A Balanced (!!!) Article on GamerGate and the Threats at SXSW

I...am amazed...

   Good on The Observer.
   Here's what recently struck me about the GamerGate dust-up:
   Threats of violence are asymmetrical in the following respect: though there are loonies and harassers on both sides, and both sides receive threats...and though both sides denounce these threats, the kinds of people who lurk in the background on the two sides are different. The kinds of people who are probably lurking in the background rooting for the GGers and making threats against the anti-GGers are largely (almost certainly) disgruntled, socially-isolated/inept young white males. That is, the kind of people who sometimes do actually snap and try to kill large numbers of people for lunatic reasons...  I don't think anybody thinks that there is really going to be violence against a GG panel. But violence against an anti-GG panel--while vastly unlikely--is not inconceivable.
   On the other hand, however, the kind of people on the anti-GG side are the kinds of people who have a fairly impressive track record of exaggerating and flat-out fabricating stories of harassment and violence against themselves. That's better than killing people, no doubt...but it's still very, very bad...and it's more similar to what you actually find on the anti-GG side than are mass shootings to what you actually find on the GG side.
   Anyway.
   That just struck me, FWIW.
   So I posted it.
   The end.