Female Gamers Speak Out Against BBC Unethically Misconstruing Interviews
Posted on February 21, 2016, 1:41 am By
BBC Three


Various gamers interviewed for the BBC Three’s short documentary about gaming are speaking up after an 11 minute piece was published featuring various journalists, live-streamers and YouTube personalities speaking out about the horrors of sexism in gaming. So why are they speaking up and speaking out after being featured in the mini-documentary? Well, it’s because some of them didn’t think that their interviews would be hacked up and cut down to push out a flamebait piece centered around gender politics.

Part of the big wave of media focus in the past couple of years has been that women are damsels in distress; that women are perpetually harassed and are oppressed by verbal, textual and implied threats by a global cabal of misogynists. BBC Three has continued this trend with a piece called “The Dark Side of Gaming – The Females Fighting Back”, which portrays women as victims in the gaming scene, unable to interact or socialize without being sexually harassed on a constant basis.

You can view the video below, as spotted by Kotaku in Action.

The Dark Side Of Gaming – The Females Fighting Back | EXCLUSIVE

We meet the gamers, developers and journalists who are also calling out sexism in the industry, fighting back against the trolls and making their voices heard. Feat. KSI, Ms5000Watts, Aoife Wilson, Yogscast Hannah, Not In The Kitchen Anymore, Julia Hardy, Alanah Pearce, SpaceKatGal and more…

The BBC Three published the video above shortly after doing an interview with John Bain, also known as TotalBiscuit, where Bain explains that harassment is something that happens to everyone and how he was harassed a great deal by those considered anti-#GamerGate, as they wished death upon him while he was undergoing chemo therapy for a serious spread of cancer.

Unfortunately Bain’s comments about the general nature of the internet and the presence of trolls was left on the cutting room floor, as was much of the commentary by the individuals interviewed in the piece above. In fact, Ms 5ooo Watts, one of the gamers featured in the video above, noted in the comment section of the video about “The Dark Side of Gaming” that none of her positive comments were featured in the video and that she didn’t sign up to be a gender politics warrior…

“I’m honestly disappointed with how this turned out. I was approached to speak about women in gaming as a whole not to only talk about the negative side. Even during the interview I was asked to give my positive experiences with being a gamer as they didn’t want this to be a one sided thing. None of my positive comments about my community and the gaming community as a whole were included at all. […]

 

“No where in there does it say that the program will be about “the dark side of gaming” I never signed up to be some kind of warrior against sexism online, I was asked to talk about the experiences of women in gaming, how things are changing and how games themselves are changing to reflect women in gaming now being more represented.”

A lot of the comments from those who watched the video took away from it that the BBC portrays women in gaming as damsels who are always faced with sexual threats and attacks just for being a woman and that it’s not possible to go online and play games without receiving rape or death threats.

Commenter Azure also shared thoughts about the issue not being just about women and that it’s something everyone online faces, writing…

“Just want to point out this issue is not just women exclusive, when it comes to this stuff this is not a sexist issue (your sex will be used as ammo against you because you let the trolls use it, react to it and they will just eat you alive). Also as many will state Wu is well known for inciting her own harassment even forgetting to switch out her main account for a dummy account when posting a bait post to start a harassment topic towards her which in one case was on her own forums on steam.”

Azure is referring to a case where Brianna Wu posted a Steam thread where many thought that Wu had forgotten to log out of the main account and ended up making the following thread to create a thread to use as an example of harassment, as reported by The Ralph Retort. A user on Storify claimed that Wu used the thread as a joke.

Hannah from the Yogscast also dropped in to comment about how she felt her comments were misconstrued based on the wider point she wanted to get across, writing…

“I pointed this out during my interview, and said online gaming companies need to step up and help support reporting and banning like DOTA 2/Valve did – looks like that didn’t get through, they just kept the bit where I said abuse happens to everyone”

0Apes0, the manager of the Heart of Gaming that was featured in the BBC piece above — which is an arcade and console gaming hangout in London, in the U.K. — also expressed displeasure at the turnout of the piece, writing…

“It’s only purpose is to make women feel like victims when we’re not. MEN and women experience a use everyday online, the bet thing to do is to ignore it and ban the stupid people on Twitter, live, psn and twitch. Not worth the worry.

 

“I said this but clearly this was deemed too logical to show and we must all remain victims. Not happy with the finish product only that it’s appeared on YouTube and not real TV.”

