Oh, I know what you meant. The point I'm trying to make is that people don't even seem to realize what they're doing when they use that term. They're creating a false "other" that alleviates responsibility, and places a portion of the blame on a nebulous, vague third party.
It's assisting in blame-shifting, however slight. It's not semantics at all. It's paying attention to the words you're using and how you're using them.
It's pretty important that people stop immediately going "THE INTERNET" and indirectly making it harder to address what's wrong. It feeds into the idea that there's nothing to be done about shit like this because "THE INTERNET" is an intangible concept, as opposed to what it really is - just people talking.
Discuss the people. Don't complain about the communication method. If I got a threatening phone-call, I'm not going to say "Ugh, Verizon." Basically: citing, complaining about, or referring to "the internet" is obfuscation. You're feeding into it if that's your first response to any situations similar to this fucked up bit of business.
Also - any citing of "The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" should be retired, especially considering it's been thoroughly disproven, most clearly and easily, by the man who drew the strip that introduced it into the world.
Anyway, there are a lot more men who need to start telling other men that what they're doing, the way they're behaving, and their manner of thought is thoroughly fucked up. Because right now there are a lot of men who are content to just let some of this shit slide, because it doesn't directly affect them, and speaking out against this sort of dehumanizing behavior isn't worth the potential hit to their enjoyment of the games.
