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from the harrassed-turtles-all-the-way-down dept.
As the March kickoff for the weeks-long 2016 South By Southwest (SXSW) festival approaches, its disparate sections—music, film, and interactive—have begun announcing confirmed panels, speakers, and showcases. SXSW Interactive appeared prepared to host a panel about the hot-button topic of online harassment and abuse, but that plan changed on Monday when a festival director officially announced that the panel, along with another tangentially related panel, had been canceled due to allegations of "numerous threats of on-site violence."
SXSW Interactive director Hugh Forrest posted the news at the festival's official blog, though Forrest didn't confirm whether the threats were linked to both panels that he confirmed received the axe: "SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community" and "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games." After describing SXSW as a home for "diverse ideas," Forrest also described a desire to maintain "civil and respectful" dialogue.
"If people can not agree, disagree, and embrace new ways of thinking in a safe and secure place that is free of online and offline harassment, then this marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised," Forrest wrote. "Maintaining civil and respectful dialogue within the big tent is more important than any particular session."
And then, just a few days later, we have this report that the panels were restored:
South by Southwest's organizers reversed course Friday and scheduled a summit about gaming-related Internet harassment, after criticism for canceling similar sessions at next year's event due to threats of violence at the festival.
"Earlier this week we made a mistake," Hugh Forrest, director of the SXSW Interactive Festival, said in a statement on its website. "By canceling two sessions we sent an unintended message that SXSW not only tolerates online harassment but condones it, and for that we are truly sorry."
[...] "While we made the decision in the interest of safety for all of our attendees, canceling sessions was not an appropriate response," SXSW's Forrest said, adding the organizers had worked with authorities and security experts. "Online harassment is a serious matter and we stand firmly against hate speech and cyberbullying."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @01:10PM
Nothing to really do with your avatar or character. Many males play female characters. The trouble begins when they find out that you are actually a live female human being in meatspace. Then the shit hits the fan. That or they receive special treatment because erveryone wants to be the knight in shining armour. Some communities are better than others. Some are outright awful.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:12PM
If you're giving out personal information on the Internet, you're either an idiot regardless of your gender or utterly unafraid of the consequences.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Monday November 02 2015, @01:22PM
That argument falls flat on its face once a female plays a game that offer in-game voice chat. And many team based multiplayer games today work so much better with a mic. So they are faced with the choice of either risking it and using a mic or staying silent which can ruin their gaming experience along with others because they can't communicate.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Monday November 02 2015, @01:35PM
I'd agree with this. For better or for worse, once a female gets on a microphone the entire dynamic seems to change in most of the multiplayer games I've played.
It's not just something that happens in games either, although games have a way of amplifying any interactions, positive or negative.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 02 2015, @01:57PM
My experience indicates it depends strongly on game genre. Console FPS are one thing, modded minecraft is another. I think there's a strong maturity stereotype.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 02 2015, @02:28PM
I steered my wife away from online gaming. Her first few experiences with it were rather negative. She probably has more game time in her steam profile than I do (and that is saying something).
Though in retrospect it would be funny listening to her tear a 12 year old a new one. She described it as 'playing with the messageboard on youtube'. You get comments all over the map. But mostly the negative ones stand out. I got her out of the online stuff because all it did was cause arguments with strangers. Not a very positive experience. She is already borderline tetchy and does not take to being insulted very well.
I like this recent comic that describes the dynamic I usually end up with. As I do not buy games until the have been out awhile. So I too stick to single player.
http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20151012 [cad-comic.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @06:26AM
I steered my wife
Wow, talk about a total loss of all credibility in the opening line of a post.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Tuesday November 03 2015, @01:59AM
you mean you've discovered that a gender will act one way if in a group of the same gender, but differently if the other gender(s) is/are present ? ? ?
this is amazing stuff...
next you'll be telling me that nekkid apes act differently if among friends than strangers !
*snort*
don't mean to pick on you directly so much, just tired of the presumption being that you would expect there to be NO DIFFERENCE between a group of nekkid apes of one gender or the other (or some other statistically insignificant gender-like substance), and a mixed gender group: THE WEIRD THING would be if there was 'NO' difference,, THAT is 'unnatural'...
(oh, and this is NOT to 'excuse' abysmal behavior of young'n'stupid (mostly) males, high on testosterone, who DO bully and worse... BUT, that does NOT mean there is NO difference in behaviors (nor SHOULD there be) when there are gatherings of mixed-genders... we are PROGRAMMED for social and sexual intercourse...)
deny your biology/sociology all you want; but you will remain permanently frustrated, befuddled, and disappointed...
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:36AM
you mean you've discovered that a gender will act one way if in a group of the same gender, but differently if the other gender(s) is/are present ? ? ?
I don't think it's some kind of revelation, but some people were claiming that there wasn't a difference in how women were treated online. This simply isn't true, but some people deny it.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday November 02 2015, @01:50PM
Fair nuff but it stands otherwise.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @04:17PM
Where are you hanging out? In all the years I've been on the internet, I've never hung out anywhere that had a problem like that. Women get less shit on the internet than men do. The only times I've seen women getting extra mocking were referencing that old saying "The internet, where men are men and women and children are FBI agents."
But, beyond that, I've never observed any actual additional harassment for being women. It's the internet, everybody gets trolled and the trolls don't seem to care what the topic they're using to troll is.