My guess is that they assumed that people (read, women) talking about the kinds of harassment they were dealing with and the steps needed to combat it were exaggerating and being “too sensitive”. Then, when the GG and other assorted assholes actually started coming after them, they panicked and shut the whole thing…
We should organize a GamerGate convention or something, where all the GamerGaters can get together and talk about how much they hate women and Jews and black people and Anita Sarkeesian love ethics in video game journalism.
There’s no human-made structure capable of resisting the stresses of that acceleration.
“Transes” is pretty good, too.
I have no doubt of this whatsoever. You see on Gawker with any article about race, too.
SXSW has panels every year with professional athletes, politicians, movie stars, etc. Somehow they manage to have enough security to protect those people every year.
Of course...
Aaawww... Duh poo’ widdle cwying baaaaaaaaaaabies. :(
I’m sitting here wondering how this became another big national media convention when it was supposed to be a unique platform for indie music, but I digress...
That said, SXSW is a big tent and we strongly believe in showcasing a very diverse range of ideas and opinions, even if we as a staff don’t always agree with them.
The article links to a Slate article written by Sinders. She describes (a) submitting her anti-harassment panel for voting, (b) learning that Gamergate had a thread on reddit to create a counter-panel, (c) expressing concern about the counter-panel and the reddit campaign to downvote her to SXSW officials, (d) being…
You forgot one
Brace yourselves, the whiny gamer gaters are already here discussing their oppression. One even compared gamers to “transes.” Bless his heart!
SXSW has effed this up every step of the way. But “thanks” for proving the need for a panel on why methods for stopping online harassment are needed.
Wow, I’m shocked! A commenter with the username “bonerchat” blames the organizers’ obscenely dismissive lack-of-response to these panelists’ requests for security on the assumption that the panelists were being “annoying” about it. Ugh, these bitches and their annoying insistence on their personal safety—amirite?!
You think other events don’t require security?? I can assure you rent a chips and duty cops make bank in this town during sx
So basically SXSW stood up to harassment by cancelling the panel on how to effectively deal with harassment.
Let me just do the Kotaku commenter talking points so that when they show up, we’ve already addressed and dismissed them:
Basically, a cop-out to avoid dealing with the actual issue.