Which is really frustrating, because Weev has been openly bragging about ruining Sierra's life for years. But every time it comes up, everyone seems to go "Weev is a hero! LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU SAYING BAD THINGS ABOUT THE HERO." And then everyone goes on talking about whatever he's in the news for now and never ever talks about the trolling. So nobody knows about it.
Yeah, I thought he was just a daft hacker caught by bad laws until I saw the article about his new swastika tattoo a couple of days ago. Between that and finally catching up on the finer details of 'gamergate', I'm thoroughly depressed about the state of the world.
What you're not aware of is that the dailystormer itself is very likely a trolling site in itself, aimed at creating ridiculous and believable content to draw in support by real white supremacists and enrage the unsuspecting public. It would make perfect sense for weev to go on there with a photo of him with fake tattoos to help them in their quest.
The original article is about trolls making up lies and victims having little recourse.
The lie in this case is "Zoe traded sex for press coverage". Kain explains how there is no basis for this claim whatsoever ("the initial concerns were quickly proven to be all smoke and no fire") and then goes on to explain how, despite being based on nothing, this managed to blow up anyhow by everyone making allegations that are nearly impossible to make fact, yet are taken as fact by many others.
This kind of thing is exactly what the original article is talking about, only that in the GamerGate case it's happening in both directions.
As for the DMCA thing: The video was down. While i haven't even watched it, as it's probably full of bullshit, you can go to the video ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5CXOafuTXM ), click "... More > Statistics > Daily" and see the view count drop to zero in august for a few days. This outage may have had several reasons, but due to the original uploader linking to what seems to be a DMCA takedown notice on his tumblr ( http://archive.today/UqAwg ) it appears that she did send that. And that is all Kain said.
Given these two facts, and how they do belong into the greater discussion, i am curious how you'd expect him to express that differently.
Well, Kain's article is a description of the exact kind of harassment campaign described in the original article. So the first sense I meant is that the contents of the article are the exact thing talked about.
For the DMCA: "unverifiable" is probably a better description than "unsourced", but the part I wanted to highlight was how this whole thing followed the exact playbook described in Kathy Sierra's essay.
Second, while Kain is trying to take a balanced approach, he unfortunately only looks at the surface of the issues, reporting the accusations in great detail. This is a dynamic that's also pointed out in the original article: uncritically accepting a new martyr while glossing over the original harassment. Lots about "gamers are over" and TFYC, virtually nothing about the mob harassment for anyone other than Phil Fish. And absolutely nothing about the organized astroturfing in the IRC channels, which has been documented extensively.
The accusations are repeated without much introspection, in a way that it can be used as an apologetic hammer against either side. It may not be actively harmful in itself, but it doesn't do much to actually inform the reader of all of the issues.
You believe that an article that describes both sides' claims without judging either is "harassment" and that instead of something that "can be used [...] against either side" we should be looking at articles and authors that are directly and openly associated with Kotaku/Gawker or Polygon/Vox for a more "even-handed" look?
No, I didn't say that article itself is harassment. Just that it isn't as even-handed as it tries to appear.
I just grabbed to Vox link because it was one of the more even-handed summaries from the more general news sites, regardless of association. Read both and come to your own conclusion if that makes you feel better.
I suppose I can dig up something by someone with absolutely no association with any of this, but those people generally aren't writing about this at all. That's part of the problem with that particular mess: everyone who can talk about it already knows each other and have probably already been attacked by one side or the other.
It's not really "unsourced." MundaneMatt did post a screenshot of the takedown notice he received. (EDIT: It's linked in the article, of course. Just in case anyone didn't find it because they didn't actually read the article.)
Of course the request itself looks incredibly fake (not even bothering to capitalize her name), so who the hell knows where it came from?
In any case, the controversy isn't really about Zoe any more. We don't know how much truth there is to the accusations, and even if they are true, she's really not that important to the big picture.
What I don't get is why no-one is slamming Gjoni for being a classless dickhead in the first place - sure, there's descriptions of "jilted ex" and whatnot but where's the condemnation and outrage about his actions?
Yes, my opinion is definitely not one of a hero, even the iPad thing was unprofessional, I mostly don't think he needed to go to jail for it, however, maybe that's karma, he went to jail for something he shouldn't have because he didn't go to jail for something he perhaps should have.
It's so strange that he did this before the iPad incident, and it's not mentioned at all. Did no one Google him?
