Indie developer gets #metoo’d by Zoe Quinn and commits suicide [split topic]

[Cloud]

Can you describe the vigilantism that took place here?

What always happens on Twitter.  Someone is "called out" and thousands of people act as judge and jury and pile on them to tell them how subhuman they've decided they are.

Most disconnect for a little while until the dust settles, though Twitter doesn't exist in complete isolation and the fury spills out into forums, facebook, the real world, etc.  Others who are less emotionally stable, evidently, top themselves.

[garbed_attic]

I was angered and disappointed to read that Alexis Kennedy is a long-time known abuser. The brilliance of the writing of Emily Short, Meg Jayanth, Amal El-Mohtar & others in Sunless Sea shines through within their self-contained worlds so I urge you to check out their own works outside of Failbetter's output.

[Twed]

What always happens on Twitter.  Someone is "called out" and thousands of people act as judge and jury and pile on them to tell them how subhuman they've decided they are.

You can't just call people reacting "judge and jury" and then pass that off as an argument. People are always going to react to things going on, it is never, ever going to change. It's not "judge and jury" is it, because they're just saying stuff online, not sentencing anybody.

What do you propose? That people have to never go public about abuse? You're in 2019 basically saying that the mechanism that got Weinstein arrested is bad because people tweet in a way you don't like.

[Cloud]

Just because it was a positive thing for Weinstein doesn't mean.....


... ah forget it.  Waste of time trying to reason with some people on this topic.  Write to those employers!  Get them people fired without defending themselves, yay justice!

[Twed]

Nobody wrote to Holowka's employers, they just parted ways with him when the allegations came out. Also is there a spate of unfair firings that is so insurmountably bad that you need to make up reasons why it's bad for people to speak out about abuse? I'm just trying to find out why you are trying to make the case you're making.

[madhair60]

he didn't actually lose a job, did he?

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

*Edit*

Replacing my post with this: https://twitter.com/apiecebyguy/status/1167819160941973504

[Rev+]

he didn't actually lose a job, did he?

No.  I mean it's possible that he was working somewhere else and was sacked, but if that's the case it's not been reported.  The people who 'fired' him worked on a game that came out over two years ago, and even at that point he was a collaborator and not an employee.  They just said, reasonably enough, that they wouldn't be working with him again in the future.

[Urinal Cake]

Gamer girls are overrated.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Gamer girls are overrated.

Oh really? Even Madonna in A League of Their Own?

[madhair60]

Gamer girls are overrated.

Actually agree with this

[bgmnts]

A gamer girl doesnt even play video games she just wears glasses and has marvel/overwatch gear.

[madhair60]

A gamer girl doesnt even play video games she just wears glasses and has marvel/overwatch gear.

They're scum.

[bgmnts]

Vaginal scum.

[Mister Six]

You can't just call people reacting "judge and jury" and then pass that off as an argument. People are always going to react to things going on, it is never, ever going to change. It's not "judge and jury" is it, because they're just saying stuff online, not sentencing anybody.

So when Leslie Jones and the Marie Tran out of Star Wars were hounded off Twitter and Instagram, was that just "people reacting"? Are you going to deny that being verbally abused by thousands of strangers might have a deleterious effect on one's psyche?

What do you propose? That people have to never go public about abuse? You're in 2019 basically saying that the mechanism that got Weinstein arrested is bad because people tweet in a way you don't like.

The mechanism that got Weinstein arrested was a series of meticulously researched, fact-checked and confirmed newspaper articles by third parties, not first-person accounts that may (not in this case, but in others) be inaccurate or misleading for any number of reasons.

But as I've said, and as others have said, the main issue is the thousands-to millions of people who jump on these cases and take it upon themselves to harass the accused even when they do not know the facts or indeed anyone involved in the incident, and have no way of doing so.

[Twed]

So when Leslie Jones and the Marie Tran out of Star Wars were hounded off Twitter and Instagram, was that just "people reacting"? Are you going to deny that being verbally abused by thousands of strangers might have a deleterious effect on one's psyche?

Oh yeah, you're right, I forgot about all those rapes Leslie Jones did.

What an amazingly brazen spin you just attempted. Honestly, hats off to you.

