More evidence that social media is cancer.

They are many more parameters to this, but this thread is the wrong place to elaborate on the complexities and the stakes of public outing in general, because it is centered on Linko's situation. Which means that 1° detailed general ethical discussions would drag it far off topic to a wide array of unrelated exemples (historical or hypothetical), and 2° in this background context, idiots would take half the arguments as concessions toward's Linko's doxxers, illustrating the very same associative cognitive reflexes that made a "blasphemy" of his tweet ("how dare you evoke subject A and subject B in the same sentence").

But, to briefly complexify it : immorality and illegality are distinct (legal assholery may need being denounced sometimes) and authorities may be complicit to evil (think corruption or dictatorship). On this basis, you could imagine situations where public outing is valid (a journalist showing that the secret mafia boss is the minister of justice). If you can build up such imaginary cases, then absolute statements become too daring.

There's a series of "common good" criterions that are used in journalism, to evaluate the proportionality and legitimacy of privacy breaches. Of course, yellow journalism (the bread and butter of nerd journalism) and doxxing show no concern with it. But even in serious ethical journalism, there are situations where outing identities is legitimate (in case of public figures hypocrisies, for instance). And this alone blurs the boundaries too much for absolute, clearcut, general claims, no matter how people love to hear or pronounce them (especially in such moments).

Not too surprised. The issue with internet mobs and social medias is that they encourage, glorify and reward "all the way" stances and actions. Anything less is chastized and denounced as treason ("what is only 98% for is against"). You'll see it here. And you see it in people's reaction to that tweet ("what is not explicitely for is against"). Our current political climate, and the rise of anti-intellectual extremist populism, is a result of it. And so is the doxxing trend itself.

It's an encouraged mindset.

1. While it's always sad when child abusers, sexists, rapists and homophobes get what they want (in that case the apparent departure of a person who was unlucky to be their new target), Linko can do much better than wrangle tards. For his sake, I hope he finds a better job.

2. If the situation was handled badly (and that's a big if), the fault (if any) is with the person who decided GOG's social media presence had to be entertainment. If you interact with people at all beyond basic custserv (write your own content, promote theirs), someone is bound to be triggered. Post an image of a woman and you get some idiots crying about objectification, more idiots crying about pandering, and an organized swarm of dangerous free-range deviants who insist the existence of women is a targeted hate crime against them personally. Even "wholesome" games aren't safe - nutjobs have been attacking Stardew Valley and Night in the Woods.

3. Linko's mistake (actually, GOG HR's mistake) was not taking the necessary precautions regarding his identity. The law of large numbers says any public-facing person is in danger from triggered nutjobs and seekers of e-fame. The heads of Steam, PUBG and Epic probably get death threats each day, the difference is their income helps them offset the risk and the inconvenience.

4. GOG: don't give in to actual terrorists. (Not saying you did it -- just don't.) Have your legal department help any past or current employee who's been threatened file police reports.

IF Linko got fired because of this tweet, GOG deserves to rot in hell. You don't fire people just because a braindead internet hate movement demands it. And whoever these people on Twitter are: they are a hate movement. They're not about LGBQT rights. They're about hating people for stupid reasons. They're about trying to ruin people's lives for stupid reasons. They're about ripping harmless sentences into pieces just to find another reason to feel opressed.

Honestly... The tweet wasn't saying "BURN, T***** BITCHES!!!" It was just saying "GOG cares for old games." I agree that Linko shouldn't have used that stupid WontBeErased hashtag. Not because it's a bad or insensitive thing to do... Only because it doesn't take a genius to know how things like that end nowadays. You can't even have diarrhea without being accused of wanting to "liquidate" brown anymore -.- The world has changed and somehow allowed Twitter to dictate how we're allowed to speak or think. THAT'S why Linko shouldn't have used this hashtag.

I'm all for LGBQT rights. Why wouldn't I? It doesn't affect me at all what's written in your passport. I don't care if you were born with a cock and got rid of it later. I don't want to hear about where a straight man put his cock, so why would I care where a gay man is putting it? Just do with yourself whatever you want and be happy. And if using the right toilet makes you happier, why should I be against it? But please effin stop to attack people who don't celebrate that you're gay, trans or whatever! One day people will wake up and realize that you're not really fighting for your rights, but that all you do is to look for another reason to ruin other people's lives.

All you've achieved is to get someone fired who said that GOG is caring for old games (again: IF GOG fired Linko). Did this help your situation? Are you feeling more accepted now? I doubt it... And I know at least one person who accepts you a bit less now: me. You don't know shit about Linko. Maybe he's a loving father of three kids and has no idea how to feed them now. Maybe he's trans. Maybe he's an activist who's trying to legalize gay marriage in his country? You know nothing about him, but you didn't hestitate to try to get him fired, just because he dared to remind people that GOG cares for old games. Congratulations and thank you. You're the plague of the present age.

