twitter the haters came out in force. All sense of reason evaporated. My criticism was: Be aware that sometimes allegations of sexual harassment are false (remember what happened to me). Sometimes, some women choose to take criticism/teasing/abuse as being due to their sex.
Let me give you the part from the article that caused me to write my tweet in the first place.
This is the example Ms. Wu provides as an example of sexual harassment women face:
Two things to point out about this: First, anonymous user (which is one of the sources of why Internet discussion can get so toxic) and second, while clearly abusive, this has nothing to do with the writer being female. I have gotten tweets to me very similar to this when I've made a casual tweet regarding a game console. Ask Phil Fish about internet abuse. Trolls will cater their trolling to their target.
The point of my tweet is that we need to be careful on this because *sometimes* the allegation that it's *sexual* harassment is false.
The article provides 4 such anecdotes. The Internet has plenty of vile behavior that many of us run into regularly. But this article tries to make sweeping conclusions with it. I take issue with articles that make sweeping (and arguably sexist) charges against men using 4 anecdotes as evidence.
If we were debating any other topic and someone made a broad, far reaching claim and backed it up with nothing more than 4 anecdotal examples they’d get reamed. But because we are talking about an ism, it is taboo to raise any skepticism about the article’s agenda.
I’ve been in the game industry a long time. I’ve seen its ugliness in many different forms. So let me tell you: This subject matter is delicate and should be treated as such.
So let's look at the responses I got when I tweeted that women sometimes make false claims of "sexual harassment" when in fact what they received had nothing to do with their sex:
To which I respond:
Which gets:
Buzzfeed's Nicol Leffel goes right to name-calling almost immediately.
Ugh. There were much more vile responses than these but I blocked them and now I can't find them on twitter. The point being, even attempting to discuss the topic invites assumptions of sexism and abuse.
There IS misogyny in the game industry but not where the professional victims would have you believe
The misogyny I've seen in our industry is not representative of game culture in general but is a manifestation of Internet toxicity. Let's start with the sexist reaction successful women in the game industry often receive. When a man does something impressive and gets some publicity, they get kudos and support. But if a woman does something impressive and gets the same publicity, their experience is likely to be terrible and humiliating. I’ve seen this first hand and it’s discouraging. But it would be wrong to imply that this is a general issue. Internet culture is toxic.
...But we have to be careful that this issue isn't exploited by opportunistic people to for professional or personal gain.
I have first hand experience with this. Those of you who know me know the hell I went through when I was falsely accused of "sexual harassment" by a former, opportunistic employee who was hoping for a quick pay off.
Let me say it plainly: There are women who will exploit this delicate topic for financial or professional gain. Maybe they’re “journalists” who know it’s a quick, easy way to get their article published on Kotaku. Maybe it’s a former journalist whose just gotten into the game industry who wants her upcoming project to get coverage. Or maybe it’s a young woman mad at her boss who wants to exploit the issue to make money. And of course, maybe it’s a legitimate reporting on a serious problem. But sorry, I’m a skeptic now. I didn’t use to be such a skeptic but 2 years of unwarranted smears and death threats have made me take these claims with a grain of salt.
So what can we do?
I’m an engineer, I’m interested in solutions and I think there is a lot we can do to address this issue:
Choose to be part of the solution: Do your part to make the Internet a less toxic environment. Don’t just blindly support empty, feel good pap. Keep your critical thinking cap on.
Update: Slashdot comments are very interesting and in stark contrast to the empty progressive rhetoric on Twitter. http://games-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/229256/the-daily-harassment-of-women-in-the-game-industry
Update 2: Added more content, added item #2 regarding anonymity. Fixed Typos. (see edit history).
Update 3: Added pics from Twitter.
Update 4: Typos, streamlined.
Update 5: Crossed out item 2. I've been persuaded that it's a bad idea.
It's creepy, but it takes a lot of effort and intelligence to do targeted violence. They wouldn't put forth the effort, and many wouldn't know where to get started- especially since it's not skills you can just download off the internet.
I think on #4 as Brad listed, I think there are some things- you should avoid things that are definitely vulgar/sexist, but generally the things that fall into that category fall under #3, and should be stomped out under that. I know what it's like to work at a place where you have to walk on eggshells, it's not fun. It's a reason I like the job I have (and why I'm always worried about the FAA taking it away from me)
I believe everyone understands at a basic level that it takes more time/money to make an avatar of a different gender, however because of the fact that the time and money is so rarely taken to do it then we can see it as a potential problem. The issue here is that a male avatar is the de facto choice for developers and a female avatar is a secondary concern. That's the baseline and it is/can be offensive to people.
