>I think that most of the people in question who have been demonized have been women who have been speaking out about treatment of women in games.

Data contradicts this sentiment. [0] The "targeted men" are more likely to receive negative and neutral tweets and less positive tweets than the "targeted" women that are often cited. I see Chu being shit on more than anyone else, honestly.

>personal observations of many tweets

My entire experience with #GG has been with a large transgender crowd and an entire community panicking and trying to contact local authorities or family of a member because they were contemplating suicide after someone outed them as trans to their employer. Any "harassment" I've seen is calling people out on their bullshit.

e.g Anita's newest list of harassment, someone said they "recognized a lot of names from #GamerGate" - nobody active in #gamergate recognizes any of the names. Are the tweets harassment? Yes, most of them were. Are they tied to #GG in any way? No, they aren't.

>plus many different articles by journalists

I hope you don't mean the same journalists being slammed for their ethics. They found that the people accusing them of being morally corrupt are "actually" the morally corrupt and should not be listened to? Well, okay then. Or do you mean different journalists who don't have any skin in the game?

>claims that the media was distorting what happened at SXSW

The last 3 "positive #Gamergate [panel, gathering, etc]" have received bomb threats and have been cancelled due to it. That's being ignored by the media entirely and swept under a rug as if it doesn't matter. If it were an anti-GG [panel/gathering/etc] and it received bomb threats the media would never shut up about it. That's my understanding of the SXSW issue going on.

Actually - I just took a break to check the tag really fast. It gets worse than people shutting down the panel, GG is being blamed for shutting down its own panel. [1] But if enough people write about it, that makes it true I guess? That is blatant bullshit. #GG has been trying to get a platform to speak on for well over a year. Every time has been shut down like this, but this time they're putting the blame on #GG itself. The sheer absurdity of the claim coupled with fifteen different articles on it to push the narrative is corrupt as fuck. This is the type of shit that is keeping #GG around. Media collusion to push a narrative regardless of facts.

>It won't hurt to get journalists to admit when they're being paid by advertisers, but it won't do any actual good either

Of course it will do good. It's good for the consumers. I can take their review with a grain of salt knowing there is a bias. Not knowing is worse than knowing without making the assumption that every review is paid for - which is a lose-lose for reviewers. If every review is paid for, they aren't reviews and I wouldn't listen to them. That's bad for the reviewer (nobody listening to them) but good for consumers.

Furthermore, I'm less likely to trust someone not known for taking freebies who gives a glowing review to a game only to be found 3 months after release they were paid $1,500 in merchandise to give a good review to a shitty game nobody ended up liking. That's both bad for consumers and bad for the reviewer (but only if caught!).

>So how do you deal with journalists being too close to those they review?

"Hey, I'm dating the girl who worked on this game. I should let Paul review it because he isn't expecting to fuck her tonight and won't have an incentive to praise the game if it's bad."

"I'd love to have $2,000 in merchandise but that's a bribe that I'll have to decline. I'll accept the pre-release game in order to review it but I will not accept the $2,000 goodie-bag you're trying to bribe me with."

That's actually been done before, believe it or not! Some people are ethical enough and take their job seriously enough to deny bribes! The people who can admit they might be too biased to give a fair and honest review are the people I trust the most to be writing about things.

>P.P.S. I am at this point tiring of this discussion. I will cede you the last word if you reply, otherwise it's been an interesting chat. Thanks for keeping it civil. Yes, that's a point in your favor.

That's understandable and I'd like to thank you in return for keeping things civil.

[0] https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-statistical-analysis-of-gamerg...

[1] https://twitter.com/mombot/status/658829030431420416