Stop fighting others who're not your enemies. This won't bring you forward at all. It'll only make people hate you.


* Moded. Please refrain from using derogatory words, even as an example.

Why do Gog need Twitter anyway ? ( why can't they use Mastodon instead ? )

I really hope Linko #wontbeerased...

But I could imagine the account here was disabled because he was harassed here too (as CM, his chat was open to anyone). I hope he's just on short term leave until the thing has blown over and he and his family are safe from harassers and zealots.

I agree the forum climate improved when I he was around.

Oh yes, I've been back a bit more mostly due to him. His work was appreciated.

3: is just victim blaming. "His information shouldn't have been so readily available". Sure. That's true to a point. The reality is it shouldn't need to be more hidden from nutjobs who want to ruin someone's life. It is still the nutjobs' fault.

If I could +1000 this, I would. Anyone who promotes willful, purposeful doxxing with intent, is a piece of shit. End of discussion.

I expected those expressing their support on discord to do it here as well - it was a sure thing for me. So yes, I was disappointed to not see this for GOG to see (since discord is not official and won't help making GOG see how the community thinks). However my reason for leaving the discord was not to force anybody into supporting something he doesn't support or to come out into the open without wanting it. I was disappointed about the decision not to do so and even more about the reasons I have been told and so I had problems continuing the usual jokes, fun and talks as if nothing important is on the line on discord - so I decided to leave the discord - at least for the moment. It was an emotional decision I made in the moment for me - nothing more. I am still here and you can still talk to me - I just left the discord for now.

I do hope we can continue our talks. Despite everything I do enjoy talking to you. I hope GOG will communicate as to the future of all this.

Same - really. :)

Just posting to say Linko should not have been fired for this (if that was indeed the case).

If he indeed got fired because of this stupid Twitter drama, it's a very lame and disappointing move by Gog.

TeamNinja announced at least one game of theirs won't come to the west, due to rampant politicism. Not a major game, but i'm sure people would've loved to have it.

Anyway, I understand what you mean: Linko was a bit censorship happy, just like the rest of the GOG employees, but like Count Dankula said about Graham Linehan, you have to take a principled stance, even if you're simultaneously saying "well, you kinda asked for this very thing until it bit you in the ass as well, right?" With Linko it's slightly different (he didn't dox to censor), but it still applies: if we think it's wrong to happen to us, we need to say it's wrong for it to happen to our "enemies" as well. When the doxxers get doxxed, i say "see? It sucks, doesn't it? You asked for this very thing, but, hey, i still it's wrong, and i'm sorry you had to learn so this way."

I think that's an even stronger argument for why doxxing is wrong, really. However, society functions on the basis that we trust the law, or at least we trust it enough not to revolt against it and commit to vigilantism, which is a softer insurrection. If society as a whole disagrees with government will change, or hard insurrection will occur. Undermining the system for an individual's or group's personal views is unjustified, especially when society as a whole does not recognize the authority of the group or the individual. A public figure need not be doxxed. The public figure already has clear identification and methods of contact, private contact is off limits for a reason. You don't out the identity of, say, a president: we already know who is president. Outing information that the individual has consented to release to the public at large is not doxxing. Do we know the phone number of, say, William Shatner? Do we know William Shatner's real name? What sort of hypocrisy could be revealed by releasing his phone number? Sure, whistleblowing on government secrets where the public at large become legitimately outraged over the details is good and responsible journalism, but this is neither personally identifiable information nor does the information released provide a methodology of bringing physical harm.

My understanding is that this is specifically about people who didn't the surgery. Otherwise, the government would run into a hiccup with, say, hermaphrodites, whom always seem to be left out of these conversations. Not a counterargument to anything you've said, but i've noticed the separation between transsexual and transgender to be an important distinction. From a reproductive stance, they're similar and are nuanced in difference, but in situations that most people are concerned about ("spaces where women can feel safe when otherwise compromised [for example: bathrooms, changing rooms, etc]"), the surgery changes things quite a bit, and the latter is what public policy should be based upon. If the organs got lopped off, rape resulting in pregnancy isn't likely to be an issue (although rape is still possible, the separation seems to be largely based upon this distinction: If i google "woman arrested for using man's restroom," all i see is stuff about biological males using the bathrooms of females).

The problem with arguing against victim blaming is that it takes away the agency. It's not OK to rape a woman who's scantily dressed at a party where people are having sex openly, but at the same time you wouldn't encourage someone to dress scantily and go to such a party. It's wrong for him to get doxxed, but we can acknowledge that if he would've covered his tracks better he'd be much better off. If you are aware of a danger, but take no steps to prevent it, that's a weakness on your part, even if the danger was from an illegitimate source.