I don't entirely understand the Raiders example. Indy is clearly the main protagonist, so of course most people will identify with him, he's affable and good looking, etc.
My theory on protagonists is that the developers were treated like nerds for being interested in video games, and naturally assumed that no woman would want to play it in the first place. The exceptions, like Unreal, are a monumental effort of outreach towards that foreign species.
Psych....a gentle hint from someone who knows....they're not a 'foreign species' .... particularly if you suggest they are....[get a firm grip upon your short and curlies....before THEY do]...
Marion was affable and good looking too. The question asked was which character you identify with most. It's not the same question as whether you identify with the protagonist. The issue being raised by our TA was more that because women have grown up accustomed to male protagonists being the majority, the theory goes that women have learned how to see themselves in a male protagonist better than men have learned how to see themselves in a female protagonist. If you think about it, girls cannot avoid reading and watching a lot of material in which a man is the protagonist. They are used to it. Being a tomboy can get you teased. I was teased for that, but there were many books about tomboys and the tomboys were always portrayed in a positive light. My sister once told me she almost felt obliged to be a tomboy because we had to read so many of those as children. Being seen as girly can be devastating for a boy. Not only do kids pick on them, often their parents give them a hard time about it, because of homophobia causing the fear their child might be gay. Boys are sometimes actively discouraged from reading or watching media which has a woman as the protagonist because a lot of parents and even educators consider those things too girly. Some people think boys won't like those stories. Others think boys shouldn't like those stories. Remember that 11 year old boy who was bullied because he identified with the female My Little Pony named Pinkie Pie? The bullying he received over it is believed by kids at his school to have been a motive for the suicide attempt that has left him unresponsive even now. He may never recover. Is it any wonder that in such a forbidding climate a lot of guys did not have same degree of exposure to female protagonists that their female counterparts had to male ones? I suspect that most girls do not have to fear being called a lesbian if they read a Harry Potter book. I am guessing a teen boy caught reading Twilight might have some troubles.
Forcing stereotypes on people based on their sex is not healthy. Kids having to justify why they decided to play the opposite sex in a game is not healthy. Ideally both boys and girls would grow up being comfortable identifying with an interesting protagonist, regardless of the sex of that character. Unfortunately, I don't think we are there yet. Toys are still sorted into girl's toys, boy's toys, and neutral toys in many stores. If you go to Amazon to look for toys, you will see this:
It's starting to change a bit. Clearly people are now at least aware that there is an issue with how women are depicted in games, and entertainment in general. In the struggle to work through how we feel and what to do about, a lot of us stick our feet in our mouths sometimes, including me. It will take time. I wish we could flip a switch and change it right now, but we can't. Although people who want to get rid of sexism still get into flame wars with each other, at least we're talking about it, and some people are also doing something about it. I'm doing more than just talking in my offline life, and I am sure you are too. I've downloaded the Unity free version. Wish me luck. I have a whole lot of learning and work to do.
Internet toxicity owes a lot to anonymity. if people had to post where their real identities were known you'd see a lot better behavior. When some future employer does due diligence on say Ryan Guent... their work at IBM would come up but then all their toxic behavior too.
If we seriously want to reduce the sexist abuse seen in tat article, the first step is to do something about the anonymous identities on The net.
I completely agree. Unfortunately, that has the potential to hinder free speech.
I am not sure I agree or disagree with this one.
One point is most online news media has went away from anonymous account posting and the hate and flaming did cut down a lot. You need to log in with your freakbook or twits account.
Another point is, people should be able to have a venue where they can express their opinion with some anonymity. If an employer was able to easily find the opinions of their employees, that could cause them to be singled out to the point they lose their job. The same with any social construct, kids in a religious family speaking out about their experiences, people going against a popular political belief, etc, etc. I probably would never post one political or religious opinion if I had my real name on it for fear of rocks through my window or brake lines cut. It's not that I am a hateful person, people here have a good idea what I post which is a good indicator of my online behavior elsewhere.
On to my opinion about the gaming industry.
I do not own a business in gaming, but I imagine they are creating a product that they want to make money from and not please every social justice warrior on the planet, that is not even interested in buying your product. Of all the woman I know, one played some stupid game called farmville or something, where every guy I know plays video games, so, let's be honest, who's the target audience of a company that want's to be successful?
If some woman wants to start a game company to make a product that I would think wouldn't have a hope in hell of competing with one designed for men as the target audience, all the power to her. I would wonder how many men were on that payroll though. But, if I was designing a game, I would have a direction in place and hire to fill the rolls of the work needing to get that goal accomplished. The last thing I would want on my team is someone trying to inject their ideology and then play the victim when I toss them out on their ass. I don't care if it is religion, gender ideology's, or whatever else is supposedly 'politically incorrect'.
