#maya kramer

Say you have a claim you want to make, or a matter which you'd like to investigate. For pro-GG people, this would be "corruption in VG journalism/ indie games." For anti-GG people, this would be "Gamergate boils down to simple misogyny."

You find evidence for this claim. Pro-GG: Eron Gjoni claims that one of the people Quinn cheated on him with was Maya Kramer, who slept with the guy who runs IGF. Furthermore, she does PR not only for Quinn, but for a bunch of media outlets who have been steadily not-reporting on this, then suddenly reporting that gamers are dead. Anti-GG: Somebody doxxed Quinn; somebody also doxxed Anita Sarkeesian; somebody doxxed Phil Fish; now 4-chan is harrassing all of them.

Now here comes the tricky part: You ascertain the veracity of your evidence. That is, you determine how likely it is that the evidence you have found is true. After all, any or all of Quinn, Gjoni, Sarkeesian or Fish could be lying in order to get the sympathy vote in this. Evidence is very easy to fake on the internet. So how do you do this? Well, it's like Occam's Razor. However that works. I don't know. Let's frame it as a series of questions: How much can you trust the people who gave you the evidence? What would it take for the evidence you have to be true? What would it take for the evidence you have to be false?

As it turns out (and as if that wasn't already obvious from everyone's various debunkings), there's not much evidence to go on from the anti-GG side of things other than the words of the people previously mentioned. And you only need to have read The ZoePost to find out how little you can trust Zoe Quinn. You only have to see even a little bit of a part of the internet which doesn't agree with you and reinforce your pre-existing beliefs all the time, to find out how little you can trust Anita Sarkeesian. Meanwhile, on the pro-GG side, the vast majority of what they're saying is backed up by evidence that viewers can corroborate for themselves. The pieces that can't (private chat logs etc.) are a little bit more suspect in the grand scheme of things, but often they only provide context to the other, harder pieces of evidence.

EXAMPLE: There are two things in Gamergate which have been asserted right now, but that I cannot verify. One: That Silverstring Media has some kind of direct input into what Kotaku and various other media outlets produce. Two: That Maya Kramer slept with Boyer, thus compromising the integrity of the IGF and soooo many other institutions within the gaming industry. The thing is, I can't prove the second one. I'm researching Silverstring to heaven and back as I'm typing this*, but there's no way I can prove that Maya Kramer was literally in bed with Brandon Boyer (I say "literally" for a reason). So, let's do the test: How much can I trust Eron Gjoni, the one who's making the accusation that Kramer was doing this? I don't know the guy personally. I don't know anything about what he did before he did The ZoePost, so I can only assess his trustworthiness based on that and everything that's happened afterwards. And... he seems pretty trustworthy! He hasn't been pushing an agenda by the publication of The ZoePost, except in so far as he revealed to the world what a horrible person she was. He's actually been very fair-minded about the whole ordeal too; he has shouted down his "supporters" at the same time as acknowledging his critics, where he felt it necessary. So: What would it take for the evidence I have to be true? Well, Zoe Quinn would need to be affiliated with Maya Kramer (independently verifiable). Zoe Quinn would need to have slept with Maya Kramer (unverifiable). In order to verify this, we could point towards, for example, any flirty behaviour or suggestions they have made towards each other (independently verifiable). Maya Kramer would need to be in contact with Brandon Boyer at least during the IGF nominations/judging period (independently verifiable). The system of the IGF would need to be built to allow this conflict of interest and terrible lapse in judgement to take place (independently verifiable; they're all but explicit about it when outlining the judging process on the IGF website). Maya Kramer would need to be directly linked with Kotaku and every other gaming news outlet that declared gamers dead (unverified as of yet). But What would it take for the evidence I have to be false? Zoe Quinn would have never slept with Maya Kramer (plausible) Brandon Boyer would never have had sex or any kind of improper relations with Kramer (plausible, except for the part where he, Kramer and a dev competing in the IGF were all at a party together (independently verifiable). That makes it implausible). Literally all of the private chat log evidence, and other evidence viewers couldn't critically analyze on their own, would have to be either staged or photoshopped (very implausible). Eron Gjoni would have to be lying (implausible). Kramer would have to not actually be pals with ANY of the entrants in the IGF (I'm going to say outright false). That the IGF judging system is so dependent on Boyer would be entirely co-incidental (implausible). That all the media outlets which it is claimed are influenced by Silverstring, tend to report unilaterally favourably on people who are verifiably a part of Silverstring (Anita Sarkeesian etc.), would have to be a coincidence (barely plausible). That several different games journalists published almost exactly the same article, within the same 6-hour period, about how gamers were dead in the wake of the Quinnspiracy, would have to be a co-incidence (very implausible).

And that is why, when I see all the evidence, I come firmly down on the side of the people who oppose Zoe Quinn, Maya Kramer, Brandon Boyer, Kotaku, Silverstring Media, and everything those people and entities stand for.

It's not nice. But it's honest.

And I implore you, whether you agree with me or not, to be intellectually honest with yourself.

-GCM.