Chasing Smaller Sheep

fuzzydeathmachine:

hellotailor:

Anita Sarkeesian faces backlash for disabling Youtube comments.

In celebration of International Women’s Day, people are taking to the Internet to complain about Anita Sarkeesian. The first installment of her long-awaited video series about sexism in video games was released yesterday, inspiring an inevitable torrent of backlash. Aside from suggestions that she “stole” the Kickstarter funding for the Women vs. Tropes in Video Games series, much of the criticism is because she disabled comments on the YouTube video.

[…]

Leading the charge against Sarkeesian’s decision is Tumblr user amazingatheist, who posted a ten-minute video entitled “Who’s The Damsel Now?“ Arguing that Sarkeesian’s “censorship” of YouTube comments counteracts her message about strong women, and that her TED talk about online harassment amounts to “whining,” amazingatheist says:

“What are you afraid of, Anita? Why can’t people have a discourse about your material? Why can’t people make their opinions towards your content known? I understand that some comments will be abusive in nature — probably most will — but so what?”

Ironically, the existence of this response means by definition that amazingatheist is making his opinion known, as well as participating in a discourse about Sarkeesian’s material. [READ MORE]

THE AMAZING ATHEIST IS A MISOGYNIST FUCKING PIECE OF TRASH AND I HOPE HE DIES IN A FIRE SO PEOPLE CAN STOP GIVING A SHIT ABOUT HIS OPINONS

that’s all

Okay, so I realize that “many people will be absolute shits on the Internet” is only a slightly less safe bet than assuming that there will be flying on a given season of The Amazing Race.  Still, what the fuck?  

Now, these are the facts.  By establishing a “no comment” policy on what are her internet spaces, Sarkeesian–or anybody who decides to have a comment policy in any place ever–is not curtailing discourse, nor is she being cowardly.  People like amazingatheist are still fully capable of making their garbage viewpoints known to all and sundry, which they have and will take advantage of, as is their right.  What she is doing is establishing boundaries, in effect saying “this is my space, and I will not take abuse in my space”.  She has that right, as does everyone who ever takes steps to prevent people from just going into their houses and spraying graffiti all over the TV screen, like say, locking the door.     

So basically, when people say that Sarkeesian is being oppressive and should allow unmoderated commenting in her page, what they actually mean is that they don’t think she has a right to lock that door, or a right to places in which she can be comfortable.  What they mean is that she doesn’t have a right to set boundaries, even in places that belong to her.  What they mean is that in the face of attacks on her personhood, intelligence, sexuality, preferences, ideas, or her very existence, she has no right to do anything but take it, at any moment or time.  What they are saying is that their right to punch does not, in fact end where her nose is, and that not allowing them to punch her in the nose is the same thing as oppression.    

I do wonder though, what these staunch advocates for free speech asshats would say to the idea of people going into their houses to yell at them 24/7 about what wastes of bandwidth they are.  I mean, as unfun as that idea sounds, there’s no question that I’d be perfectly within my rights to do so, according to their logic.  In fact, not allowing me to do so would be a blatant act of censorship, not to mention, pure, undiluted, would-immediately-kill-you-if-it-was-heroin cowardice.  And you’re not cowards, right, guys?