To many times I have seen uproars on the webs about people changing the general direction a game has had for a long time and build up many followers. It does not matter about their gender, people will get pissed, and the people that are particularly hateful, which I call flaming, not trolling, will attack the nerves that are easily hurt. These are different for men and woman, but some of the stuff I have seen directed at men is astounding.
For many people, games are works of art that you can interact with, and like all forms of art, should never bow down to any ideology. You don't like it, don't buy it. If their is a demand for a game nobody is making, it should be easy to get rich then eh.
I think you'd see a lot better online behavior if people had to use, real verified names. When there are consequences for ones behavior, it makes people consider what they put out on the net.
The abuse those women received in the original article had one thing in common: The perpetrators were all anonymous.
When someone is interviewing for a job, it's standard procedure now to do a little Google searching on the individual. Just picking "Shadarr" from BF as an example, I suspect his entire posting history would be very different if every post had Ryan Gu.., IBM engineer next to it.
I've been posting as myself for a long time (I use Frogboy/Draginol has handles but everyone knows who I am) and people have picked apart my blog posts for years and readily discussed how they would try to economically punish me for having opinions they don't like.
These scumbags who harass women online would certainly think twice if their real identity was attached to their words. Who is going to want to hire them?
Anyone who really wants to make progress in stopping the online abuse of women should be in favor of abolishing anonymity in public discourse.
Sure, and look at what people have done with your info, there are not many people that would ever post their personal opinions on anything if they had to go through that crap. So we would only have people posting that were well off enough to have their own private protection service.
@Frogboy Such an endeavour is completely impractical on a global scale, and has severe downsides to it. Everyone whose methods you wish to limit would be untouched by any conceivable implementation.
I respect that you want to put your fingerprint next to every post you make, but the truth is more important than being civil.
Now if people want to create privately-run forums and subscribe to services where you can only get messages from "real" people, I don't see what's stopping them.
That is the trade off we make indeed. I can't think of any great "truths" that have come out from YouTube commenters or Twitter users. I suspect there is some middle ground out there. Though, admittedly, that middle ground is beyond me.
quote]Sure, and look at what people have done with your info, there are not many people that would ever post their personal opinions on anything if they had to go through that crap. So we would only have people posting that were well off enough to have their own private protection service.[/quote]
I think it's the other way around. I've never hidden my identity and nobody cared what I wrote until I became successful. To pick on the BF guys once more, they don't obsess/twist everything I write because of what I write, they do it because of who I am. There's millions of people blogging who write things that would undoubtedly offend them more. They focus on me because I'm successful.
Does anyone doubt that the women online who get harassed would see the number of incidents drastically reduced if each attacker had to use their name and job as part of their profile?
I would say that most of the real hate comes from a very small subset of the people on the internet, and they make a hobby of professional flaming. Just like all the retarded DRM on games that the other small subset finds away around in a matter of hours, so would the hater's having to use a real name.
I thought you were more of a libertarian than a progressive that wants everything regulated, was I wrong?
And why is the hate directed at men, or children online not as important as a woman's, why can't it be ...
Does anyone doubt that the people online who get harassed would see the number of incidents drastically reduced if each attacker had to use their name and job as part of their profile?
If you could by magic implement it in such a way that it was actually adhered to, it would absolutely reduce the number of incidents. By necessity this also includes that no personal information could ever be faked, either by private citizens or government agencies. If you found a post by me which said that I "wish the germans had finished the job with the jews properly" then you would reasonably need to be 100% certain that it actually came from me. Otherwise this is just a way in for extortionists and identity theft.
And there are actually more people that share my name - not a lot, but a few. A "John Smith" might be just as anonymous today as he would be in fairytale land.
And who would even dare discuss politics? Nevermind criticizing local politicians, government and so on.
But you know I just thought of a glaring problem with all this (ignore the rest). The people who surely would not want to identify themselves online would be females who (rightly so in many aspects) feel that they are persecuted. Think about it for a second. Arguably verbal harassment would go down, but real-life attacks may increase dramatically. After all, participation and expression of opinions would require that you identify yourself completely.
I thought you were more of a libertarian that a progressive that wants everything regulated, was I wrong?
As a libertarian, I don't want the government to force anyone to do anything. But that doesn't mean I don't support companies doing the right thing. I just don't think force should be used.
