An episode of The Current from CBC Radio, featuring Anna Maria Tremonti, purposefully misidentified #GamerGate as a harassment campaign during the latest episode entitled “Why the anti-diversity Google ‘manifesto’ misses the point”.
The piece was published on August 16th, 2017 and starts with criticisms of James Damore’s internal anti-SJW manifesto at Google, which eventually cost him his job, and moves on toward criticizing #GamerGate after resurfacing a mention of Brianna Wu.
The written version of the piece describes #GamerGate as a harassment campaign after mentioning Wu, where it states…
“Wu, who is now running for Congress in Massachusetts, was a vicious target of online trolls in 2014 when GamerGate, an online movement, launched a harassment campaign against women in gaming.”
Citation needed.
The statement about #GamerGate being a “harassment campaign”is patently false.
The movement had always been about exposing corruption in media and fighting for better standards in media journalism, as evident with #GamerGate’s collaboration with the Federal Trade Commission and having the guidelines updated for all media services regarding disclosures and improved ethical standards regarding endorsements and sponsorships.
The FBI concluded its investigation into the hashtag after nine months of not being able to turn up anything substantial. The case was closed back in September of 2015, and it turned out that they were unable to find evidence that #GamerGate was a harassment campaign.
A peer reviewed report by Women Action Media!, also found no evidence or patterns indicating that those associated with #GamerGate were part of a harassment campaign.
The CBC article quotes Wu, where they explain…
“She tells The Current’s host Megan Williams that she received hundreds of extremely specific and credible death threats during that time and suggests GamerGate created a space for “anyone that’s not a straight, white man … to not feel welcome.””
The line about receiving “credible death threats” was rendered false following the investigation by the FBI. According to the FBI there were no actionable leads or evidence indicating that the anonymous threats posted on Twitter posed a credible danger, which is another reason why the investigation into #GamerGate was closed.
To quote directly from the report…
“To date, all available investigative steps failed to identify any subjects or actionable leads. San Francisco USAO indicated the San Francisco office of USA will not be able to prosecute any threats against victims or subject that are not located in the San Francisco AOR.”
This particular dig at #GamerGate by the CBC marks the 19th article that they’ve published since 2014, painting the movement in a negative light while opting not to cover any other angle or side of it. One of the CBC radio directors admitted that #Gamergate coverage didn’t need “balanced reporting”.
So far, there have been no documented, credible reports showing evidence that #GamerGate was ever a harassment campaign.
(Thanks for the news tip LunarArchivist)
(Main image courtesy of Yahlantykan)