Flybydeath also had similar things to say, noting that online abuse isn’t just limited to one gender and painting women as mostly helpless victims doesn’t really help…

“People are assholes to EVERYONE online and in gaming. This isn’t a gendered issue and certainly isn’t a problem unique to gaming. Making it about gender assumes women are inferior and needing some sort of special protection because they aren’t mentally competent to handle mean jerks.”

It’s not just a few minority or the individuals interviewed in the piece that are speaking out. A large portion of the public have sided against the BBC Three’s piece, with an ample of amount of downvotes expressing displeasure at the click-rage piece.

Commenter Lord Belmont felt as if the BBC was butchering the facts to push an agenda, writing…

“I’ve been a gamer all my life, so I can easily spot bullshit when it comes to the media and gaming. When the media does this, it really destroys their credibility. I think that if they butcher the facts in this particular area that I know about, how horribly are they hacking up other subjects?”

It’s true. If the BBC has lied about this issue, what else have they been abrasively covering up in favor of pushing agenda-driven politics?

Gee Dubya also felt as if the BBC was pushing corrupt agendas, writing…

“BBC = corrupt, lying and unethical. As per usual they push their own political narrative and screw the truth. Cherry pick a few minor examples to suit the narrative they wish to push and ignore everything else.”

For context, it is true that women receive more sexually-themed harassment, but according to a Pew Research report from October, 2014 men receive slightly more general harassment than women in the online space. The BBC conveniently leaves this fact out.

Nevertheless, a few of those who were interviewed feel as if they weren’t properly represented and that what they actually said and intended to get across was completely left out in order to push a specific narrative.

The worst part about this is that all this piece is going to do is continue to create a gender divide and tension in the gaming space, especially given that potential female gamers are going to see the fear mongering pushed in the above video and feel as if risking rape and death threats aren’t worth it just to game online. The only thing the video does is exacerbate fear culture and push a further wedge between both genders.

Given that the BBC purposefully misconstrued some of the interviews for a piece that did not wholly represent the views of those they interviewed, many are writing in to the to have them either correct or pull the piece using the Ofcom consumer complaint form, which is used for holding the BBC accountable for accuracy in reporting.

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41 comments Categories: Features, Industry, Interesting Content, Media, Mobile, News, Nintendo, PlayStation, Videos, Xbox Tags: , ,

  • I do not like playing especially some other game programs in net, they sometimes are very violent

  • Muten

    Gamer Interactions

    – 90s lan party: Normal fun shit talk.
    – 2000s online: Very funny shit talk.
    – Current years: Cyberbullying and online hate speech

    Same english words, different times…

  • EroBotan

    when compared between left wing & right wing media, I get the impression that the left is exponentially has way much more bullshit & lies.

    • C G Saturation

      I wish people would stop trying to generalize everything into left and right. I don’t think it’s that simple. The world is a lot more complex than two sides, two colors, good/bad, etc. This is what I was telling a friend the other day, based on my understanding:

      Left believes people are smart enough to govern themselves. Except in reality, a lot of people aren’t.
      Right believes people are too stupid to handle things on their own, and need to be guided and governed. But not everyone is like that.

      Both sides have powerhungry egomaniacs, assholes, and people who think they are smarter than everyone else, but really aren’t.

      • EroBotan

        yeah i know, but if it will be crazy i have to explain everything evertime i make a comment

      • I get what you mean about having to explain the minutiae each time around. But CG is right about both sides being bad, right now we’re just dealing with the left’s terri-bad, unethical journalists.

        But prior to the left making up lies the right were doing the same thing, especially during the 1990s. They could still be doing the same thing but a lot of gamers have not bothered to pay attention to them.

      • scemar

        Overall the right was more toothless against games but I’d rationalize that as being the result of the times.
        The right attacked games in their old media while the left had more young people who infiltrated gaming’s media and attacked it from within.
        But given the chance surely either side would have taken the chance to destroy games.

      • Dgnfly

        Its kinda hard not to generalize considering Right wingers have a standard image made by the left for years. so a moment like this makes the Left have the same kinda ppl but the label still falls on the right wing not the leftist which won’t even debate anything cause it feels its always right with every argument.

        Basicly the individual that feels to understand both sides kinda gets made to pick a side by propaganda wars cause there is hardly any choice that is in between nowadays its all either left or right..

