#GamerGate and Ethics

It’s quite disheartening having watched the #GamerGate campaign unfold , as someone who is a self-proclaimed gamer who has logged endless hours on her multiple Nintendo gaming systems, either in Lumiose City battling Team Flare (Pokemon Y) or rummaging about in Hyrule after being tricked by Ganandorf trying to make everything right again (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time).  The gamer community was supposed to be a niche that welcomed those interested in the complex map work of a new indie first player, or someone who just wanted to cause havoc in a virtual city, because well, there are some serious repercussions for doing so in our physical reality.  The #GamerGate movement, however, I think caught a majority of true gamers off-guard. The (so-called) initial motif behind the campaign was for ethical concerns for journalism and writing in the gaming community, which being that this concern seemed to be targeted at one woman in particular (Zoe Quinn) seemed kind of odd if you ask me.  Truth be told, this campaign was the result of Quinn’s ex-boyfriend ranting in a blogpost about her having slept around while they were together with five guys, one of which was a gaming journalist from Kotaku, Nathan Grayson.  Subsequently, this journalist ended up writing a review about Quinn’s game “Depression Quest”, which was the ACTUAL cause of rioting within the gaming community. For this angry few, it seemed as if sex meant a good review, and women had no place in the “gamer” identity (read more here).

Now, despite the original intent of the #GamerGate rabble-rousers, which was oozing with misogyny and a pretty obvious sentiment of hate, their later transformed concern about gamer journalism ethics is something that deserves some attention.  Gaming is an industry, first and foremost, and within that industry (as with others) connections are made between reporters and developers.  Within that relationship, their should be some code followed so that reviews are legitimate and not the result of nepotism and so that there is a fair advantage of all out good games to speak for themselves.  As far as ethical concerns for the games themselves, well that’s a whole topic on it’s own.  One can argue that for the gamer community, Mills utilitarianism is applied appropriate within this community.  The games and their content (although massively appealing to the male gamer) makes most gamers happy, and that’s what matters.

Zoe Quinn

Anita Sarkeesian

When it comes to “Social Justice Warriors” (SJW’s) like Zoe Quinna and Anita Sarkeesian who have been brave enough to voice their observations and concerns about the gaming industry and their representation of women, various ethnic groups, and so on, they bring to the forefront a lot of genuine ethical concerns about the gaming community that hold a lot of meaning.  Video games are an extension of our society.  They are a medium in which we can live out alternate realities that are perhaps not recommended in our physical world.  Not to mention we can live multiple lives in a video game, which gives us ample opportunity to try different things.  Feminist like Sarkeesian and Quinn bring forth important issues that we perhaps overlook because we think a game is just a game, and nothing more.  But, we really should be outraged at some of the graphics and storylines of some games, because some of them are completely opposite of what we would allow in our society yet they are upheld and commended in the video game for doing so. Let’s not forget video games don’t just fall out the sky, they are coded, scripted and thought out by humans, *insert sarcastic voice* that’s right, a human, a mammal capable of ethical reasoning.  In “Media Ethics: Issues and Cases” by Philip Patterson and Lee Wilkins, they discussed (in chapter 9)  “new media: continuing questions and new roles”.  Although, this chapter was focusing on the journalism sphere it can be applied to the gaming realm as well.  A video game is a medium, and a message is being transferred through it.  For the most part, there is a code of ethics for every professional group that goes about the business of sharing information; as for video game developers, they actually do go by a code of ethics (International Game Developers Association), but theirs aren’t of the same quality as that of one sharing news.  This code is more of an internal relations code, as oppose to how communication with the public is perceived.  Which quite honestly makes any feministic and social justice argument fall on deaf ears because for game developers their code isn’t really in the business of making everyone happy.

Back to the #GamerGate “vigilantism”, in the midst of this revolutionary group trying to make their point they decided doxing (or publicly sharing private information) Zoe Quinn was an acceptable action (because broadcasting someone’s personal information is a great way to get your point across, NOT!)  Clearly in this instance Bok’s ethical decision making procedures were not followed because I guarantee if this group had a serious interest in ethics they could have found a professionally acceptable way to spread their concerns.  Or maybe even Mill’s valuational hedonism, pleasure not pain, because i’m pretty sure the obscure obscenities that were outed about these individuals online caused a great deal of pain with an absence of pleasure in all realms.  I don’t see any difference between Quinn’s doxing experience and Jackie (the center of the UVa Rolling Stone article).  The invasion of privacy is a crime no matter how you look at it, no matter what you are trying to prove.  Both instances potentially put lives in harms way and that should be taken seriously.

