By Nathalie Collida With research contributions from tarantino, James P. Persica, and Eric Barbour
Between what has become known as GamerGate and the Apple iCloud incident, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Internet has declared a full-on war on women’s privacy. Over 100 female celebrities have had their iCloud accounts hacked and personal, mostly nude photographs of themselves published on 4chan and Reddit. Video game developer Zoe Quinn endured a vituperative online harassment campaign from men’s rights advocates after her ex-boyfriend publicly accused her of infidelity – including, and, as it turned out, wrongly, of having had an affair with a journalist to ensure favorable coverage of her interactive fiction game, Depression Quest. In addition to being unfairly accused of corruption and called all kinds of names, both on the Internet and through anonymous phone calls, Quinn found her address revealed on Reddit together with illegally obtained nude photographs of herself.
Feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian recently went into hiding, after her latest series of videos analyzing how women are used as background decoration in video games resulted in death threats against her and her parents and the publication of their home addresses on twitter. Since launching her Tropes vs. Women project in 2012, Sarkeesian has become a popular target for misogynists. Attacks on the critic by men’s rights advocates and Internet trolls included graphic threats of rape as well as a crudely-made video game in which players scored points for punching Sarkeesian in the face. Following the latest Twitter onslaught, a slew of Angry Men on the Internet were predictably quick to suggest that she may have made up the death threats to garner sympathy and donations. Two men’s rights activists are now asking you to part
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