slam it to the left, shake it to the right

“ The real issue is a lack of accountability, fostered by the idea that what happens online does not have “real world” consequences. Whether people write their hate using a pseudonym or witha real name and picture attached, they’re culturally supported in doing so because “it’s just a game.” But one’s avatar or screen name can be a vehicle of accountability as surely as any other. When you level in an online game and garland yourself with the rewards of dungeon-delving, raiding, or player-vs.-player combat, you develop a personality and reputation that you cannot easily shed. Even if no one ever knows your legal name or face, accountability and responsibility can still accrue to that avatar. Such a person becomes unaccountable not because of anonymity, but because too many gamers throw their hands up and say “This is the Internet, what can you do?” It’s similar to “boys will be boys” in its handwashing of responsibility.

The popular phrase “don’t feed the trolls,” however well intentioned, is in some ways also a product of the same kind of thinking. This malignancy is always going to be there, so why waste energy fighting or confronting it? In response to this kind of thinking, s.e. smith at the blog Tiger Beatdown may have put it best: “[Threats and harassment are] grinding and relentless and we’re told collectively, as a community, to stay silent about it. But I’m not sure that’s the right answer, to remain silent in the face of silencing campaigns designed and calculated to drive us from not just the Internet, but public spaces in general…. This is a reality, and it doesn’t go away if we don’t talk about it.”

And we have to keep talking about it because we are at a turning point—one where developers and writers are beginning to take responsibility for their creations, and where gaming companies are seeing themselves increasingly responsible for dealing with troublemakers who play their games. ”