Well, without big daddy forcing people at gun point or with jail time, there will always be people that start up forums or social networks that will allow anonymity. Google tried to do this, and the backlash was swift and fierce.
http://betabeat.com/2012/07/start-using-your-full-name-begs-desperate-youtube-message/
ya, even after they begged, they dropped the idea.
EDIT: You have a company that has it's own forum. Go ahead, give it a try.
No one has ever been attacked on Twitter or Facebook, without being on them in the first place.
There's a severe disconnect between reality and what people do online, but it's not just in the behavior of trolls. You're essentially making a celebrity of yourself, and complaining about the flack that comes with it. Any celebrity will tell you they get death threats, hate mail by the truck load, the odd creepy stalker, and a variety of other problems they often spend a great deal of money to mitigate. Including copious amounts of innocuous, but impossible to deal with fan mail.
Putting yourself out there for the wolves is stupid. If you don't need to, don't. If you do, get a gun(everyone should have one anyway) and bitch about how the legal recourse for online stalkers is absolutely dick.
Expecting to successfully remove anonymity from the internet is preposterous, the unintended consequences are vast, and the outcome would be void as our mail service is quite sufficient for anonymously sending hate mail even if you could somehow manage to make the internet proof against such things. Short of a world wide police state, it's simply not going to work.
I think the ability to post anonymously is an important one. For every misanthrope using anonymity to spew venom, somewhere there's someone living under an oppressive government who's relying on anonymity to be able to speak out against it. And I'm not referring to blatantly political forums either, what seems like an innocuous comment to us on a gaming forum could result in trouble for the poster in many countries.
Not everyone is as lucky as us to live in free-ish countries.
And yeah, good question. So why do Stardock forums allow anonymity?
Brad here is proposing something that totalitarian states like Iran and South Korea (ok semi-totalitarian in this case) have tried to do. It won't work in a free society, and some things need privacy.
When I got my first paying job on the internet, my boss suggested not using my real name. I felt weird about it. Why would I need to use a nick to host some game chats and moderate file libraries and a forum? He had been around a long time, had been a co-founder of one of the earliest BBSes, and he assured me I would attract what he called puppydogs. It didn't make sense to me because nowhere was there a picture of me, we weren't doing any video or voice chats, sounded paranoid. I humored him and came up with a nick that was about as non-sexy as I could think up. I did make it a clearly female name because it was important to me not to hide that the person hosting the game chat just happened to be female. I am well aware that being invisible doesn't do anything to change the idea that women don't game. I didn't give it much thought after that. And then a few months later a delusional member of the service got it into his head that I was destined to marry him, used social engineering to get my real name from the service and some other data on me. He flew across the country intending to surprise me with an unexpected marriage (how romantic!) but luckily this stalker was not very good at stalking. I was using a post office box at the time because I was in the process of apartment hunting. That was the address he managed to get so he turned up at the post office! I kid you not. To make a long story short, they called the police on him because he was apparently giving some weird story about having lost the address of his "fiancée" and pestering a post office lady about when I usually came to get the mail. This sort of thing happens to celebrities all the time but I wasn't one. If it happened to me, it could happen to anyone.
He did not manage to get to me and no violence occurred. He did go home without causing any more trouble. Later he sent a morose email to my staff account, professing his undying love for me but admitting he supposed there was nothing he could do. He apologized for giving me the "wrong impression" of him. Still, it was very disturbing. My boss was right, somehow I attracted a puppydog, a lonely crazy one. The person who did this wasn't a kid. He was in his 30s. Stalking is a huge problem in MMOs, too. Stalkers come in all genders, all ages, all races. Some people out there are just crazy and these days they have a lot more tools they can use to stalk people.
What you have just read is an anecdote and I understand if you don't believe it. I'm not giving you any hard proof. I am not naming any names you can Google. It happened a long time ago, before the majority of people were on FB, and before it became an easy thing to post a satellite photo of someone's home. I have lost touch with the boss I mention, and he may no longer be with us. If I ever take a job that requires me to use my real name as a staff member on the internet, I will do my best to get Google to remove my address and any images of where I live, on the grounds of privacy concerns. Obviously, if I do manage to put out a game, I will have to put my real name on it if I ever intend to sell it. I promise it won't be about cooking, farming, modeling, or shampooing poodles. No offense to people who like those, but they aren't my thing. If they are your thing, by all means, enjoy.
Oh, I absolutely believe you. I have a male friend who decided, on a whim, to play a female character in Everquest back when it first came out. The number of creepy borderline stalkers who came out of the woodwork was eye-opening.
Glad to hear nothing worse happened with your incident!
I don't think the EQ box art helped much in that regard. It sort of promised something they expected their players to deliver. I didn't play it very long.
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