Sta.sh
I wish I was joking, but another bout of sexual harassment against women creeped up this week (only days after the Might No. 9 fiasco). This time in the form of an indi video game a woman is trying to get green-lit to Steam. The game is about depression and is just suppose to help people understand what it’s like living with it, and for this “grievous” action she’s been the target of harassment campaigns. She’s received harassing phone calls, death threats, her personal information and addresses posted for everyone to see. She’s had to change her phone number to stop the harassment, and even pulled the game originally to try and calm this crap down.
Bravely, she’s decided to post it anyway and is trying desperately to showcase how awful, hurtful, and disgusting our gaming community can be when we stay silent.
You can “justify” your reasons for hating her. You can convince yourself that sending her harassment and hate messages is for the “greater good.” But you can’t convince me that the amount of hatred and psychological damage this harassment campaign is producing is ok. I’m so sick to death of anyone thinking that harassment is acceptable behavior towards ANYONE, male or female, for whatever reason.
There’s the old saying “don’t feed the trolls,” but I’m beginning to fear that this is a complacent statement. That by ignoring the trolls we are indirectly encouraging negative behavior because they know they can get away with it. And I think that needs to stop. I’m beginning to think we need to show the world how sick and disgusting this behavior is. To point it out and make everyone AWARE of how shitty the internet has become. And you know what? If that means having to regulate the internet somehow... I can’t say I have much sympathy for what little freedom we might lose in the process.
I’m all for free speech, but free speech isn’t a “get out of jail” pass for shitty behavior. It is not a magical shield you can hide behind so that you can throw out racist, sexual, or offensive slurs at whomever you’re angry at this week. We don’t tolerate harassment in real life at our jobs, in social environments, or between friends... so why should we tolerate it on the internet?
I’ve been asked a lot what the difference between giving “honest” criticism and so-called “trolling” is. And this is a fine example. This is trolling. No ands, ifs, or buts about it. This is not criticism. This is outright harassment of a independent developer trying to get her game greenlit on Steam. A game that would (if you didn’t like it) have no impact on your life one way or the other. A game that should succeed or fail by it’s own merits and not because a group of people don’t deem it “worthy” enough to be allowed to even EXIST.
Sources:
indiestatik.com/2013/12/13/fem…
www.escapistmagazine.com/news/…
storify.com/SeeBeeWhitman/depr…
twitter.com/ZoeQuinnzel
- Listening to: Tales of the Tongue
- Reading: The Cats of Skyrim
- Watching: Helgen get Reborn
- Playing: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Eating: Sweet Rolls
- Drinking: Mead
Hence why I asked forgiveness. No doubt there's a bunch of these in your inbox already. 
roduct/category&path=71. Please take a look and report the images you recognize to the respective artists so that they may take the proper legal actions against these these people. Thank you! 
As much as I was against regulations and restrictions of the web, I can agree that this kind of behavior and harassment is what merits the bills that call for those restrictions.
There's a difference between FREE speech and HATE speeches.
Free speech is acknowledging your expression of an issue while allowing others to speak their mind.
Hate speeches are just unilateral expressions that shows the hatred of a type of individual while rejecting or denying those individuals their right to speak back.
Thank you, Internet. Thank you for making me miss out on a game I wanted to play and instead focus on a crappy NSA-backed game console I don't want instead like the Xbone.
"it's the internet" is just an excuse to not do anything about the shit that's going on here.
Ironically, too many people don't say anything because they are afraid to get targeted themselves, so it makes me even happier that someone like you is NOT SCARED and is speaking up for people who have such bad things happening to them. You are one of the few people here who are very popular and are actually using that popularity to try to help others, and I hone that deeply no matter what others are trying to make this look like!
This guy has thousands of devoted followers so if he says something a LOT of people are going to know.
But not let them keep harrassing you (or anyone else you see being harrassed). If someone is doing wrong, tell them they did wrong, punish them (report!) if they still keep on doing it, and move on.
I may not have worded it out the best way, but I hope you get what I mean.
