Did Anita Sarkeesian fabricate the death threats made against her on twitter?

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deskpro2k3 said:

it appears she is a lier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRSaLZidWI

To be fair, as Anita isn't a gamer it is more than likely she was fed that dancer killing sequence from Hitman rather than her knowing the actual context from playing the game. And that lies at the hart of why her commentary on video games is problematic. You want to comment on sexim in movies or TV or literature, you actually watch the whole of the movie ot TV show, or you read the book, and then you draw your conslusions and make your arguments. A non-gamer cannot possibly sociologically critique games in general, or even a game because they don't actually play through it and so their critique is always based on information they're fed, and then conclusions and arguments are drawn from that 2nd or 3rd hand information.

I think she raises some valid concerns, and she doesn't limit those concerns to video games. After all she critiques other forms of entertainment along the same lines, so video games are not being singled out as such. But her specific attention to video games is compromised because she does not access them in the same way she access TV and movies, so she has poor quality evidence. But some of her evidence is valid, IMO, albeit I disagree that there is any kind of sexual thrill to be had from almost any in game victimisation. One example is the multiple instances of broad daylight, on the streen prostitute knifing mini-missions in RDR. Not only are they unrealistic and ridiculous (ergo you can't claim "realism for that time in America"), they are repeated all over the place. It is a constant representation of women as victims. And if you don't step in to help, what's the consequence for the killer? Kill an "innocent" in the game, within sight of the law, and you get chased down or you have a bounty on your head, which you have to pay off. But an NPC murders a hooker out on the street with several witnesses, and nothing, mini-mission over. At least have the killer arrested, and some time later you come back and the killer is publicly hanged for murder. It's that casual disregard in the way some games deal with these forms of violence that I think needs to be changed. And if developers do change it will actually make for deeper and less repetative games. So sometimes casual disregard is actually a sign of laziness.

I'm not giving much attention to claims that the twitter threats are all made up for self-promotion. And I'm very interested to see who's jumping on those accusations and using them to have a go at her again. As the FBI is investigating I make 2 assumptions: 1) Anita Sarkeesian is intelligent enough not to fake death threats on Twitter and then lay a complaint to the FBI; 2) the FBI has the capability, and will use it, to get to the bottom of the threats, and if Anita is stupid enough to have faked her own death threats on Twitter she will be exposed and her career as a youtube critic will be over, or at least she will have no credibility with anyone who matters. So I suggest people wait and see what happens with the FBI investigation before potentially embarrassing themselves by both perpetuating a possibly false accusation, and further spewing forth invective about Anita Sarkeesian based on that possibly false accusation. When the facts are in, if they show Sarkeesian to have faked all the worst death threats and such, then you can spew forth all the invective you want.