Her second job was uncovered by GG harassers? It's connected.
Alison Rapp Fired By Nintendo Discussion Thread -- Read Ground Rules in OP
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Surely the child porn comments are relevant to the real story, then? It's unfortunate that Rapp isn't an angel in this, but it's intellectually dishonest to exclude aspects of a story because they're unsavoury.
What child porn comments are you referencing? I want to be sure you're talking about the same thing I'm thinking about.
"Uncovered"? I thought she was just straight up tweeting racy teasers for the pics.
DrROBschiz
Member
I only downplay it becuase I havent done the work to separate it from the GG narrative, investigative stuff is banned in this topic, and Nintendo hasnt officially commented on it
moondoggerr
Banned
She did not. An old paper she wrote has been recontextualized by GG to appear as if she is calling for the legalization of child pornography. This is the kind of slime they like to dredge up and slop around in the hopes that people who are just just driving by will be influenced. It's their M.O. But it doesn't appear to be why she was fired, according to Rapp, or Nintendo. So why bring it up? It's a salacious, false, detail.
Now you know.
That was personal and not for a job.
You are incorrect, and you are also posting unsubstantiated rumors.
Snkfanatic
Banned
I am by no means a GG supporter but what exactly are you expecting the industry to do?
meltingparappa
Member
Kind of a surreal feeling to continually read a staunchly unapologetic GG bulletpoint, and then notice a correlation to junior memberships.
I see you did not read her thesis before you went hatin' on her, kthx
According to Nintendo, her termination was due to a conflict with a second job. Unrelated points about her character don't seem to connect to that. In what sense is that intellectually dishonest?
SneakersSO
Member
I'm pretty sure Blizzard, at Blizzcon, straight up called out harassment campaigns & the need for them to stop. There have also been various other corporate figureheads who have said similarly in various interviews over the last year & a half.
moondoggerr
Banned
This is gonna seem like the most ironic post ever made, but I concur.
RichiRamjag
Member
What I'm saying. So many people around here just come across as incredibly naive. Nintendo and most companies aren't getting involved in someone's personal Twitter harassment. Disney or BoA fighting for civil rights on a larger scale is totally different from asking Nintendo to comment on a single employee's Twitter drama.
I think that wasn't support, but more on the lines of acknowledging this line in the article: "The two burglar suspects who reported Stockard have not been arrested."
As in, their crime was hand waved for the pedophile. I could go more into it, since I'm anti-demonizing pedophiles so they get help, but I'll leave it at that.
cr0w
Old Member
To be fair, I registered three years ago and only got approved within the past couple of months.
But hopefully I'm not one of those you're referencing.
More the defense of consumption to a limited degree rather than production. Though the acquisition fuels demand in the first place.
It wasn't OK for Nintendo to not at least put out a general statement condemning harassment, but it was okay to fire her if her second job violated company guidelines.
LudicrousSpeed
Member
Because the stuff about a job certainly appears to be nothing but a flimsy pretext so that they don't have to say "We fired her because of the controversy stirred up by a hate mob".
Blaming gamergate on developers really isn't fair. Yes it's been a male dominated industry and it has generally failed to attract or represent women (though Nintendo has generally been better than most at least at avoiding blatant sexualisation), but there's really nothing to excuse the disgusting behaviors and attitudes of GGers. It's an ugly side of internet culture much more than it has anything to do with games. I guess developers could be blamed for not moderating their online communities, but there are limits to how much they can do there, and again that's something where Nintendo does more than others, and they've never had much on an online presence anyway.
Are you making this up or do you have sources we don't?
Acknowledge the elephant in the room? First step to fixing an issue is admitting it. The industry cultivated this shit for the past 30 years, they have their hands covered in this filth. They cannot just turn back on it after what they've done and say "it's out of our hands, we don't condone harassment".
Vocal condemnation of gamergate puts them in a bad situation, unless it was a coordinated effort.
The question is how many of them are actually out there, but no company wants to stand up and make themselves a target unless they have something to lose (like when EA stood up for gay relationships in Mass Effect because they were defending the content of a specific game). A general attack against GG is not in anyone's interest unless it's done as a concerted voice by the industry itself.
I think the best route of attack is to put pressure on twitter to give these guys and other dickholes abusing their service a swift boot (or better, shadow-ban and let them scream into the ether, unheard and unmarked).
Orniletter
Banned
cr0w
Old Member
This shit has been going on in online communities since they began. I saw it on UseNet, then on IRC, and so on and so forth. This is just the latest "evolution" (I use that word lightly) of the issue. People on the internet are shit heads, they've always been shit heads, and as their tools become more sophisticated, they're going to be bigger shit heads.
