This weekend, a man wearing a skull mask posted a video on YouTube outlining his plans to murder me. I know his real name. I documented it and sent it to law enforcement, praying something is finally done. I have received these death threats and 43 others in the last five months.
This is just unreal. You have to read this piece.
This is just terrible and it’s been going on far too long. When I read “This will not stop until you show the public that there are consequences to these illegal acts.” I had the horrible feeling I was reading something someone wrote who had been killed. I don’t think people take any of this as seriously as it should be. Bravo to you Jim for sharing this. Let’s hope more people do and something is done.
Brianna, you are one brave woman.
I’ve following Brianna Wu’s feed for months. It’s horrifying.
Boo hoo stop playing the victim
https://archive.today/t1Oxl
For anyone who believes she’s the victim here, just dig a little deeper about her and her story and you will find out the truth, and the rotten system of videogame journalism and media.
Anyone who thinks someone receiving death threats is “playing the victim”, because ”the system!!!!111” – you got your head screwed on the wrong way.
The whole thing is just ridiculous. I really hope the fucktards who make YouTube videos with a knife threatening to kill people get in all the legal trouble they so richly deserve, but let’s be real—Brianna, and anyone else, is at much greater risk of being killed by an impaired driver, life-time exposure to hazardous chemicals, or even errant shots by poorly-aiming gangbangers than by these losers who’ve played too many video games and watched too many Bruce Willis movies in their parent’s basement (eg ” I CANT GET BULLET HOLES IN MY MOMS CAR SHE ILL KILL ME “). There are lots of bloodthirsty sociopathic psychopaths out there, but we’ve seen more Muslim dental students killed than female gamers, despite the threats.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Or at least doesn’t ignore these eterna-adolescents enough.
When I first read the subject line, I thought I recognized the name, so I got my damaged little brain into gear.
I read the Bustle piece, and then (inkle klink) thinks fell into place.
Brianna can apparently also dish it out, it seems.
https://www.facebook.com/whatisrevolution60/posts/430599580401212
Hmm…
And while there are few people on Earth that deserve death threats (and Brianna certainly isn’t one of them), could be she’s said something to really p*ss someone off.
And an episode for a TV show is being made about it? I rolled my eyes so hard, I twisted the optic nerves. I can type this only now my vision has returned.
It’s nice that you think it only matters if someone dies. I have had family members go though this sort abuse – living in terror, and never really knowing when the abuser will make good on their threats – its not something to shrug off. It is easy to be on the outside, unaffected, and say just ignore it.
This turned even worse than HalfLife2 vs Doom3 threads.
What Brianna Wu and others have gone through goes beyond people being pissed off. It long ago went into unhinged territory. Words flying on the internet are one thing. Actual stalking and providing of real world information to assist stalkers in carrying out threats is actionable legally.
True. But the more I read about this, the more I think she’s not blameless, the young lady does seem to have something of a track record, and personally the Bustle bit does little to help her case, ‘Look at me I’m a female Dev and I’m getting death threats, and they’re making a TV episode loosely based on it all, memememememe!
Talk about adding hype to the fire.
Best of luck to Brianna, and I certainly hope they get the mongrel(s) behind this, but, it is the internet, and stupidity does tend to increase in magnitude.
That is complete and utter bullshit. You are a blathering idiot.
There is absolutely no similarity between the everyday risk that EVERYONE EQUALLY takes of being hit by falling airplane parts and the impact that a personal death threat immediately makes on your life, whether the threat is carried through or not.
The one thing worse than a scumbag who anonymously threatens women via the Internet is ignorant fools like you who apologize for them.
I’m not a violent person at all, but if somebody threatened my life like this and I knew who they were I would kill them. Period. This kind of threat-making is a terminal disease in my opinion. If you do this, your time is done, you have to go.
Yes, your brain is damaged. Get some help.
“You are a blathering idiot.”
Hmmm, pot…kettle…black.
I just reminded a friend the other day that when someone resorts to an ad hominem, they’re basically admitting they’ve lost the argument.
“The one thing worse than a scumbag who anonymously threatens women via the Internet is…”
Only women? Isn’t the problem really anyone who anonymously threatens ANYONE, whether over the internet or not?
“…ignorant fools[sic] like you who apologize for them.”
Oh, the irony of making a grammatical (i.e. redundancy) error when using the word “ignorant.” For the record, in NO PLACE do I ever apologize for the malsocialized misogynists of GamerGate, but neither do I revere Ms Wu’s victimhood. Anyone who stays engaged in that inane online culture war deserves what they get.
“There is absolutely no similarity between the everyday risk that EVERYONE EQUALLY takes of being hit by falling airplane parts and the impact that a personal death threat immediately makes on your life, whether the threat is carried through or not.”
Maybe so, but that’s a personal problem. The three people who came, far too, close to killing me didn’t even know I existed, and not one, of the multiple, people who’ve threatened to kill me have ever laid a finger on me. There’s a word for a person who’s afraid of flying because of the potential of a plane crash yet had no problem driving to the airport, it’s “irrational.” Statistically, you are infinitely more likely to be killed by someone who never threatened you than you ever are of someone who does. If you’re going to live in terror of threats, at least live in terror of the probable ones.
Judging from the below, I’d suggest you follow your own advice.
So you’re saying the proper response to the threat of violence is ACTUAL VIOLENCE? That’s some serious logical, and karmic, ju jitsu right there.
For anyone that believes for a second that this is about “journalism”, I have a bridge to sell you.
“not blameless”.
Yes, yes. The fallacy of the golden mean. No one could that gets this kind of unrelenting hate campaign could possible not deserve some of it, could they? The mere fact that this campaign against her is still running must mean there is a good reason for the abuse to continue.
And the Nazi’s had some legitimate grievances against the Jews, too.
If a person explained to someone in person the precise method as to how they were going to kill you and that they intended to carry out this act immediately, you could beat them to a pulp. ISIS crazies are making videos of this exact nature and we are sending drone strikes after them. But because the topics surrounding the victims (video games, women’s rights) are deemed unimportant, the flatly illegal on any level threats against these women are somehow dismissed as curiosities.
Or at least doesn’t ignore these eterna-adolescents enough.
Right. The only logical avenue of action for Wu and the other women targeted by these crazies is for them to what? Close their media accounts? Quit their jobs? Censor themselves?Stop speaking out?
Your utter inability to comprehend the nature of this abuse is implicit in the way that these orchestrated hate campaigns are routinely spoken of as if they were just frat boys jeering your sports team.
Proof? Any proof at all? I see links to the author’s own Twitter, to the author’s friends, and to a video that’s set to private and could be about literally anything. I see links to editorials. I see incidents treated as trends, with nothing to show a trend exists. I see even the author admitting that the extremists she claims to be such a threat are a “lunatic fringe”. I see biased, one-sided “news” pieces in which only the accusers have a voice, and the situation is blatantly misrepresented.
What I do not see is police reports. I don’t see any evidence of fact checking, or investigation. I don’t see, in other words, any evidence. Call me a bigot if you must. Claim I am an attacker. However, I still believe in the maxim of “Innocent until proven guilty.”. If the police are involved, where are the arrests? There are, according to the accusers, hundreds of people guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, among other charges. They claim to have gone to the police. They claim their lives are in danger. Where are the perpetrators? Where are the convictions?