I just wrote this translation very quickly so it might not make much more sense than the google translated version.
When the mass media doxxes the identity of bloggers – My lessons from one year of #GamerGate
As you already know, a bloggers identity has been exposed by two reporters and shamed in Expressen [a very big Swedish newspaper] as “Julia Ceasar”. We who have been following #GamerGate since the beginning (over a year ago) have seen the same thing so many times now that we know better then to believe that when a privet individual whom the people from the media harbor a grudge against gets doxxed (get there idintity exposed) it is about that person. In reality, this is not the case. This post will therefore be about how #GamerGate faced this sort of behavior from the media and how it all works behind the scene. First of some background.
Doxxing
Doxxing in the media is about destroying someones life to earn money on attention and/or to make an example. This can happen in two ways. One way is when the media publishes the individuals names and/or address so the most crazy portion of the readership can create a threat without the need for the doxxer him/herself to be guilty of the threat. The other way is to publish irrelevant embarrassing things about the individual to tarnish his/hers image. In the Expressen article, both cases can be seen. Her name gets exposed, her hometown is sneaked into the article and later on things like “Amalgam articals” and “Electromagnetic hypersensitivity” are described. A big portion of the article is spent to tell the reader that it is very important to tell WHO she is.
Nothing could be less true. The truth is that I have seen hundreds of people be treated the same way by the mass media the same way all over the world this past year and not a single one of them were Julia Ceasar, none of them were Electromagnetic hypersensitive and none of them talked about immigration. What they talked about was something so incredibly serious as video games. The media didn't get to dictate over them so they responded with this exact behavior. The same accusation of racism, same individual shaming and the same ideology where credibility is based on WHO you are and not the arguments which are put forth.
It is called “Callout Culture”
We have seen the same thing in GamerGate time and time again. You should also know that this doxxing method the media was using is brutally effective on a individual level. A lot of people have gotten there life ruined and been forced to leave the debate not because they was wrong, but because the media decided that it should be settled by who could do the most damage to a persons private life the best. Worst of all were the gossip site “Gawker Media” which activly condone this so called “Callout Culture” where the owners got rich thanks to when the writers exposes individuals and destroy there lives.
There are only one problem with this: The one who is doxxing does not have any control over the consequences and can therefore not take any responsibility for them – neither for the readers or the owner of the newspaper. It doesn't matter what the doxxers say in the aftermath because the consequences of the doxxing is all the same no matter how it is excused. Let me repeat that so everyone understands: It is completely THE SAME THING for the consequences of a doxx however you motivate it later on. It is a discussion led by people who does not know what they are doing.
Let me show you EXACTLY what I mean
Everything relies on understanding how the medias business model works today. The readers are not the newspapers customers as many seems to believe. The newspapers real customers are the companies who is offered advertisement spaces. In truth, the readers are the real product which the newspaper are selling to the advertiser. The content of the newspaper is economicly driven by desire to create a resource for the advertiser. With other words, the price of the paper itself is not the newspapers core business. As time passed on, more and more editors of newspapers does not care at all how SATISFIED the readers are. On the contrary, to provoke as many people as possible can today be more profitable.
A lot of the newspapers economy is simply more dependent on goodwill of the advertisement rather than the goodwill of the reader. THIS is the reasen the media today publish one article after article, trying to offend and ban their own readership. THIS is the reaseon journalists does not feel any need to represent the political will of the people (expressed in a democratic election) even though they them self often cry out over that other professional groups should represent the population in terms of the number of women and immigrants.... The do not care at all if they themselves represent the population... The only language they know is money.
Lessons learned from #GamerGate
1) Do not complain to the writer. The Howard Stern effect is in effect. The more angry readers, the more attention and the more money the newspaper makes. If they also can paint it as haters which attacks the free press, another thing to write about is generated. 2) Do not complain to the editor.. They do not answer to the readers. Quite the opposite, the biggest bullies who harassed #GamerGate were people who were employed as editors of huge sites. People as Sam “geeks need to be bullied” Biddle.
Here is Marika Formagren describing alternative methods of affecting the media. Some of the things she brings up is in line with the lessons learned from #GamerGate. Particularly point #5. Here is how GamerGate brought down some of the worst, most evil, lying writers whom were employed at media companies solely to provoke reactions from the readers.
People organized in the internet in big clusters around a common information hub like facebook or twitter (no one complained when people with political correct opinions do this but it will probably be a lot of complaints now)
Documented who the advertiser are. Created lists of them all and distributeed them through the common information hubs.
Contacted the advertisers and told them people would boycot them as long as the newspapers kept the attitude about doxxing and harassment of private individuals. Expect them to act unaffected. Companies does not like this situation.
4.Waited on the newspapers who didn't care about the readers to get angry messages from the advertising companies. Remember that while the newspapers might not care about content readers most of their advertisement is from companies whom sell products that requires happy costumers.
So sure editors and journalists, insult us, our hobby, our opinions, our gender and our color all you want... continue as usual but NOW BE vary that we will inform companies like BMW, Intel etc that your behavior have consequences for their businesses.. Multiple managers on these companies is tired to have businesses partners who actively insults their customers.
Treated the boycott seriously. If the advertisement remained, just buy another model... Mail them and tell them how the insulted their customers.
Remember that this is a marathon, not a 100 meter sprint. The media did loads of short verdicts about GamerGate. There are multiple “endgamergate” and “stopgamergate” hashtags which the media pushed for a while. It's just one problem... they want an end to this quickly and return to earn money but GamerGate continued to mail the advertisers many months after.
The media and their supporters response to Marika Formgrens' consumer information were to attack Magasinet Neo who was on the editorial board. This is why Marika Formgren now were forced to leave Neo. Another example on how the media got an active tactic to refuse factual question and instead destroy the opposition by attacking the private life and work place.