That's really all that has to be said.
The moment some ideology becomes so fanatic, that people are brainwashing children with it, it has crossed the line.
This is the same shit like telling children that masturbation leads to blindness and lets you go to hell and even before they would ever have thought about it or would have been able to do it. Or like telling girls/boys that they are not supposed to be interested in certain things or be acting in certain ways because it wouldn't match their genitals. The enforcement of those role models happened for ages, was fought in the last decades and sadly has a big revival right now.
Those indoctrinations are just the destruction of a future with healthy people with a healthy sexuality that had the chance to discover and decide things for themselves.

Fight your destructive wars to justify your beliefs/delusions (whichever they may be) as much as you want, but just leave the children out of it.

I didn't necessarily mean that they would use it on children, I meant more for themselves. BTW, there is more to sex than just the old in-n-out.

People like Jim Sterling are of course not exempt from good journalistic practice, and of course Jim Sterling doesn't usually follow good journalistic practice. Yeaaaah... sorry Jim. I like the guy, although I don't condone that he calls himself a Social Justice Warrior. :)

However the allegations against Konami, especially as brought forth by Jim Sterling:

— were mere statements about the work environment that his sources, i.e. workers, were competent to make, that means they
— were free of wild and unfounded FUD/conjecture about the financial status of Konami
— did not contain allegations of racism, misogyny and ageism
— did not contain allegations of strictly illegal misconduct (e.g. private use of company funds)
— did not contain clear cut ad hominem attacks against individual persons obviously disliked by the sources
— were under no strong suspicion to stem from a coordinated effort by several ill willed individuals
— were under no suspicion to come with the intent to damage sales (see: Sterling's praise of MGSV)

And that is really just the tip of the iceberg.

At the time, the Escapist struggles visibly to verify one of their central sources four days after publishing said article, as the ID card they've been shown by their source seemingly doesn't exist in any variety at CIG games. They're in deep shit.

There will probably - unfortunately - not be a lawsuit, as John Keefer is obviously not stupid enough to risk it. That guy knows he has no foot to stand on, and he knows that legal investigation in this specific matter would likely kill his website. If Derek Smart has actually peddled those employees' contacts to Fogarty, or if that anonymous twitter account actually belongs to her, the damage to the website could be lethal. Which I personally wouldn't celebrate.

I fully expect that cascade of ethics violations that this article is to go offline tonight and a half hearted something of an apology from Keefer (yet not Fogarty) to surface on the website.

That employee supposedly showed, and I quote, "a Cloud Imperium games ID with the name blacked out".

The standard swipe card issued at CIG has no name and no CIG markings. Ooooooops. So, indeed: Whatever she saw was neither ID nor entry card. People question what she actually DID see. Fogarty has no answer and doesn't even act as if she'd ever want to give one. That's... what's the word... ah: professional.

So, hell yeah, that Kool-Aid indeed tastes excellent, especially since Fogarty has started to delete some of her tweets on the matter.

That said, I have nothing personally against Fogarty. It's obvious she was hired with the sole qualification of rabble rousing gamergaters, and she didn't know what she got herself into, she just knew what her job was, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with 'journalism'. There's also some indication that it wasn't even her who verified the article's sources. And her job's on the line now. Certainly Keefer will sacrifice that pawn with a quick smirk. Which could, eventually, be good for "Lizzy" because she has no place in journalism whatsoever.

CIG has made clear that they are going after the Escapist with their lawsuit, and not after Fogarty, who is – justly – called a "kid" in their letter to Keefer. So don't worry, Lizzy will likely land on her feet, hopefully in a career that fits her qualifications for a change.

They allegations were raised by many others as well. I recall SBH did one as well. AFAIK its not completely unethical to use anonymous sources as per the SPJ code of ethics; but there must be adequate disclaiming that the sources are indeed anonymous and if I recall; SBH stressed that clearly and everyone who reported then, and Lizzy in this instance did so as well. So from an ethical standpoint both are similar; but obviously it can't be denied that Lizzy's had much more capacity for doing harm.
The Escapist did verify the source's identities and of those they couldn't; direct quotations weren't made.
Having no foot to stand on=having no grounds?
Which ethics violations do you think are perpetrated? Again; I'm asking in a non threatening way because I myself am not very familiar with this.

