Gawker is toxic to brands who partner with them

"making the press even less useful than in the good old days when we at least could wrap our fish and chips in it."

I swear that's the only reason I ever bought a darn newspaper!

You're entirely on point. The idea that a massive internet media company like Gawker could falsely present partnerships without advertisers catching wind of it is just astounding to me. Particularly with a site as rapacious and repugnant as Gawker Media. This is the equivalent of not only painting a target on your back, but giving everyone around you loaded AK-47's.

Advertisers would do well to heed your warning about social media. As someone who has been the regional head of technology for a fortune 100 company, I can tell you for a fact that most departments employ naive children in these roles and usually for a pittance. They are not taking this important and extremely visible communication channel seriously. In this modern day of internet communication, this is the equivalent of hiring a drunken hobo off the street and putting them in charge of greeting your customers as they come to the shop front.

Personally, I do believe that Nick Denton's media "empire" is on shaky ground. They've burnt an enormous amount of bridges, particularly with their ValleyWag coverage and many people are opportunistically waiting for a moment for the long knives to come out (several C-level's at my company would love nothing more than to take him to the woodshed). It's obvious that their strategy is to try and maintain momentum in the traditional press and outlast the protesters, hence providing a shield of plausible deniability in the eye of the public about their very real and public endorsement of bullying. However I believe that this is a gamble that will ultimately fail them. After all, the internet NEVER forgets and once the media focus gets diverted to the next news cycle, Nick will be left to deal both with having bullied advertisers as well as with the howling internet mob at his door.

Frankly, if one of my employees had engaged in such atrocious public behavior in the public space they would have quickly been shown the door. However, since my business isn't built on the reputation of bullying everyone around me, I suppose I can indulge in ethical behavior without having to worry about showing weakness in front of an internet that would love nothing more than to rip me to shreds.

I think there's an adage here about making beds that might be appropriate...

I'd argue hiding their connection with these sites isn't gonna cut it because people are stupid they can easily just look at the ads too figur out who is a partner

This whole situation seems like a massive cascade of failures that started as a simple trickle of poor decisions that never went unchallenged. Bad journalists weren't being reprimanded for bad behavior, which tacitly encouraged more bad behavior, and so on... and now we have PR people failing to react appropriately to the (inevitable and warranted) backlash (that they should have seen coming in the first place)... and advertisers getting caught with their pants down, not protecting their brand images from sites like Gawker... and establishment journalism failing to do actual journalism or fact-checking (not really a surprise anymore).

When does it end? Where does the incompetence stop?

At this point, it seems like the only group in control of their image is the #GamerGate crowd - donating to charities, squashing trolls and harassment. It's generally not a good thing when professionals are being shown up by plucky amateurs...

What's going is that Gawker is pulling the same thing they always pull: inflammatory remarks and crowdsourced anger. However this time their targets are people who, many of which, don't even have twitter handles to flame to oblivion. These people are writing directly to advertising companies and telling them they don't like what Gawker is doing. It's what should have been done years ago, except now Gawker has dug itself into a hole with their writers and is digging until they hole they can pop out of the other side of the earth unscathed. Except that's not going to happen.

There's an old saying - If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

I've personally sent out around 30-40 emails. Most of which really had nothing to do with GamerGate itself, just some of the unsavory things uncovered and brought to light by supports of GG. things that should have been addressed a long time ago.

Why anyone thinks they can defame, mock, and marginalize their core consumers and somehow come out the other side smelling like roses is astounding. I know they relied on the "misogyny" and "terrorists" narrative, but frankly I don't think anyone with a brain had really bought it. Except those with an a priori ideological slant that sees the "patriarchy" as a legitimate threat. and any threat or harassment, even by anonymous trolls, as evidence of a grander conspiracy.

The Escapist Online Publication admitted that there may have been some untoward things occurring and revised their ethics in response. It wasn't really the most satisfactory thing, but they have heretofore been left alone and almost completely forgotten. It reeks of guilt or an ulterior motive to kick against the pricks with wanton abandonment.

I support Gamergate.

I also, for my company, approved ~$10 million in server purchases so far this year. At a previous, much larger, company, I bought laptops by the *pallet*. And I'm still in my 30's so I'm going to be doing this for a while.

You can bet Intel and Adobe care about my views, and I am debating whether to bring this up with the microsoft rep when I meet with him next week. And, I don't expect much pushback. Because who do you think Intel, Adobe and Microsoft line employees are going to identify with? Nick Denton, or people like me?

Rix: they completely underestimate who they are targeting. They actually seem to believe the young white neckbeard narrative they are pushing.