[chveik]

The mechanism that got Weinstein arrested was a series of meticulously researched, fact-checked and confirmed newspaper articles by third parties, not first-person accounts that may (not in this case, but in others) be inaccurate or misleading for any number of reasons.

wrong. it was the first person accounts that changed everything at the time, and it forced journalists to do their job.

[earl_sleek]

So when Leslie Jones and the Marie Tran out of Star Wars were hounded off Twitter and Instagram, was that just "people reacting"? Are you going to deny that being verbally abused by thousands of strangers might have a deleterious effect on one's psyche?

Maybe cos I don't use Twitter and hardly ever Instagram, but I don't get how you can be "hounded off" them. You can block people and delete them, or just ignore them. I get that if thousands of people are messaging you every second it might be logistically difficult to block them all, but why can't you ignore them? And even if people are finding they need to take a break until the shitstorm dies down, why is that such a bad thing? It's not like you can't leave your house, it's only Twitter. No one has a right to tweet.

[Twed]

Well, because it's massively harrowing and bleeds into real life.

But the idea that because of this people should never publicly accuse somebody of being a dangerous abuser is nuts in the context of recent years. Just a really bad balancing of priorities.

[jamiefairlie]

I understand the positive impacts this behaviour can bring but at the same time, there's definitely the unpleasant aroma of the lynch mob about the way people swarm all over these instances, like they're just waiting, pitchforks and torches in hand, for the next issue to arise that they can get all outraged by. 

[Thursday]

Alec Holowka wasn't actually on twitter was he?

[Twed]

Sssh, don't let details like "did the lynch mob actually exist" get in the way of telling people to shut up about horrific abuse.

[jamiefairlie]

Sssh, don't let details like "did the lynch mob actually exist" get in the way of telling people to shut up about horrific abuse.

It's not either/or. You can hate the crime/perpetrator and and also hate the behaviour of the crowd too. There's always a bunch of hangers-on in these events that just like being part of the drama and being validated by being part of the crows.

[Twed]

I'm talking to somebody who thinks people should just shut up about it because Judge Judy or whatever bollocks they came up with, though.

[Zetetic]

https://medium.com/@bombsfall/alec-2618dc1e23e

Scott Benson writes about his relationship with Alec Holowka. Scott co-developed Night in the Woods.



I'm not sure that there's much generalisable about the "Twitter lynch-mob" from this, or at least not by taking this an exemplar of the common course of things.

There might be something in taking this as a critical case, on some basis.

I've not really been able to approach this analytically.

Mostly I've found it very sad.

[Kelvin]

I think you're missing the point here, Twed. Mister Six never argued that the victims shouldn't be believed or treated with the utmost sensitivity.

The issue up for debate is how the public - as opposed to employers, or the law - should treat the accused, when they are only privy to limited information.

It is reasonable to argue that the victims should always be listened to, that employers should suspend the accused pending an investigation, that the police should be encouraged to investigate and convict, that workplace protections should be increased and that people who are not involved in any capacity (i.e. the public) should treat the accused as innocent until more evidence comes forward. You can support the accuser without hounding the accused or permanently destroying their lives prior to a proper investigation.           

While everyone will have their gut instincts and suspicions, and even though the accuser is probably statistically more likely to be telling the truth, the public should still treat both the victim and the accuser as if they are telling the truth until a clearer, more detailed picture can be formed. Expecting people to withhold public judgement on the accused does not mean that they can't be investigated or suspended, or that the victim has to be silenced.   

[Twed]

I think you're missing the point here, Twed. Mister Six never argued that the victims shouldn't be believed or treated with the utmost sensitivity.

He really is given that the only variable that can be reasonably controlled here is whether the accusation is made or not. You can't stop some people from reacting in extreme ways, and to raise it like it's a vitally important facet of this case when there's fuck all evidence of it being a factor at all just shows it all up for the hobby horse bullshit that it is.

[jamiefairlie]

You can't stop some people from reacting in extreme ways,

'You can though, twitter bans people for all sorts of random shit as they see fit. People should be held to the same standard of behaviour online as they are in real life.

Also, even if you can't stop them, you can still condemn them for acting like a baying mob and that's regardless of the guilt or otherwise of the accused person.

[Twed]

I get that, but when stuff like this happens and that's your primary focus then it lumps you in with the "political correctness gone mad" bunch.

[bgmnts]

Well the bloke did just commit suicide possibly, at least partially, as a result of the pressure caused by these allegations.