Don't feed the trolls = stay quiet so the trolls can continue being horrible without interruption.
>I’m all for free speech
Do you realize how much cognitive dissonance exists in the space between those two statements?
Supporting free speech means supporting as few regulations around it as possible. Aside from direct calls for violence (incitement/'fighting words'), clearly illegal content (child porn), and defamatory statements, speech and expression should have as few limits as possible so that we may share a broad range of ideas without the fear of government censorship.
Any attempt to regulate free speech with broad, generalized terms (e.g. stopping 'harmful' speech) always goes awry because of how the lack of defined limits in such regulation leads to abuse of power in an attempt to 'do the right thing'. We place limits on incitement, defamation, etc. because we can place limits with enough clarity, definition, and narrow reach on those sorts of expressions without clamping down on all other forms of protected speech.
By saying you both support free speech and still want to see regulations against "trolling", you seem to have outed yourself as a supporter of the Preferred First Speaker doctrine (which holds that when Person A speaks, listeners B, C, and D should refrain from their full range of constitutionally protected expression to preserve the ability of Person A to speak without fear of non-governmental consequences that Person A doesn't like). You cannot support both the concept of truly free expression and the Preferred First Speaker.
I do agree with you about trolling in that it can turn ugly in a New York minute and we could (and should) do more to stem its tide, no matter if we witness the trolling from the sidelines or we end up subjected to it first-hand. Fighting trolling, however, requires an immense measure of humanity that we seem incapable of extending towards trolls. No matter how frustrating or disheartening or disturbing we find their actions, online trolls still have someone sitting at a screen -- and, far too often, we seem to forget that admist their deplorable actions.
We don't need regulations and laws and pitchfork media to fight trolls; that gets us nowhere. We need to have an actual dialogue -- and more than that, we need a sense of empathy and humanity that we'll willingly extend to trolls regardless of whether they return it in kind.
Stop fighting the trolls, stop acting like trolls, and start acting like a person who has a heart.
And for fuck's sake, stop calling for the regulation of speech you don't like. It makes you look awful.
I agree!
*This garbage goes on in dA chatrooms as well and I thought the official dA chats were suppose to be friendly and welcoming. Even the rules clearly state certain things are against policy but still...people do it and think the acts are "funny".*
It's exactly like Cyberbullying. It's horrible and sad. Why can't people just understand the fact that trolling isn't funny? Are people really that desperate to get attention or have some sh*ts and giggles about it? It's hurtful to the person who is being talked down to.
I teeter between severe anxiety and severe depression and I know I'm not the only one so just to heed a warning to trolls, think before click send because you don't know that person. So one day you may say something so vile, it can push that person into putting a bullet in their brain. Trolls, to me, are no less than a criminal in the making...sorry!
In the meantime, when you are on forums with effectual mods, report the behavior and have the trolls shut down. Further censorship is not likely to help.
wel i leard theam to stop messing whit me
not to smart and i regrat it but it works
please elaborate exactly how they are different because they seem very similar to me. and no im not taking sides I just want more info
Face in hordes, such can be just as bad or even worse than one person cyber bullying. hen it blows out of proportion it is all just as bad, and that is what this journal is about.
It is not okay when many go down on ONE person just because this person dared to make a game about depression. As a modern society and people with HEARTS we should not tolerate such behavior!
A: Loosely following stuff from the past, that was semi-witty, mostly.
B: Labelling people and harrassing them.
C: Making Judgements with Prejudice.
D: Going Off On Tangents
E: Plain ol' Making Shit Up
Any of these, are the Illogic of the Troll thing, and dissect em' by referring to how cliched it has gotten, and make comparisons to Witch-Hunts, And what about other Fantasy Creatures? This BS symptom-Lice Farm of Cunt-Fuck has gone to Cliched Apocalypse, and it needs to die.
As a friend of mine said: A person may have freedom of speech to say what they want, when they want, but it does not give them freedom from the consequences that follow.
And for this kind of stuff, there should indeed be consequences.
If you give up a little freedom for a little more security, you deserve neither.
At least, tha's how it is in Denmark.