This is what makes the internet such a complex, scary and amazing place.  You can find or hack your way into getting information about anybody your desire, you don’t even have to use your identity, create a fake one, never be seen.  When the #GamerGate community decide to host a chat on ways to torment Quinn, as well as those who actually sent her hate mail and death threats, their access to anonymity on the Internet made their lives easy, but made it incredibly hard to Quinn to get to the bottom of who was attacking her.  It can definitely be seen as a cause for concern for the #GamerGate community to use the anonymity of the Internet for their movement because it left no one responsible for the actions they played out.  Think of it this way, if everyone could be anonymous in our real world, getting away with awful crimes and no one ever being able to find out who did what, we would pretty much be screwed.  Clearly, if you have to found behind anonymous identities and social accounts, you’re well aware that you’re taking part in less than admirable behavior and don’t want to be found out. 

Moving a bit back into the #GamerGate discussion, when Intel pulled ads from Gamasutra amid the #GamerGate conversation it made Intel look like a supporter of the misogynistic conversation.  Was it ethical? Well, I don’t believe Intel would be the type of organization to support that kind of behavior, plus they issued a public apology to those who may have had the impression that they did support such behavior.  I feel amid the conversation, it was something that Intel didn’t want their brand to be pulled in to, so in the midst of trying to erase their presence, ever vigilant eyes saw and had a different perspective.

Who knew the world of gaming could be so controversial?

The "Horror In Soweto" & Ethical Responsibility

This post will be a bit deductive/inductive/critically analytical, if you will.  I’ll be using various ethical perspectives and one code of ethics in particular to evaluate the case study “Horror in Soweto” (which is on page 212 of the Media Ethics: Issues and Cases” book, if you care to read along). The code of ethics that I will be using is The Communications Council code of ethics, which embodies “respect, integrity, transparency and honesty”.  This code of ethics in particular is associated with social media conduct, I chose to use this code of ethics as my reference point in comparison to this case, because it is relative to my career path (which were the assignment instructions), which is dealing with social media platforms. 

This photo is not my own. All credit goes to proper owner.

In the “Horror in Soweto” case study, we are confronted with various outlooks in terms of morally acceptable journalism tactics.  “On September 15, 1990, freelance photographer Gregory Marinovich documented the killing, by a mob of African National Congress supporters, of a man they believed to be a Zulu spy”.  “Marinovich and Associated Press reporter Tom Cohen spotted the man being led fro Soweto, South Africa, train-station platform by a group armed with machetes and crude spears.  Marinovich and Cohen continued to witness and report as the man was stoned, bludgeoned, stabbed, doused with gasoline and set afire” (page 212). Given this gruesome imagery, I cannot begin to fathom the amount of moral/ethical obligation the reporter must have felt in that instance.  Do you continue reporting regardless of the murder you’re watching?  Do you continue photographing the stages of this mans murder and bring back the pictures to be placed on the front pages of popular news outlets in the States?  Well, he did, and there were two photos in particular that made for a great ethical debate.  One photo, was of the man right before he was going to be stabbed in the head, and the other was of the man on fire.

The Communications Council code of ethics can be pretty helpful in evaluating the ethical considerations of this case study because it deals with having liability for what you say/post and having respect for others.  Although this code of ethics is dealing particularly with social media engagement, we can ask similar questions for this case.  When engaging with social media platforms you should, “always exercise good judgement when posting and be aware that inappropriate conduct can negatively affect your organization, clients and yourself. Always apply the following test: “Would my manager, client or customers be happy to see this content published?” (Communications Council code of ethics, page 3).  Within this case study the main ethical dilemma were the use of the two gruesome photos that were used on the front cover of many news publications back in the States. We can ask questions such as, is this an appropriate image that you would show your children?  Something similar to the “breakfast test”, which is “Which of those photos would help tell the story without ruining everyones breakfast?” (page 214).

Although this code has a few elements that can be used in evaluating the “Horror in Soweto” case it’s ultimately not the one that should be used.  Because this code was made for social media conduct in particular there are components fundamental to print journalism, and photography that it does not cover.  So, although comparisons can be made this case would be better evaluated if the NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) code of ethics was used as the basis of comparison.

There were numerous ethical questions brought up throughout the case, and there are certain ethical theorist that inquire about the concerns of this case. One, is Sissela Bok’s ethical decision making model, which discusses how you feel about the actions, Is there another professionally acceptable way to achieve the same goal that will not raise ethical issue? and how will others respond to the proposed act?  This relates back to the communications council discussion of public vs. private (although not entirely correlated) and whether or not a manager or client would be happy to see this content published.  Another ethical perspective that supplements this case as well as the code of ethics I have chosen is Mills Utility which says to focus on the outcome.  If you’re aware of the backlash that you may contend with due to a certain post, then you probably shouldn’t use it to begin with. 

We can't point the finger at one person in particular; well, perhaps the multitude of editors, but ultimately ethical decision making is formed by the already established moral standings of an individual, so whether it be the photographer, who was just doing his job and got the photos he needed, or the editors from various papers who decided to use one photo over the other, or none at all, was ultimately at the discretion of the individuals perspectives.  Ethical perspectives are subjective, and we can just hope that maybe in the future a collective conscience will change the vast playing field when it comes to right and wrong.