(continued from previous post)
4) THE CBC FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF NOTYOURSHIELD
In all five CBC news reports, no mention whatsoever was made of the #GamerGate sister hashtag, #NotYourShield, which was created in response to the infamous "Gamers are dead" articles: between 12 and 14 essays which appeared within a 72 hour time frame declaring the "gamer" identity to be dead and labeled and denounced all critics of Zoe Quinn and the game journalists who rallied to her defense as sexist, misogynistic, territorial, straight white men intent on protecting their "boys only" gaming community from an influx of women:
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Gamers_are_Dead
The brainchild of African-American Twitter users @Ninouh90 (real name unknown) and @j_millerworks (Jason Miller), NotYourShield was used as a rallying cry for all members of the gaming community who did not fit the above stereotype - minorities, women, members of the LGBT community, etc. - who were tired of and angry with radical feminists and social justice extremists in the video game press using them as shields to justify pushing their own identity politics and sociopolitical agendas, silencing criticism through shaming, guilting, and "call-out culture", and other questionable and reprehensible behavior in the guise of promoting diversity and equality.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Hashtag-Shows-Multi-Cultural-Support-GamerGate-67119.html http://www.cinemablend.com/games/-NotYourShield-Video-Shows-All-Different-Faces-Behind-GamerGate-67173.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYqBdCmDR0M
It is suspected that, as in the case of the Dawe interview, that the CBC purposely chose not to mention NotYourShield in spite of their awareness of it, as it would have seriously undermined the "harassment of women" angle they were intent on pushing.
5) THE CBC PRODUCERS AND OMBUDSMAN ARE USING LOOPHOLES AND SPURIOUS LOGIC TO CIRCUMVENT THEIR OWN JOURNALISTIC AND ETHICAL STANDARDS
In the following documents...
https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/540749332568211456 https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/541152368595705856 https://twitter.com/LunarArchivist/status/552304901884497920
...the Executive Producer of "The National", Mark Harrison, and the CBC Ombudsman, Esther Enkin, make a number of dubious claims that do not hold up to scrutiny:
i. Both state that Report 5 was "not specifically about #GamerGate" and instead "mostly remained focused on the phenomenon of harassment of female game developers, set in the context of (an event known as Gamerella)", which was organized "to make female gamers comfortable and safe enough to create".
If this was indeed the case and GamerGate not the focus of the report, then why was it entitled "'Gamergate' sparks conversation on gaming culture" instead of something more suitable, such as "Gameralla offers new opportunities for female video game developers"? In fact, a similar argument was made by Enkin and CBCNews.ca Managing Editor, Brodie Fenlon, in the following response to a complaint filed by Patrick Upson about Report 2:
Enkin's claim that the CBC was not required to explain in detail the nature of GamerGate in Report 2 because it was not an "in-depth piece on GamerGate" is ludicrous, as it makes no sense to write an entire article about the purpose of the #StopGamerGate2014 hashtag without first explaining, in a fair, thorough, and unbiased manner, the exact nature of the hashtag which it was created to oppose. Moreover, Report 2 - "#StopGamerGate2014 hashtag suggests internet is growing tired of GamerGate" - also contains "GamerGate" in its title, in spite of Enkin's insistence that the consumer revolt is in no way the focus of it.
ii. Enkin steadfastly claims that "(GamerGate) has become associated with harassment of women" and "has been linked with a range of bullying and threatening behaviors" in both of the aforementioned reviews, but, in doing so, conveniently omits the fact that this is largely because this was the narrative that was not only pushed by the gaming press in the "Gamers are dead" articles which introduced the consumer revolt to the world...
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Gamers_are_Dead
...but also by mainsteam media outlets, including MSNBC, the CBC, the BBC, and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company), all of whom took the video game journalists at their word instead of independently verifying whether or not the claims being made were true.
iii. Enkin highlights the use of weasel words and equivocation to justify why the the CBC news reports are not technically inaccurate. For example, in Report 5, Sumanac-Johnson makes the following statement:
"Initially a social media hashtag for discussion of ethics in gaming journalism, it has increasingly become a catch phrase for the online harassment of female gamers."
While "increasingly become a catch phrase for the online harassment of female gamers" does not make an explicit claim as to whether or not a given statement is indeed true, listeners are most definitely left with that impression due to the strong, unspoken implication. A similarly ambigous phrasing can be found in Report 2:
"One of the discussion threads now most commonly associated with GamerGate revolves around misogyny within the gaming community and, specifically, the harassment of females within the industry."
Again, the aforementioned statement does not mention whether this "common association" is justified or not, but lends the claim an unmerited air of legitimacy. In fact, statements made by Enkin in her own reviews - "associated with harassment of women", "linked with a range of bullying and threatening behaviors", etc. - are similarly misleading and dishonest.
To put things in context: if I were, for example, to say that "The CBC has been linked with the sexual assault of women" or that "The University of Virginia has become associated with gang rape" due to recent events involving Jian Ghomeshi and "Rolling Stone" magazine, respectively, those statements would indeed be technically accurate, but the implications are divorced from the reality of both situations, which are far more complex and nuanced. The same applies to GamerGate, whether the CBC wants to acknowledge it or not.
iv. Statements by Enkin, Harrison, and Fenlon, such as "#GamerGate is not an organization with a management that is accountable for statements made in its name" or "not a traditional organization with designated leadership or a manifesto" appear to imply that, since our consumer revolt lacks a traditional hierarchical power structure, leader(s), or official representative(s), we therefore somehow not only lack plausible deniability - and thus all allegations of misconduct levied against us cannot be effectively countered because anyone could potentially hijack the hashtag to do things in our name - but also in some way forfeit our right to self-definition in regards to purpose and identity.
These arguments are as Kafkaesque as they are indefensible.
(continued in next post)