Speaking of hurling abuse, that seems to be even more common that the failed attempts at debate. Now, it's definitely true that there are people involved in the #GamerGate movement who aren't abusive. They are people genuinely concerned about journalistic ethics in video games the bribes, the money paid for good YouTube reviews and the like and would like to see that change. People with good intentions. But, as they say, that's what they pave the road to hell with. And if you align yourself with a movement which does contain a large portion of disgusting people who send death threats to those they disagree with, you're even more likely to end up on that highway. It's like being the one liberal member of UKIP who agrees with their green environmental policies and just pretends the rest of their manifesto doesn't exist. It's impossible to deny that #GamerGate is free of harassment, since just a cursory glance through that hashtag on Twitter (or, even more saddening, the replies to basically any female developer of journalist) will reveal a torrent of the most abhorrent abuse this side of the internet hate machine. Again, sure, not every person involved in the movement is involved in such harassment, but enough of them are to completely rob it of any credibility at all.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