      • Phasmatis75

        The Left does not believe people are smart enough to government themselves, that’s the right and technically that’s Libertarianism which depending on your graph is upward direction opposite totalitarianism.

        Socialism, Communism, Marxism, all from the left and each with the express message of people can not govern themselves.

        Anything to far from center left or right is rather dangerous, to be honest.

    • scemar

      They are both more or less equally bad when you see their “mainstream, part of the establishment” side which is practically built to regurgitate that side’s misinformation.

      Both do tend to have small minorities that actually have some ethics and some sense of purpose towards common good.

      But who has that small minority that is actually good?
      The answer is :whoever is not in power.

      Whenever one is in power then the people who do not want to be part of the system move to the other side, that’s where the ethics and common sense for the sake of integrity will be.

      Right now that is with the right because the left has taken over.
      But back then before when the right had more influence they were often the ones on the wrong, using the very same tactics SJW use now.
      Appeal to circular logic, to emotion, silence the opposition, fabricate fake statistics to suppor tthem, etc.

      The truth is sides are just the convenient ways they package a message but neither side is truly good.
      Only good people are good.

    • Phasmatis75

      That’s because they do. Not that the right wing media outlets won’t twist events to suit their narrative, but theirs is more based in reality and it’s easier for them to selectively omit stories rather than straight up constantly lie like leftists.

  • C G Saturation

    Naive people trusting the BBC to report the facts. This is exactly as I’d expect from the BBC. They have a long record of pushing bullshit agenda and spinning lies, and yet people still think the BBC is a reputable news organization.

    • Completely agree.

      I am in the UK and I see the BBC pushing the SJW/feminist propaganda bullcrap virtually everyday. The channel BBC3 on Freeview, which I think is for the more ‘younger hipster’ types, has certain programmes on it which is filled to the brim with SJW/feminist propaganda. I would even go as far as to say that it’s slightly bordering on misandry. You know the ‘women are the victims and men are the perpatrators’ tone.

      Personally myself I do not trust any mainstream media and news outlets. The closest I get to ‘trusting’ a news source is Breitbart.

    • Ethan42

      Well, a Nazi propaganda leader (Joseph Goebbels) had said that if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually believe it. Even if the lie is backed up with poor proof.

      • C G Saturation

        Yeah, I know about that too. Creating “truth” by numbers.

      • Roy Phillips

        “The truth is a lie that’s never found out.” -The Osterman Weekend.

    • Why do we STILL bother to WASTE MONEY education women when all it results in is professional victimhood, entitlement mentality, and censorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na3yRyIBVZU

  • Horrorstorm

    If it wasn’t already clear, this now confirms that the BBC is a corrupt SJW organization.

    • I’m the UK, and I can confirm that this has been happening for the last decade. In the last 4-5 years or so its REALLY gotten out-of-hand because of the peak retardation of social media/networking.

    • Why do we STILL bother to WASTE MONEY education women when all it results in is professional victimhood, entitlement mentality, and censorship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na3yRyIBVZU

      Time to start telling the TRUTH!

  • Lyle Lash

    Are you going to reach out to the women in question for interviews?

    • I’m not exactly sure what for? I think only some of them had issues with the way they were portrayed… and I don’t really want to get involved with focusing on gender politics. It comes up as a proxy to a lot of the unethical journalism practiced by large outlets but I don’t want to get bogged down in that.

  • m0r1arty

    The best part is that Mister Singh has forever put himself on the record as someone who chose a narrative which only he proposes.

    Let’s see how that fares down the ages.

  • perfect_failure

    Remember when BBC3 was all about Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps and Family Guy?

    Those were the days….

  • Audie Bakerson

    I’m so glad Clarkson punched that lazy Irishman in the face. With Top Gear gone the BBC loses the high value export market AND the only thing a significant portion of license payers watched (which should lead to fewer people paying into the extortion scam, though the poms really try hard to make their country Airstrip One so who knows).

  • scemar

    This is great news to report!
    The media showing its true colors to everyone by doing what it does best, manipulating truth to turn it into a lie.

    And at the fear of sounding as an SJW myself I have to ay that what they’ve done is truly despicable, they’ve taken the opinions of those women and twisted it, they showed disregard for them when they mislead them about the interview and they show disregard for them with their final product.
    They reduced them to less than people, they turned them into tools for their agenda.
    But glad to see them speaking up against it. The have every right to be angry.