GatticusFinch
Member
And if you're Nintendo, a defense to child porn consumption is a terrible thing to hear out of one of your employees. Even if she put out some super nuanced analysis of the 4th Amendment and the fruit of the poison tree doctrine and argued this evidence should be suppressed, it's still a terrible thing to hear if you're Nintendo. You don't want to hear anything that could possibly be considered a defense of child porn out of your employees.
Look, I believe child porn viewers are more mental health issues than criminal ones, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't be punished for it because that's the only way to stamp out the demand, as you said. However, she can't be saying this stuff and expect her job to be safe. This is the type of stuff you can say when you're a tenured professor of sociology, not working for a children's entertainment company.
Orniletter
Banned
Thats absolutely not what she was getting at and irrelevant to her thesis.
GustyGardens
Banned
Let me share a bit of insight from my own experience. It might seem just to see and hear confirmation of Nintendo standing up and helping someone in their company being harassed, but really, that's mostly an internal issue. If anything was done, it was between Nintendo and Alison. Allow me to be frank, but the only reason that Nintendo issued a formal statement about a former employee was because the internet was on fire with speculation and controversy. They were trending on Twitter because of this whole thing last night. On top of that, there were a countless number of individuals writing to them in outrage about the subject. They couldn't not respond.
Nintendo sent out a formal statement last night, and while it's the truth, it's likely not the whole truth. The intimate details of her termination are between a company and their employee, not the entire world. Plenty of people have been fired from Nintendo, and countless more will be fired from Nintendo, and guess what? You're never going to get a public statement from the company about them.
Believe me, I understand the need to hear a company come out and publicly stand against groups like GG, but unless it affects their day to day, you're not going to see that. That doesn't mean that measures aren't being taken internally to ensure the safety of the women working there, but we're not going to hear about that. What happened to Alison was tragic, but Nintendo employs quite a few women, some of which were - and are - victims of harassment, but no one seems to care.
As a community, we should be smart enough not to pass the blame onto the company, but to stand together and show these publishers and developers that this is an issue that needs addressing. The internet likes to react, but no one likes to be pro-active when it comes down to solving a problem. Where are the hashtags and email campaigns on the days when no one is getting fired?
Publishers and developers aren't the only symptom to this problem, we all are. We let this happen by not saying something sooner. Why didn't you send an email to Ubisoft about Jade Raymond? Why aren't you sending emails to IGN about Alanah Pearce? They were victims, too.
Nintendo sent out a formal statement last night, and while it's the truth, it's likely not the whole truth. The intimate details of her termination are between a company and their employee, not the entire world. Plenty of people have been fired from Nintendo, and countless more will be fired from Nintendo, and guess what? You're never going to get a public statement from the company about them.
Believe me, I understand the need to hear a company come out and publicly stand against groups like GG, but unless it affects their day to day, you're not going to see that. That doesn't mean that measures aren't being taken internally to ensure the safety of the women working there, but we're not going to hear about that. What happened to Alison was tragic, but Nintendo employs quite a few women, some of which were - and are - victims of harassment, but no one seems to care.
As a community, we should be smart enough not to pass the blame onto the company, but to stand together and show these publishers and developers that this is an issue that needs addressing. The internet likes to react, but no one likes to be pro-active when it comes down to solving a problem. Where are the hashtags and email campaigns on the days when no one is getting fired?
Publishers and developers aren't the only symptom to this problem, we all are. We let this happen by not saying something sooner. Why didn't you send an email to Ubisoft about Jade Raymond? Why aren't you sending emails to IGN about Alanah Pearce? They were victims, too.
Saucycarpdog
Member
Question. Are these posts by her real or not? I keep seeing people link them.
SturokBGD
Member
Be more proactively inclusive. And I don't mean by just covering up cleavage and removing butt poses. The industry needs to foster an environment of inclusiveness.
I mentioned earlier but for example - the corporation I work for is constantly promoting events, both internally and externally, to shine a light on social issues that affect them and their customers. They throw their name behind support for all kinds of issues - LGBT struggles, mental health problems, woman's rights. This is standard for the industry I'm a part of.
It's not a solution, but it's better than doing nothing at all.
Just as a point of interest, you know who became more proactively inclusive in recent years to great success? NeoGAF. You know it's working because less desirable videogame communities can't stand it.
