Threats.

I've been thinking about online threats, and their value. I think the two problems with this is-
1. There will always be a troll or jackass or, in extreme cases, false flags. No matter how squeaky clean a community is, it only takes a few moments for a troll to create a new user account, and go threaten somebody. Bonus points if they do the research and use a real phone number or address.
2. Accsuing someone of faking a threat opens the accuser up to refutation if they aren't dead goddamn certain of their facts.

Trolling for threats is easy enough as well. Feminists and social justice warriors have been attacking various groups for a long time. Eventually someone will lose their cool and post something embarrassing.

And I've been clued in to the phenomenon of search engine optimization revenue tactics.


I'm pretty sure this is what was behind the Emma Watson nude picture threats. Another source of real and false threats that cannot be prevented by self-policing.

But also the value in threats is that it plays on people's sympathy. The focus is shifted from the arguments to the threats. This is how Anita Sarkeesian operates, and in a lesser fashion, Zoe Quinn.

#gamergate is chasing it's own tail.

If you haven't been following #gamergate, well google it. There's far too much to go over.

But I saw a twitter log that confirms what I've been worrying about.

The participants of #gamergate are going after small potatoes, making up silly accusations against indie devs instead of chasing real corruption. I can only hypothesize that the accusations of "misogyny" worked, and they've gotten cold feet over challenging feminists and social justice warriors, which was where the corruption originally came from.

Ah well. Baby steps.

Somebody is going to do something stupid.

With all the hostility and confrontation and frustration... Someone is going to be goaded into stepping over the line. Danielle D'Etremont. Zoe Quinn. Anita Sarkeesian. Threat narratives get people scared, and scared people do things...




Well, maybe not as dramatically as V for Vendetta, but still.