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There are crazies on both sides of any internet debate

I just posted a news article that detailed Brianna Wu’s Twitter snafu over this weekend. I did it for a very important reason: to illustrate that there are some crazy people on both sides of any internet discussion.

Pro-GamerGate. Anti-GamerGate. It doesn’t matter; it seems that there will always be groups of people that take things way too far. And I’m not talking about Wu before those pitchforks are raised.

I’m talking about the individual who thought it’d be a good idea to take to Twitter and threaten a group of people with sarin gas. Let’s be honest: who in their right mind would ever do that? It doesn’t matter what reasons you have, it’s just something you do not do.

I’m certain that by posting a news article that highlights what I believe to be Wu’s tendency to over-dramatise events, and also demonstrating that threats from come both sides of GamerGate discussion, I will immediately be labelled as one who is wholly against the developer. I’ll probably be labelled as pro-GamerGate too.

The fact of the matter is that I’m not pro anything, nor am I anti anything. I refuse to be part of this new trend on the internet — okay, maybe it’s not that new — that says everything is completely black and white. Things are one way or not at all; if you disagree with something someone says, there’s this ridiculous notion going about that dictates you must simply be against everything they say.

That’s bullsh*t.

I disagree with every single thing that Adam Baldwin says, but I’m not about to stop him from saying what he wants. I won’t tell him he needs to be excluded from an event because of inclusivity. I’m certainly not about to take to the internet and single him out, telling him as much.

For one, how do you think he’ll respond? How do you think anyone will respond when you get aggressive with them? Over the weekend, Australians took to Twitter to tell Baldwin how wrong he was. It was the equivalent of bullying someone to convince them to stop bullying other people. News flash — if bullying isn’t right in one context, it shouldn’t be in another. There’s no absolute right in the matter, so no one gets to claim it.

In short, rather than deciding you need to freak out at everyone who doesn’t think the same way that you do, just take a step back for a second and try to think logically. Perhaps engage in an actual conversation with someone to try to see their side before you immediately launch into why they’re wrong, and why they’re the worst person ever for it.

On one hand, I agree that we should take threats seriously. I agree that any threat could be carried out and we need to act accordingly. But on the flip side, if we lived our lives worried about every single thing that could go wrong, we’d hardly be living. If we’re meant to take threats against those at events like PAX and Supanova seriously, we need to take threats from both sides equally as seriously. And we’re not.

At the very least, we all need to chill out a bit. We need to acknowledge that there are people out there who clearly represent the farthest fringes of any side one can take on the internet, and worry about them accordingly — not at all.

Be open, be tolerant and work towards middle ground.


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About the author

Steve Wright

Steve's the owner of this very site and an active games journalist nearing twenty (TWENTY!?!) years. He's a Canadian-Australian gay gaming geek, ice hockey player and fan. Husband to Matt and cat dad to Wally and Quinn.