“Gamergate” — if you’re not already familiar with the term — is an online campaign designed to harass women in the gaming industry with a barrage of abuse including death threats and rape threats. As you would expect, when a woman dares to call out the perpetrators, she is targeted for even more abuse in an attempt to silence her voice.
Zoë Quinn, who was the first target of the Gamergate movement, is not about to be silenced. In fact, Quinn has a new book out called Crash Override: How Gamergate (Nearly) Destroyed My Life, and How We Can Win the Fight Against Online Hate.
Despite my better instincts, I made the mistake of looking at the customer reviews on Amazon. Unsurprisingly, although the book had only been out for one day, it had somehow managed to earn a large number of one-star reviews that accuse the book and its author of being “full of lies.” Of course, the notion that any of these one-star reviewers is telling the truth when they claim to have actually read the 256 page book in a single day is laughable. If you need proof to back that up, Amazon has it. Here are all of the one-star reviews from customers who are “verified” as having actually purchased the book:
Oh wait—there are none. All of the people who claim to have HATED the book didn’t purchase it from Amazon.
It is possible that the those one-star reviewers just purchased the book elsewhere. As a point of comparison, here are the users who say they loved the book and gave it a five-star review:
Twelve of the five-star reviewers actually purchased the book on Amazon. You could not ask for a better comparison: At the time I grabbed these screenshots, Crash Override had exactly as many five-star reviews as it had one-star reviews.
The Gamergate mob, just like any misogynistic movement, has two main tactics. First, they want to intimidate women into staying silent. Second, they want to discredit any voices that speak out against them. In that regard, although the negative Amazon reviews are revolting, they are still better than the typical bile that women like Quinn usually have to face since they only seek to discredit Quinn as an authority by calling her a liar. What’s missing are the usual threats of violence, the crude sexual remarks, and the disgusting slurs that can be found on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, 4chan, and other forums.
This raises some interesting questions: Why do the trolls modify their behavior on Amazon and how can other platforms learn from this to cut back on online abuse?
Some of the difference in the behavior on Amazon verses the culture of other sites may be due to Amazon having better moderation of their content. However, another factor that changes user behavior is the actual structure of the platform. Certain design decisions allow for abuse while other designs discourage it. (This phenomena is what Don Norman called the affordances of a design.) For example, on Amazon you can lie about a book and try to discredit it... but your negative review is filed under a product description. On the other hand, Twitter allows you to directly fling insults “at” a person. If you’re a troll, you live for that sense of having a direct connection with your target.
Whether the online abuse is occurring because of bad management decision (like poor moderation) or because of design factors, one thing is constant: abuse flourishes on platforms where abuse is considered normal behavior.
Crash Override can be purchased here... just don’t read the reviews.