Memory-Insufficient-spec-alt

ty only reality can provide.First of all, ten years ago gaming sites still hadcomment sections. Yeah. Remember those? Ofcourse you don’t, because they were horrible andyou’ve blocked out all memory of them, or you’retoo young to remember—lucky duck. Thanks toGamerGate and Hammerfest, the games communitywas one of the first to completely do awaywith comments.Comment sections are a rarity,and you can thank the constant,omnipresent brutality ofyour fellow humans for ruiningthe dream of an internet whereeveryone’s opinions matter andare heard.In the days before and during GamerGate andHammerfest, however, many denizens of the internetwere more interested in protecting a person’sright to speak (even if “to speak” meant“to harass”) than they were a person’s right tobe protected from abuse. It’s strange to look backon this and remember that at the time, it wasframed as a debate about free speech. Nevertheless,that’s exactly how it went down. Thousandsupon thousands of the entitled, petulant massescame shrieking out of the woodwork, crying “censorship!”in the face of (often temporary) bans forviolent threats and vile statements.Honestly, despite the justifiable fears toward governmentintervention, everyone still hoped thatthe government would eventually sort out the socialand technological ills that plagued the internet—atthe very least by making online harassmenta realistically punishable crime. I don’t thinkanyone expected that in the wake of the 2014-15race riots, and bogged down by the protests and