I read the The Hill opinion article calling on the US and EU regulators to further clamp down on games and it's actually batshit insane: 🧵
In this thread I will go over everything they suggest and it's particularly alarming, especially when talking about human rights.
First off, who is Mariana Olaizola Rozenblat? She received an award from the Soros foundation to gain a JD from Yale Law School, and went on to work with the UN and Council of Europe around the world.
Currently, she's working for NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.
The article starts with the same worry that the GAO had - that gamers are communicating, networking, and building a community through video games.
Surely, we need to put a stop to all this.
It continues by claiming that extremists use "preexisting toxic gamer culture" to generate hatred and harassment.
Completely out the ass, as usual.
Now the concerning bit by the overwrought busybody - she thinks that rights to privacy and freedom of speech don't apply online in video games.
Again, another claim that video game communities cause harassment, intimidation, and actual killing.
Bat shit barmy.
The author claims that the Christchurch shooting "looking like a video game" gave rise to later shootings, and apparently Roblox caused the Buffalo shooting.
So what needs to be done about all this? We should do away with the notion of rights to privacy in game lobbies and servers, of course!
The author suggests that online games fall under the EU's Digital Services act - and that's a giant rabbit hole of busybody bullshit that I prefer not to go into now.
It's safe to say this would be a terrible thing.
The author ends with the usual "think of the children" spiel to justify the insane trampling of the rights to free speech and privacy in online games.
FINAL NOTE: While this person does not seem to hold a particularly high office within the EU or UN, it is still concerning because her words may carry weight.
Already there is a push from the US government to further invade games, this might push the EU and UN to do so as well.
If you've come this far, thanks for reading.
Here's an archive if you want to read this article for yourself: archive.vn/s3Men
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My recent threads have been either frustrating or alarming, so I thought we should have a bit of fun today.
So I decided to look at the characters from ValiDate and we can all have a go at them: 🧵
They're right out of tumblr fanfiction, sometimes literally.
Starting off with a perplexing one: Emhari Abdi. He's a "bigender lesbian transwoman" hailing from Qatar and South Africa who hasn't medically transitioned and has two children from a divorce.
As you'd expect, dude's an HR rep.
It was a brave choice to make a black guy work at Popeye's, but the devs of ValiDate are not only brave, they're also stunning.
He has two aliases - The Coochie Man, and MalikDeGoots
The devs thought it important for us to know he owns an Xbox.
Representation, as a concept, creates bad writing: 🧵
There is a fundamental difference between designing a character that happens to be black and creating a black character in order to represent black people within your game.
Beware any writer that talks about representation.
When you create a character for representation’s sake, that character becomes a stand-in for an entire group of people. You have allowed external factors to inform your design choices rather than the story.
You have created an unnecessary meta-narrative on top of your narrative.
The meta-narrative runs in complicated directions. You are now thinking about how your game fits within society, and how your choices about this character reflects on you and how your audience will react to them.
This is why plot armor is so obvious on representation characters.
I read WIRED's article about "Gamergate 2.0" and it's exactly what you'd expect: 🧵
Lies, more lies, and completely overlooking the reason people were upset in the first place. They interview SBI employees and of course, they paint themselves as innocent victims.
Kim Belair claims that SBI opponents want them to die, lmao.
The article goes on to claim that SBI opponents think that gaming culture was solely for "cis white men" and is being stolen from them.
This is a fabrication, complete nonsense.
According to this writer, the chief strategist for the White House was a Gamergater.
If it really is to be Gamergate 2.0, here are some ground rules that will help: 🧵
1. Do not talk to journalists. Do not reveal any personal identifying information to journalists. If you catch a whiff of a journalist in your groups, remove them immediately. They are snakes.
2. The only winning move is not to play (literally): If you catch a whiff of SBI/woke nonsense in a video game, just don't buy it. It's really that simple.
As for journo articles, archive them all, and only spread the archives. No giving any of them money, passively or actively.
3. Do not expect them to change: They will not change, they are incapable of it. They are all irredeemable liars, and are physically incapable of telling the truth. So don't worry about what they call you, because it really doesn't matter. Mock them relentlessly.
I read the Guardian article about Sweet Baby and it is certifiably insane:🧵
This has to be the worst article about the situation yet, and it calls for gaming companies to "take a stand" about Sweet Baby critics. Downright silly at best, actually mentally unwell at worst.
It starts with the crazy implication that Gamergate led up to Trump getting elected. Yeah, you've got your head screwed on right there mate.
Of course, they call Gamergate a harassment campaign, because why wouldn't they?
This bit is almost entirely a fabrication.
Nobody believes that SBI has "controlled every popular game for the last 5 years", you're just deranged and making shit up.
Of course, this is connected to Trump again, because TDS never sleeps.