Except those grew up over the last decade and now have very good (executive) jobs.

Personally I choose to do business with HP instead of Dell in the future since the latter failed to react to Reese's conduct on twitter.

That's close to half a million Euro we won't be bringing to Dell.

And you can bet I'll be in contact with our MS and Adobe reps too (we partner with both)

I assume there are a lot more of us than they realise...

The narrative that we are all neck beards is simply slander. gamergate consists of a youthful, tech savvy crowd, with a healthy mixture of adults that buy these products.

If I owned a company I would just pull out of pop culture and gaming altogether, not because the "journalists" are unethical hacks, but because the gaming industry as a whole has a lot of growing up to do. Not to mention most of the audience uses ad block anyways. It is such an unnecessary risk.

It is amazing to me that Gawker Media, hasn't been burnt to ash, their land salted, and the survivors driven into the sea.

GamerGate is the epitome of what happens when you are disrespectful to the consumers of your products. They will stop consume your products, and will consume your resources.

The msm hasn't worked out yet what is actually happening. And their advertisers desperately need to be up to speed on the bigger picture. Altered reality 101 - criticizing/calling out/critiquing poor behaviour IS NOT misogyny just because the offender has a vagina. This alone has changed the way we do business. Forever. And the defining character of the sjw,s is their refusal to be held to account - for absolutely anything.. That's over. For good reason. Get used to it.
The sjw/feminism/gynocentrism has taken it's mortal wounds and tho it may take years to up and die, they are squarely on the wrong side of history, and if corp's don't start wriggling now, there is going to be enormous hemorrhaging of money once the thrashing about begins in earnest. Intel was just the wake up call.
Non-gyno exec's need to carefully and quietly remove the ideology from their hr dept's to avoid the internal mines that will begin detonating in the next few years. Out of the question just a short while ago but now an imperative as nothing will stop the wider MRM and many more GG type events are the future, online and off. The tactical and strategic environment has changed markedly over the last couple of years and is only going to develop.
Right now, social values are changing like they haven't since the sixties. Bottom up change. Any idea that company policy can be dictated from external ideologues needs to be defended against. Because such people will burn the shit to the ground before they relinquish privilege. Companies need to respond to events without a millstone.
Any corporate exec that is not roundly versed in the detail of the gender issues, that cannot assess any and all situations beyond a gynocentric paradigm, will be a major liability to their shareholders. A lot of people need to do a lot of reading and homework as this will shake the market and not in a good way for anyone who likes profit.

Well said. Companies like Gawker have become so totalitarian in their politics that they're actually trying to bully not only their own audience, but their own advertisers into submission. They've gotten away with it for so long they no longer know where to draw the line. I'm afraid they're past the point of no return and would sooner dig their own grave than adhere to journalistic ethics now.

This article seemed like it might be a legitimate opinion piece on Gawker Media until you tipped your hand in the final paragraph:

"What did those horrible sexist game-devs do? They all banded together and quit the show on the spot. That's the truth of how sexist gamedevs actually are, is -- they're not at all"

A few game developers on a reality TV show quit over sexism and that instantly invalidates the existence of sexism in the entire population of game developers? This display of Gamergate-levels of illogical nonsense reveals quite eloquently that this piece is nothing more hit job by someone with a chip on her shoulder.

7/10 of the mods for kotakuinaction also moderate antifeminist porn reddits. See

buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/the-disturbing-misogynist-history-of-gamergates-g?s=mobile

I'm paying more attention to the long game. As some have pointed out, the active members of the movement number somewhere close to 25k, with probably quite a few inactive lurker members watching. That means that after this ends, if the GGers lose, you'll have at least 25k consumers made bitter and jaded and angry. While some may kowtow, I would be willing to bet that a larger number of these people will be picked up by other causes and you can bet that they will be smarter, angrier, and far more cynical. However, if they win, you can bet there will be at least a lull... but sooner or later, these consumers, now somewhat experienced in waging long campaigns against media and likely very sensitive to perceived corruption, will turn their sights on larger media.

I feel that the best outcome is the second, but only if manufacturers are able to forge some measure of trust with their consumer base first. Establishing trust is key and pushing for a more balanced narrative will do wonders for their ultimate outcome. Unfortunately, much of the games media has shown itself to be an unstable ally, and I would guess that even if they were to come out of this unblemished, this would not be the first consumer revolt.

I do not believe, in the long run, staying in the middle will be a viable strategy. But first, it is imperative to make whatever side chosen palatable to the public at large.