***UPDATE 2015-04-12***
I was just informed by the Block Bot admin that the Pope is NOT on the blockbot list. But Nero (Milo Yiannopoulos) is.
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It seems like the “Blockbot” war has been taken to the next level. As both blockbot and ggAutoblocker (Good Game Auto Blocker. created by Randi Harper aka “freebsdgirl”) has started to get more and more aggressive lately.
Even Christina H. Sommers (she´s an American author and former philosophy professor) has ended up on the Blockbot list (on level 2). And why is that?
Because of an exchange talk that Sommers had with Shanley (she´s a radical feminist from San Francisco) over twitter. (Shanley´s such a nice women, don´t you think?).
You don´t have to take my word on it though. Just checkout out this tweet by Sommers:
“Surprised to find that I was put on Block Bot list for this exchange with Shanley. #AreYouBlocked
http://i.imgur.com/aObd6KF.jpg?1″ – Christina H. Sommers
Funny enough, neither AlphaOmegaSin or Milo Yiannopoulos was to be found on the block bot list (no matter the level). However, i found some other famous internet personalities on level 1 and level 2 of the blockbot list.
Level 1 on the Block Bot´s list:
thunderf00t
mundanematt
shoe0nhead
Level 2:
theleopirate
amazingatheist
sargon_of_akkad
CHSommers
Level 3:
I couldn´t find any famous people on the level 3 block list. At least not any that i know of.
It´s even said that the Pope himself is on the blockbot list. I don´t know if that´s true or not. But i do know that it´s true that Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock) is on the block list.
That can also be said about Mark Kern (CEO MK Entertainment). Speaking about Kern, Mark tweeted out this about Randi Harper earlier today:
“Today would be a good day to report @freebsdgirl for API abuse. Cite my list as well as her new
#AreYouBlocked list. https://support.twitter.com/forms/platform” – Mark Kern, CEO MK Entertainment
I found that to be somewhat odd, because Randi Harper is the CEO and founder of “OAPI” (Online Abuse Prevention Initiative). And still, Harper plays some kind of internet bully/police/judge/superhero on Twitter. All at the very sametime!
I mean, just take a look at these pictures:
Don´t you think that it´s rather tragic and sad when the one´s who´s said to be the “good guys/girls“, turns out to be the bad ones? When the anti-bullies becomes bullies themselves? I think so at least.
But there seems to be no end to all of this really. Just take IGDA (International Game Developers Association) and Kate Edwards (Executive Director for IGDA) for example.
IGDA even added the GGautoblocker bot (and list) to their homepage (it´s even said that Raspberry Pi was using the ggautoblocker). And to make things even worse. Most of the IGDA and GDC people know each other.
So let´s say that you’re a indie dev (or whatever) and you end up on either the GG block bot list, or the blockbot list. Then there´s a slight chance that you might get frozen out from events, business opportunities, fundings and award possibilities.
In other words. It´s a real carer killer and an effective way to shut people up with the “wrong” opinions. It´s also a way to tell people WHICH people they should (and should not) hang with and talk with.
Kind of like Ernest.W Adams (game design consultant and the founder of IGDA) tweet to indie devs during the GDC 2015 event.
Where Adams warned devs about the consequences of supporting #GamerGate (see the picture about for the tweet by Adams).
And all of this has created a lot of fuss on social media today. There´s even a #AreYouBlocked tag now. In fact, i was just informed that League for Gamers has created an online block check list.
So you can actually check online if you´re blocked on either the ggAutoblocker or the theblockbot. On our case, we´re not on the blockbot list. But i did find our name on the ggAutoblocker list.
I don´t know what you guys/girls think about all of this. But i find this to be both disturbing and alarming. Because it´s all about silencing people up. IF you´re playing for the wrong team…
Robin “V-Act” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround
More by Robin Ek:
Tags: #GamerGate, #GamerGate blacklists, Block Bot blocklist, GGautoblocker, Randi Harper