This is reactionary behaviour though. Let's hear from some corporate figureheads on how they're actually fixing their houses. Gamergate is not the problem, it's just an ugly symptom.
meltingparappa
Member
You're actually not! And in retrospect maybe I probably shouldn't have painted with too broad a brush stroke. Sorry. :I
Deserted Maniac Island
Member
I think Nintendo being a Japanese company still plays apart of them being proactive, because of the chain of corporate communication, and Nintendo HQ may not want NOA to make statements or be proactive. The industry is no in healthy state, with this particular issue, but when people give examples of companies taking a stand on political issues, I fail to see how this is the solution. Nintendo doesn't need to play politics, just address issues that are relevant to them and consumer base, but they have no responsibility to address issues beyond that.
Scientist Supreme!
Banned
In what way do they matter?
SneakersSO
Member
Except, she argues for that exactly in her thesis. I've read all 19 pages of it. She argues that we should decriminalize the possession of child pornography, even here in the US, as the Supreme Court cites that the possession/consumption of CP is no more destructive than consuming violent media, and since violent television is not banned in the US, why should CP.
Here is a quote from her thesis:
"I side with the camp that argues not only for less strict legislation against the simple possession of child pornography (the creation and dissemination of child pornography depicting real children is a whole other matter entirely), but also for an abatement of the pressure put on Japan for its "lax" and rarely enforced laws."
Question. Are these posts by her real or not? I keep seeing people link them.
Yes, they're real.
Question. Are these posts by her real or not? I keep seeing people link them.
They are real but they are taken completely out of context. They're the first thing that comes up in Google searches because Gamergate is manipulating SEO.
Question. Are these posts by her real or not? I keep seeing people link them.
Yes, those are real, and as someone in Gaf pointed out, it's completely out of context and nothing important.
Alright - forgive my ignorance as I'm catching up on this story, but did she, or did she not make pro-pedophile comments? I'm having a hard time finding the truth on this.
Edit:
Well, I can see Nintendo being none too happy about them.
Also, I didn't realize they were on twitter, I thought it was some sort of interview. Okay.
Like I implied earlier, I think it's quite clear that Nintendo's statement shouldn't be taken at face value. PR like this never should.
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Yup, it was me in the other thread. I delved into them here in these two posts -->
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=199682784&postcount=1572
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=199684070&postcount=1667
For an international relations thesis as a university student she wrote about how, in her opinion, it is wrong for Americans to impose laws governing the age of consent on Japan. She also argued that mental rehabilitation is a better way to treat pedophiles than punishment. She argued that the people making child porn are a bigger problem than the disturbed people who consume them.
There's some other stuff in there too. It's a long paper.
Obviously I don't agree with everything she said. But saying she's "pro-pedophilia" is pretty disingenous.
Yeah. And she has tweeted out stuff in the past 6 months that indicates that she hasn't moved on from those views too significantly.
Look - I think she has makes a good point, that it's a discussion worth having, and that she was brave to tackle it. I think she's pretty cool. But I'm aware enough to know that these opinions are currently entirely toxic to western culture and to a company that engages with kids.
I don't see why her supporters keep downplaying this stuff.
But guys, once you have to start delving into detail and context to defend her apparently pro-pedo stance (including this tweet) the argument is already lost from Nintendo's standpoint with the majority of their customers. It's not an acceptable position for them to be put in. And I agree with you both! But there's no room for this kind of discussion or nuance when selling games to kids.
Not 'pro-pedophile' per se, but pro child porn. It's a complex issue, but nobody that supports child porn in any form looks good.
Really? It's almost certainly the reason for her dismissal considering she used a pseudonym to protect her identity, and is probably keeping it private to protect her future job prospects.
moondoggerr
Banned
It's horrifying to me that arguing for changing the age of consent is somehow equivalent to being a pedophile now. We are through the looking glass.
It appears she did not make a statement explicitly supporting child pornography but she did make statements that could be construed as such. In addition, those statements were enough for a representative of the Wayne Foundation (an anti child exploitation group) to contact Nintendo.
Snkfanatic
Banned
Thanks for the response. Again I was just curious, hopefully the industry does wake up and do something.
She even said she was pro-boob slider recently.
Foldedpencil
Banned
Smoke is actually the classic example of a metonym, in which a signifier is taken to indicate a signified with which it is only conventionally associated. The statement "Where there is smoke, there is fire" is a logical fallacy, since smoke can occur without fire and fire can occur without smoke. The phrase itself demonstrates human tendency to simplify and conventionalize complicated relationships into rules of thumb and gut responses. This is the very premise of GG's attack on Ms. Rapp. By fanning up smoke around her, it was not difficult to make a large number of people assume that there was in fact a fire. They are an anti-intellectual movement that thrives on defeating well-reasoned, nuanced, and informed arguments through sensationalization and oversimplification.
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