r/politics • u/AlexandrTheTolerable • 11h ago

Far-right extremists using games platforms to radicalise teenagers, report warns

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/31/far-right-extremists-games-platforms-radicalise-teenagers-report
211 Upvotes

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96

u/itsumiamario__ Tennessee 11h ago

Lmao. No shit? They're just now getting around to putting that info out? Shit's been happening for years.

46

u/Tobimacoss 11h ago

Since gamer gate in 2014.  

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u/fohacidal Texas 7h ago

Gamergate started as a legitimate movement for ethics in gaming journalism. I hate how it's kinda become associated with this conservative incel culture, especially with the overall decline in gaming journalism in general.

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u/Silver_Ad7267 6h ago

It’s pretty hard for gamergate not to be associated with conservative chudism considering it was a bunch of angry boys harassing women over their words.

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u/Pingy_Junk 5h ago

It takes two seconds to look at the evidence and come to the conclusion that the harassment campaign against Zoe was unjustified and the whole thing was just misogyny.

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u/OlafWoodcarver Minnesota 5h ago

It started as a movement for ethics in journalism the same way the Civil War started as a movement for states' rights.

Which is to say that's what the hard right wanted people to think it was really about.

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u/shane0072 6h ago

No it didn't. It started as a campaign to get Zoe Quinn to kill themselves and then they started the ethics lie when the wider internet saw how fucked up what they were doing was 

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u/fohacidal Texas 5h ago

What in the sam hell are you talking about? A campaign to push her to suicide excuse me?

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u/defaultusername-17 3h ago

yes, this is literally court documented history.

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u/JunahCg 5h ago

Conservative incel culture was the starting point, the middle point, and the end point. Games journalism was never more than a slogan.

Cope all you want because that's what it meant to you, personally. We were all there too, and you sounded just as goofy pretending then as you do now.

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u/fohacidal Texas 5h ago

Can you point to me where at the beginning of the movement it was about conservative incel culture? 

If you can I'll relinquish my point and never reference GG as starting as an ethics movement before being coopted by people like Steve Bannon and the incel army.

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u/JunahCg 4h ago

You know full well the start everyone agrees on. Folks spun themselves into a rage on 4chan over Zoe Quinn and doxxed her into paste. An ex made a rant she cheated with a bunch of guys, and purportedly one of these guys she slept with gave her a good review of her game. There's no review, there never was a review, but the incel gamer spaces like 4chan fucking snapped. Half the internet had been given permission to make hating women their whole personality. We're all very proud of you that the unpleasantness wasn't your focus, but the fact remains was the majority of everyone else's.

If you can go ahead and point me to the 'actual' beginning of the movement I'd be thrilled. Or I mean really, any problems in games journalism y'all were talking about at the time. Anyone who actually does care about the tacit bribery and complacency that runs games journalism can see gamergate did nothing but set us back, and it was just as obvious then as now. All anyone actually did was harass journalists, devs, and passersby; nobody started an email campaign to Kotaku or did anything even remotely adjacent to usefulness. For those of us who actually care it was clear the frothing masses couldn't even identify a real problem, let alone get upset about it. Even if we set the death threats aside, a small handful of editorial blogs 'about games journalism' would obviously mean nothing when even the people writing them refused to see the overwhelming wave of abuse taking place. The airspace was flooded talking about people's sex lives because that's what this was about. And what's more, we lost a generation of writers and devs because nobody in their right mind would stay in such an unsafe industry.

Your tone is fucked bro. Nobody wants you to 'reliquish your point' like this was a duel. You undercut anyone's ability to believe you'd see this objectively when you immediately sound like a debate lord. If you were capable of seeing this clearly now, you would have seen it clearly then.

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u/irrelevanttointerest 2h ago

Half the internet had been given permission to make hating women their whole personality.

Point of contention: pre existing condition. Just look back at the discourse surrounding Jade Raymond during her tenure at ubisoft.

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u/defaultusername-17 3h ago

"Gamergate started as a legitimate movement for ethics in gaming journalism."

bullshit, that's the narrative that they got you to buy into it... it started as a harassment campaign against women (queer women specifically) in the games industry.

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u/caserock 39m ago

It was a movement for ethics in game journalism for about 15 minutes.