Offtopic; but Eron and Zoe are still fighting it out in court. It'd be nice to know what the courts establish as the precedent for what constitutes online harassment and what constitutes a call for online harassment of a person. Fingers crossed, it wouldn't be too strict but then again its for harassment allegations from the US only so, umm something I guess.

Then clearly YOU are reading impaired....
The article clearly shows a packer advertised for use by a 4-8 year old.

Here's the entirety of the article "sans pictures" of the website and owner's Linked In, etc So again, who's reading impaired? Clearly YOU! I got it the first time...the article doesn't seem to be lying nor exaggerating...

And once again you drink the Kool-Aid, because CIG is playing games with you again...

If you'd actually do your homework and get away from your echo chambers, you'd find out that what was referred to as an "ID card" turns out to just be the employee "entry card". It's merely a standard swipe card for doors/time clocks...and that same employee supposedly showed pay stubs.

Are you denying that one of these might have been shown on Skype? Are you also denying the pay stubs? Or are you doubling down on your "theory" that Lizzy made the whole article up with Derek Smart?

And why no call against Chris Roberts who has publicly accused Lizzy of doxxing and completely falsifying the article with Derek Smart? Doesn't that put him in a position to be sued as well?

Besides, the only reason you brought this up was to attack Gamergate because Lizzy is a supporter. It shows how "vain" you really are in your witch hunt...

Dear lord, can you be any more obtuse? My main beef was about it NOT being a dildo - for someone who loves to accuse people of not being able to read, you do a damn fucking good job of not reading yourself.

How obtuse are you? The website uses the word "dildo" themselves when they reference "dildo locker". Nowhere in that article did it imply anyone was a pedophile. A packer can be considered a dildo especially if its locked in a harness. Where are you getting off calling the article "sensationalist"?

The article is what the article is, and its showing a packer designed for those 4-8 and linked to an artcle of a woman buying one for her 6-year old....

Are you denying the website exists? Are you denying the article exists? Both seem to be true, so really you need to get over yourself...

Wow the more this thing is brought the more similar stuff is found from the past : https://archive.is/ePaui
Written by Jason Schreier who claimed Kotaku would never publish something like this a day or two ago.

EDIT : https://archive.is/ccLjr Another
And don't forget the ones about Stardock and Brad Wardell based not even on anonymous opinions or sparse facts but pure politics.

PC culture has gone insane...#GamerGate is fighting the world's battles all by themselves.

Even better, did you see this line in that Jason Schreier article?
"Anonymous employee reviews on GlassDoor echo everything I've heard."

OMG alt accounts confirmed!

Seriously though; at the wrost Lizzy's article is as bad as the examples; which is unlikely since the IDs presented WERE verified by a legal team, hence they had a reasonable cause to believe them. So the main unethical part is that sufficient time was not given for response and the response they did receive wasn't included I hear?

Solidifying this thread as post anything too minor for the general forums; http://imgur.com/r/gaming/sSTHnBM

The same employee with the ID issue also was said to have shown pay stubs. So if that is true, its a non-issue anyway. One can debate ID card vs swipe card all day but it isn't really all that relevant.

As to the response, supposedly, it ended up in a spam folder, so didn't make it in at first. Should they have waited longer before going to print? Hard to say...how long would one wait for a non-response...

To be fair, I don't really see too many ethical issues with Jason Schreier's article, nor Lizzy's, assuming that the information presented is true. In Schreier's case, it almost seemed as though the studio acknowledged some of the issues.

The real question is why is there such an outrage over this when similar articles get written. I don't see anyone blaming the writers over the Konami articles and the problem with the ones about Stardock is they were one-sided, unverified (single source) and ultimately wrong. If Lizzy didn't make them up as some allege, and there are multiple employees (current and former) making these claims, what's the issue? Remember Watergate or the Lewinsky scandals, Nixon was "not a crook" and Clinton "didn't have sexual relations". Later the truth did come out...

*facepalms* Are you really this dim?

a) it's NOT a dildo, NOWHERE on that website does it say it's a dildo - NOWHERE. The only mention of a dildo is on another category on the left side which is meant for adults, not kids

b) that Gendertrender article blatantly DOES call it a dildo despite the website they're linking to NEVER calling it a dildo.

Is it THAT hard to grasp why I'm saying that Gendertrender are being idiots for calling it a baby dildo?