  • Phoboskibbity M’Goo

    seems like the SJW faction is trying to start up all this shit again, thinking GG has walked away… this indicates an obvious narrative war, that they wish to continue for some reason, this is more than just identity politics, its a power and cash grab to be able to dictate what should and should not be in the industry… using propaganda and sex negative Marxist feminist ideology to do it…

  • Arbitrary

    I want to seek out the person who made that “Not in the Kitchen Anymore”-decal and slap them in the face.

  • Gamer

    I hope this wakes more people up.

    It honestly really sucks. You hear about some news and go ‘omg…no wait, really? Crap, now I have to be an investigative journalist to find out the truth.”

    Propaganda is everywhere now.

    • You hear about some news and go ‘omg…no wait, really? Crap, now I have
      to be an investigative journalist to find out the truth.”

      If only more people did that, then the whole world would be a better place.

      Instead, the average drones of society completely eat up and swallow every dollop of faeces the mainstream media and news outlets shovels into their mouths and treats them like gospel.

      And that’s how people like Anita Sarkeesian is able to have so much influence. Just take advantage of the gullible and make loads of money from it whilst the video games get flushed down the toilet.

  • Brian

    I don’t game, but have two Daughters who do, they tell me they have never had many problems, no threats at least. My oldest told me she sees men getting more harassment then Women. My younger one loves gaming and wants to become a developer, she doesn’t want to make what she calls “Girly Games”. So it seems to me from at least what my Daughters have told me, the gamer community seems to be alright. I have been trolled online and I am sure in all online forums and social media, there are the trolls and the bad ones, it happens online, I just block and move on. Words don’t hurt me they never have, if these women make themselves victim they are implicitly saying they are not equal and need special protection, which is a set back for feminism.

    • I am sure in all online forums and social media, there are the trolls and the bad ones, it happens online, I just block and move on.

      This should really be the order of the day. Companies just need to ensure that the tools facilitate users to be empowered to block… and move on. Trolls are gonna troll. Setting up this massive media campaign to dogmaticize and demonize every male gamer out there as this potential rape/death threat sender who needs to white-knight to absolve himself of guilt is just ridiculous.

      if these women make themselves victim they are implicitly saying they are not equal and need special protection, which is a set back for feminism.

      That appears to be the takeaway of how the BBC framed the mini-doc. I can’t imagine any real feminists wanting to stand by this impression: that women are too weak on their own or lack the empowerment to protect themselves and thus need white-knights at every turn to be chivalrous for them and protect them from trolls. I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees how backwards this all looks.

    • if these women make themselves victim they are implicitly saying they
      are not equal and need special protection, which is a set back for
      feminism.

      I don’t see how that’s a setback for feminism.

      Aside from gaining the right the vote, feminism at the root has always been a bigoted supremacist movement and has always been about screwing men over and gaining special privileges. They will do whatever they can in order to gain people’s sympathy – which then of course leads to laws being changed/created to favour women and disadvantage men.

      Playing the victim card again and again helps their cause. They don’t give a fuck about equality and have never wanted equality. They want female supremacy.

      Ask the divorce/family/custody/crime law courts if you still think women have it that bad in the Western societies. You do know that women actually have MORE rights then men in the USA right?

      Feminism has achieved it’s goals in the Western society and should be obsolete in these areas.

      The fact that feminists refuse to call themselves egalitarians tells you all you need to know about them.

  • lucben999

    “women are perpetually harassed and are oppressed by verbal, textual and implied threats by a global cabal of misogynists.”

    “women [are] victims in the gaming scene, unable to interact or socialize without being sexually harassed on a constant basis.”

    “it’s not possible to go online and play games without receiving rape or death threats.”

    “it is true that women receive more sexually-themed harassment”

    “The worst part about this is that (…) risking rape and death threats aren’t worth it just to game online.”

    ~William Usher

    Should I apply for a job at the BBC?

    • Not only that but you could be editor of the year! You could out-BBC the BBC. Careful, though, you keep that up and their EiC might be checking comment sections to see how they can butcher their next mini-doc. Adding plagiarism to their arsenal doesn’t seem too far fetched.

  • RincewindtheMad

    >Direct links to the Arbys
    You guys can do better mate :^)

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