Threats of violence have led the popular South by Southwest (SXSW) festival to nix two panel discussions about online harassment, organizers announced on Monday.
In his post, SXSW Interactive Director Hugh Forrest didn’t go into detail about the threats.
But given the names of the panels cancelled, there’s a strong smell of #gamergate in the air.
Namely, the panels for the 2016 event, announced about a week ago, were titled “SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community” and “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games.”
This reaction sure isn’t what they had in mind, Forrest wrote:
We had hoped that hosting these two discussions in March 2016 in Austin would lead to a valuable exchange of ideas on this very important topic.
However, in the seven days since announcing these two sessions, SXSW has received numerous threats of on-site violence related to this programming. SXSW prides itself on being a big tent and a marketplace of diverse people and diverse ideas.
However, preserving the sanctity of the big tent at SXSW Interactive necessitates that we keep the dialogue civil and respectful.
Arthur Chu, who was going to be a male ally on the Level Up panel, has written up the behind-the-scenes mayhem for The Daily Beast.
As Chu tells it, SXSW has a process of making proposed panels available for – disastrously enough, given the tactics of torch-bearing villagers – a public vote.
Chu:
The ability to "downvote" or "dislike" something has proven in the past to be a pretty terrible idea that, despite the best intentions of implementers, serves to encourage mobs of haters to go after unpopular people and suppress them, and is a major reason why places like Reddit become such unpleasant, polarized echo chambers.
Speaking of Reddit: Once SXSW’s "PanelPicker" website went live, three panels got targeted by r/KotakuInAction, a subreddit that serves as a primary GamerGate discussion forum—ours, a panel called "Level Up: Overcoming Harassment In Games," and a panel about VR technology that was apparently targeted simply because Brianna Wu was on it.
Brianna Wu is a US-based game developer who was one of multiple women involved in gamergate who were slated to be on the panels.
At any rate, beyond the subsequent brigading of downvoters, there were also the comments.
Oh, the comments.
SXSW was aware of them, Chu says, but initially refused to close down the unmoderated comment section left on each PanelPicker page:
I asked that a link to a hit piece alleging over-the-top and incredibly hurtful things about a panelist — that she was a drug addict, and that she’d sold her child — be removed. I asked that a link to a hit piece saying I'd called in a bomb threat be removed. I asked that a link outing the birth name of a trans person who wasn't even on any of the panels be removed.
His requests were ignored, Chu said. It was only when one of the panelists spoke up about having her mother be swatted were the comments closed.
The story goes on, and Wu has called Chu’s piece an accurate description of it.
While SXSW organizers are protecting the “sanctity” of their big tent, others are feeling like they’ve suddenly been thrust out of the tent completely, even if their panel was focused on online harassment in general, not gamergate in particular.
Online Abuse Prevention Initiative’s Randi Harper, who would have been one of the panelists:
This is the email we were sent by @sxsw. Reminder: our panel was not GamerGate-related. pic.twitter.com/FiIcNulAPc
— Literally Boo (@randileeharper) October 26, 2015
The ripples haven’t stopped spreading on this one.
On Wednesday, BuzzFeed announced that it would withdraw from SXSW over the canceled panels.
BuzzFeed published a letter it sent to the organizers of the Austin-based media festival on Tuesday.
From the letter:
Digital harassment — of activists of all political stripes, journalists, and women in those fields or participating in virtually any other form of digital speech — has emerged as an urgent challenge for the tech companies for whom your conference is an important forum. Those targets of harassment, who include our journalists, do important work in spite of these threats.
We will feel compelled to withdraw... if the conference can't find a way to do what those other targets of harassment do every day - to carry on important conversations in the face of harassment.
Some are saying that SXSW’s decision to cancel panels on online harassment shows exactly why such discussions are needed.
Others are saying that the cancellations show that SXSW can’t guarantee security at its event.
What do you think?
Image of SXSW Poster courtesy of GSPhotography / Shutterstock.com
ejhonda
The trolls won on this one. Way to go, SXSW.
Stampy
So we cancel all future Marathon’s after the Boston horror? The moment you give in to the big man with big stick, you lose, he wins. Re-instate the discussions, let’s see who wants to ACTUALLY get arrested, tried and jailed? They may be big on anonymous bully-tin boards, but are they Man enough to face a jury of 12 of their peers? I think not!
LonerVamp
It’s hard to be correct in something like this. Do you go ahead with the panel with full expectation that violence may occur? And if it does, are you then negligent?
But if you pull the content out, then you’re showing exactly why this sort of online harassment works and gets results.
If anything, SXSW should talk to other organizers in what they can do, their insurance concerns, and look into additional security or even bodyguards for panel participants. Depending on if that is worth their time (which I think it would be, considering the high profile nature of the topic).
Ahh well. Still, it’s strange (to me) there are people who think wide-open user-supplied content is some amazing thing that will be what they dream it will be….on the Internet. Even pointing to things like that People app to rate people. Yeah, that’s great someone has one idea in mind about how it will work, but that’s not how it will be used.
Mark Stockley
Nothing damns an idiot like their own words. We need people like SXSW to hold events like this so that extremists can turn up, say their piece and watch how the middle of the bell curve reacts.
Niche platforms surround people with believers and enemies which feeds the extremism.
I’ve not seen anything do as a good a job of showing, say, Alex Jones, Nick Griffin or Lizard Squad, for what they really are than giving them a mainstream platform from which to hang themselves.
Anonymous
What do those guys have to do with anything?
bobwyzguy
Irrational maniacs, bigoted douches, and arrogant blowhards are overwhelming all forms of discourse (including Congress). when the irrational use free speech to silence and intimidate the rational, it is a bad day for the first amendment. But the decision of the rational to self-censor if the face of this intimidation is the real problem. in order to prevail at anything, courage is required.
Mahhn
Time to eliminate those from society that makes such threats.
Or turn the entirety of your life/property/government over to anyone that threatens you.
John C.
Trolls are basically cowards. They say things in their posts that they would never say without the anonymity of the web. Threatening violence seems like standard practice for these misfits, but actually carrying out any violence would be extremely uncharacteristic of them. I think SXSW should not have let itself be intimidated.
Justin R.
Actually two people were recently arrested just before a Pokemon tournament with apparent plans to kill people
Spryte
Looks like SXSW does not have the guts to stand up for what it (supposedly) believes in… sad.
Paul Ducklin
As Mr Miyagi said in the Karate Kid movie series…”Best way to avoid punch, no be there.”
TonyG
Sounds like SXSW has given in to the threat of mob rule. I don’t like censorship (or in this case, self-censorship) or intimidation. If the suffragettes had not taken a stand, would women have the vote yet in some countries? If someone in certain unstable parts of the world posts these views, the government calls them terrorists and sends in a drone to take them out. Is civilisation regressing, rather than progressing?
Adam
If these people are threatening violence towards others, (bodily harm or any otherwise), can’t the police get involved at that point?
If I understand the law correctly, it stops being free speech if you’re threatening someone and they truly believe that you intend to harm them.
Whether or not you actually intended to follow-through on your threat is irrelevant at that point, I think.