GamerGate? Da fuq is a GamerGate?

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by Arhra

I think everyone here agrees that is bad. The problem is how do we stop it?

Every 'official' thing I've seen that's organising stuff for GamerGate has emphasised that harassment is bad, don't do it.

One of the first things channers did, when the movement got its name and started taking off under the disguise of a 'legit' movement, was establish a 'Deny abuse, call false flag on things, redirect, distract, and say we don't condone the bad stuff' plan, that also involved continuing to harass freely, just making sure not to link overt harassment to the hashtags for plausible deniability. It had one of their stupid operation names attached to it.

It was around that same time that they also came up with Not Your Shield, first feeding sockpuppet accounts into it to draw some attention and traction, and letting it grow from there, attack other minorities that were outspoken against GamerGate and literally using NotYourShield as a shield from criticism.

And, Amake is right. You might try and distance yourself from the rotten core of the movement, but they'll gladly put an arm around you and say you're just like them, all day long to further their goals. It is rotten at the very core of it, tainted by its nasty start and misinformation, and grown even worse with time and more muddling of the facts and timeline of things. Even if you recover it, they burned dozens of bridges with devs and journos and websites in the process, they won't trust Gamergate, ever.