site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I've never heard of a hate crime hoax that was meant to implicate a minority. I've also never heard of a hate crime hoax meant to implicate a specific person at all, because that's legally dangerous.

(And to avoid some obvious replies, I mean central examples in a modern American context, no fair saying that there was a 1950's lynching that falsely accused a black person of hating whites, or Jews versus Arabs in Israel, etc..)

I've also never heard of a hate crime hoax meant to implicate a specific person at all, because that's legally dangerous.

If we're including threats sent by people attempting to be anonymous, back in 2014 one of the two threats that got Anita Sarkeesian to cancel her USU speech unless they agreed to forbid guns on-campus while she was there (which they legally couldn't do) was false-flagging as MrRepzion, a youtuber who had recently made a pro-gamergate video. The email itself came out in the FOIA release, page 16 and 78 with slightly different redactions, his name is redacted but the release provides enough information to confirm that he was the one mentioned:

My name is [MrRepzion] I am the [Redacted] of the hacking group known as 4chan and the official leader of Gamergate.

It is my understanding that a loverly young women named [Redacted].

At this moment, we have over 9000 bombs that we will use to blow up the TSC auditorium when [Redacted]. You dun goofed by inviting that stupid feminazi to give a lecture. You're fucking dead, kiddos.

We of Gamergate, or GamerGators, as we prefer to call ourselves, are sick and tired of you stupid feminists ruining everything by saying it's sexist. You all need a hug, some tea, and maybe a gentle back massage, and what better way to pacify you than by burning your faces off with high-ordinance explosives?

You can try calling the FBI to come areest me, but I'm behind 7 proxies and you'll never be able to backtrace this IP. Can't lulzback the [Redacted]

Oh, and I'm also fapping to all of your pictures right now. You're hot. It's a shame you're about to get blown up.

Sincerely,

[MrRepzion]

Glorious Winged Faggot Extraordinaire"

Sarkeesian mentioned the threat and that it claimed to be from gamergate, but not that it also claimed to be from MrRepzion:

Multiple specific threats made stating intent to kill me & feminists at USU. For the record one threat did claim affiliation with #gamergate

At this point supporting #gamergate is implicitly supporting the harassment of women in the gaming industry.

Unlike the other email none of the text was released or quoted by media outlets except for the word "gamergate". (Even after the FOIA release in 2016 I remember seeing articles mention the USU threats but none mention the MrRepzion part or otherwise take information from the release.)

Washington Post: ‘Gamergate’: Feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah lecture after threat

The FBI did end up knocking on MrRepzion's door and asking him about it 10 months later, he tweeted and made a video about it. This then matches up with the date that the FOIA release mentions:

03/18/2015

Seattle interviewed [Redacted] Seattle considers this lead closed.

And the details of the interview mentioned on page 33:

informed Agents that he would be posting a video on YouTube about the Agents' visit to his house as soon as the Agents left.

The actual sender was never found, sending emails anonymously is trivial. Sending phone-calls anonymously is less trivial but I think it's still possible, so apparently the Jewish bomb threat guy messed it up somehow. Anyway I mostly just bring this up because I think it's an interesting part of culture-war history that people should know about, but to bring it back to your post I think once someone is trying to send illegal threats anonymously he's relying on not getting caught rather than avoiding additional illegality.