Free Speech, Censorship, and the Calgary Expo

Those of you who know me know I'm a gamer. I've been playing video games since I was a kid and loving them for just as long, if not longer. I'm also a feminist because I believe in the equal treatment of men and women. And I believe in freedom of speech as an inalienable right that everyone should have access to. These are things that I like and that I agree with.

Also, I hate GamerGate.

I really, really, REALLY hate GamerGate.

Like, I can't properly put into words how I feel about GamerGate because I try to refrain from swearing on this blog, but I really do HAAAAAATE it.

For those of you who don't know what GamerGate is, I won't give you the whole story of it because I don't have the time or energy. Suffice it to say, GamerGate is a movement based around roughly a million different things. Some say it's about ethics in games journalism, some say it's free speech/anti-censorship, or about a campaign of harassment and rape/death threats against Zoey Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, and anyone else who speaks against them, or it's about claiming the identity of "gamer" while distancing themselves from the aforementioned harassers. Really though, the face of GamerGate is one of harassment, antifeminism, elitism, entitlement, and exclusion, and I absolutely hate it. Not the people involved, mind you, but the collective idea that is GamerGate, because I believe video games are awesome and gaming should be accessible and welcoming to everyone.

Recently, GamerGate was in the news again for being completely atrocious, surprising no one. Honey Badger Radio, a group affiliated with GG, procured a booth at the Calgary Comics & Entertainment Expo through crowdfunding in order to sell merchandise and preach the word of anti-censorship and men's rights activism (a cause that is precisely as stupid as it sounds).

Now while the idea of a successful MRA's crowdfunding campaign makes me want to vomit, I can't deny that they have the right to sell their wares and say their piece, provided they don't step outside the boundaries of the CCEE's very strict and very clear anti-harassment policy.

However, that's not what happened.

On Thursday, during the expo's "Women Into Comics" panel, audience members indentifying themselves as MRA's associated with Honey Badger Radio started asking about gender and representation in comics. Rather than be a constructive space for discussing these issues, the panel was hijacked by the audience members so they could berate the panelists and say their piece about their beliefs. Because this behavior violated the CCEE's exhibitor agreement, Honey Badger Radio was asked to leave and their booth was taken down.

Now a normal person might see this as a simple case of someone breaking the rules and being punished for it. Unfortunately, the GamerGate mentality is one of victimhood; that their right to play video games unimpeded is constantly hanging by a thread, and that feminists and social justices warriors are coming for it with a pair of scissors. And so GGers took to the internet, accusing the Expo of being anti-free speech, pro-censorship, and even calling them mysoginists for ejecting women who disagreed with them.

Let's ignore for now that Honey Badger Radio broke the rules laid out in the exhibitor's agreement. Let's ignore the hypocrisy of a movement famous trying to keep gaming a male-dominated space now calling someone else mysoginists. Let's instead look at what may be the most laughable thing about this whole endeavor: GamerGate does not know what free speech and censorship mean.

I can't be the only one who finds that funny. I really can't. Let's break down what exactly those words do and don't mean.

Free speech guarantees that you have the right speak; that you can say what you want without going to jail, and that's a good thing. It does NOT mean that you have to be heard. It does NOT mean that you have to be agreed with. Most importantly, however, it does NOT exempt you from any repercussions of your speech. You know what basic law is older than freedom of speech? That actions. Have. Consequences.

If the above story wasn't enough of an example, here's another one. Say you go into work and call your boss a dickhead. Thanks to freedom of speech, you have the right to say that and you won't be thrown in prison. However, it doesn't mean your boss won't fire you for saying that. Like it or not, you don't exist in a vacuum and your actions have an impact on everybody involved, including yourself.

Now, let's move on to censorship. One of the criticisms often leveled against Anita Sarkeesian (a feminist critic whose web series "Tropes vs. Women in Video Games," which examines the archetypal roles of female characters in gaming, has been met with more than a little ire since its announcement) is that she's trying to censor games. You see, in the GamerGate mentality, "criticism" is tantamount to "wanting to control the games industry and purge them of anything she doesn't like at the cost of artistic quality and freedom". God knows what would happen if they found out about Roger Ebert and his campaign to censor the film industry.

Sarkeesian has been compared to Jack Thompson, an activist and (now-disbarred) attorney who campaigned against sex and violence in video games. The difference between them is simple: Thompson really did want to censor games, fighting for laws that would force game developers to remove objectionable content. Sarkeesian, meanwhile, is doing her job as a critic. She critiques. Despite the assumptions of GGers, she doesn't hate video games (I can't imagine she'd put this much time and effort into a series about them if she did), nor is her series solely about bashing them; rather, "Tropes" is about just that: tropes. It's about identifying these recurring storytelling elements that have sexist content, explaining why they're sexist, and imploring game developers (and anyone else watching) not to use them. What's more, Sarkeesian emphasizes that it's perfectly fine to enjoy something while still being aware of any problematic or objectionable content it might have. "Tropes" isn't about tearing games down; it's about asking games to be better. Because games SHOULD be better.

Video games have come a long way since their inception. Changes in society, technology, and culture have allowed games to evolve from a simple toy to their own artistic medium, full of all the beauty and inspiration as any other. In my life, I've grown and learned because of playing video games. I bonded with characters who were just streams of code on a TV screen in "Mass Effect". I learned the pros and cons of Objectivist philosophy in "Bioshock". I laughed my ass off in "Portal". I was on the edge of my seat in "Heavy Rain". Some of the best music I've ever heard came from "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". Some of the most beautiful visuals I've ever seen came from "God of War". And "inFamous: Second Son" allowed me to fulfill my lifelong ambition of going to Seattle's Pacific Science Center and climbing around on the statutes like a spider monkey.

Video games are an amazing medium, but that doesn't mean they're perfect. For all it's world building and adventure, "Ocarina of Time" still leans on the outdated 'damsel in distress' trope to tell its story. For all its viscerally fun action, "God of War" has those sex mini-games that are really crass and juvenile. And while it's cool that you can choose your character's gender in "Mass Effect", it's still a little problematic that advertising for the series almost universally emphasizes the male version of Commander Shepard.

The mentality of GamerGate is that games are good the way they are and that any statements to the contrary are outliers trying to limit gamer's speech and hijack the medium for their own agenda. As Honey Badger Radio wrote of their crowdfunding campaign, "Once [at CCEE], we will start distributing the totalitarian message that nerd and gamer culture is...perfectly wonderful just as it is and should be left alone to go it's own way." The problem is that this is simply not true. If it were, critics wouldn't have any complaints at all. What GamerGate doesn't understand is that people who take issue with objectionable content aren't trying to control what games or their players can do, or remove their detractors from the equation entirely. This isn't about free speech and this isn't about censorship. We just want better games. And you should too.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you next time.

Sources: The Mary Sue, Kotaku