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As you may know, Ellen Pao recently stepped down from Reddit after being on the receiving end of harassment, trolls, and death threats over several events. She wrote an article in the Washington Post today stating her thoughts that trolls and people that are abusing the Internet's free and open nature are 'winning' the 'war' over the Internet, and I was curious whether anyone else had read this article and had any thoughts.

As someone that runs an online platform (this one), I know these aren't easy questions...they're questions that we haven't answered yet, as seen by our inability to reform the judicial system. What are the borders between free speech and behaviour that interferes with other people's ability to be a part of the platform? What is the line between misunderstood behaviour and harassing behaviour? At what point is someone beyond redemption and should be removed from a community for its own greater good, and who should be trusted to make that decision? As Ms. Pao points out, there's no way to automate this...it will continue to need heavy human involvement, and there are no easy answers on these issues.

My fear personally isn't the trolling itself, but the backlash that may result from it. Back in 2010, Blizzard announced that they intended to require people to register their real names through their battle.net service and to include those real names in any forum posts that they made, specifically to clamp down on flaming and trolling. While the RealID service was massively rolled back after an outcry (made voluntary and real names are only visible to friends), I can't help but feel that as providing your personal information becomes more acceptable (thanks to Facebook) this sort of mechanism may be adopted in the future. In abusing the anonymity that they rely upon, they may very well destroy it and the Internet we know along with it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3dirku/opinionformer_reddit_ceo_ellen_pao_the_trolls_are/

Isn't that subreddit associated with #gamergate?

yes, and?

I don't think a movement that has harassed, doxxed, and made death threats against women and their allies in gaming is really a credible source on the topic of harassment and trolling.

Mind providing proof....although yeah we've doxxed so many people...that's why people have sent syringes to GG supporters or a few have threatened any GG events. Besides I'm sure a consumerist movement that attacks females would not have created a group to actively police the hashtag and report accounts using harrassment with the GG-Hashtag...right?

Edit: also

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNrCieKUq4s&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmPMxegAlMs&feature=youtu.be

The actual Wikipedia article says it all:

"The Gamergate controversy concerns sexism in video game culture. It garnered significant public attention after August 2014, when several women within the video game industry, including game developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu and feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, were subjected to a sustained campaign of misogynistic attacks. The campaign was coordinated in the online forums of Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan in an anonymous and amorphous movement that ultimately came to be represented by the Twitter hashtag #gamergate. The harassment included doxing, threats of rape, death threats and the threat of a mass shooting at a university speaking event."

I'll include this article for good measure. The facts aren't in dispute, except by a group that wants cover for their continued harassment of women in gaming, even going so far as to attempt PR stunts to make it look like they aren't as detailed in the Wikipedia article. Somehow I doubt the FBI would have been involved in some of these cases if women were just making this shit up or something.

Wintermoot take a look at the talk page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Gamergate_controversy

Also the article doesn't actually have any links to any tweets of that manner.

Further they ARE in contention. The Gamergate Wikipedia page is rife with Bias and inaccuracies because there is a refusal to admit anything that goes against the narrative. Further I've linked proof of people whom are 'inside' of gamergate that says that it isn't harassing people.

Here's something else as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9bisUIP3w

So try again.

Edit: Also Rule 2 of the KIA Subreddit...so yeah...GG is all about Doxxing and Harassment...

Edit 2: Also just so we are clear, the FBI have only gotten involved once (to my knowledge) and that was that letter Written to Anita threatening to shoot up her talk, which was decided by both the FBI and local police to be non-credible.

Edit 3: Further why wouldn't people in GG want to say they aren't. Oh that's right because if you aren't doing something and are accused of it you fucking dispute it.

Edit 4: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/gamergate

Edit 5: Further why is Kotaku a reliable source for that? Even further a DIRECT refutation of the Newsweek article: https://medium.com/@mousetick/lies-damn-lies-and-gamergate-statistics-ed322dfc992f

Edit 6: https://medium.com/@cainejw/an-actual-statistical-analysis-of-gamergate-dfd809858f68

So...a Wikipedia article with 223 references and other reputable sources are "rife with bias" and refuse "to admit anything that goes against the narrative" (the narrative? O_o), yet we should accept a discussion with someone on the inside and blog posts as credible. I don't have to 'try again', I think that says it all right there.

In any case, back on topic, I thought this was a hilarious yet honest take on the topic of harassment on the internet, especially towards women. "And if you're thinking that doesn't seem like that big a problem, well, congratulations on your white penis.".

John Oliver usually tells it like it is. I could definitely see him hosting one of the major late night talk shows in the next decade.

Anyway, Ellen Pao's leadership of Reddit was abysmal. Shadow bams, replacement of popular mods, firing of ESSENTIAL staff, and an all around go-fuck-yaself attitude toward users' complaints. It's cynical and downright petty for her to claim "the trolls are winning!" when she ran the site like a dictator and people got mad about it.

It's been said that she wasn't even involved in the recent firing that she got a lot of blame and hate for, it was the chair of Reddit's board who apparently wanted to have more control over how the AMA subreddit was ran. Even if what you say is true though, would that warrant that level of hate? There are plenty of incompetent CEOs out there, and none of them are the target of that level of nastiness. Whatever happened to civil discourse?

Edit: Also found this to be interesting. According to a previous CEO, she was also the only person standing between the board of directors and a drive to eliminate all hate subreddits. It'll be interesting to see what happens and if this is true now that she's gone, as Reddit has already announced new rules and other measures that will isolate more hateful sections of the site.

Yishan also has a CLEAR conflict of interest being friends with Pao and pushing for her to be on the board. Yishan has also not been with Reddit since he was removed as CEO, so anything he says is most likely given to him by Pao herself. We have to be skeptical about anything Admins or Pao says. Pao will benefit if she takes the blame of off her, and the Admins (especially /u/kn0wthing) will benefit if it's shifted to Pao. Both sides have shit to gain, only difference is, is that the only one that has everything to loose are the ones at Reddit, meaning that Pao can use Yishan as a way to release her story as Yishan isn't connected to Reddit anymore. 

I'm not sure how it would benefit her, seeing how she's already resigned. Generally you try to take the blame off yourself before your career is in ruins. In any case, I think the new rules are indicitive that hateful areas of Reddit are going to increasingly find themselves regulated and isolated, so ultimately I don't think Ms. Pao's departure is going to change all that much. We'll wait and see if it's true that she was keeping many more subreddits from being shut down.

Actually Pao is still at Reddit. So she still has a steak in it. Furthermore people ate already leaving reddit, most going over to Voat or other alternatives.

But eventually those other alternatives will be forced to do the same thing...ultimately these are businesses, and some content just isn't acceptable for a business that wants to make money. It goes back to my original point...if abused enough, the Internet will cease to be a place where people can just do whatever the hell they want, and while that will clamp down on the negatives, it will also come down on the positives as well.