Ghazi

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A community for progressive issues, social justice and LGBT+ causes in media, gaming, entertainment and tech.

Official replacement for Reddit's r/GamerGhazi

Content should be articles, video essays, podcasts about topics relevant to the forum. No memes, single images or tweets/toots/... please!

Community rules:

Be respectful and civil with each other. Don't be a jerk. There is a real human being on the other side of your screen. See also the Blahaj.Zone Community Rules

No bigotry of any kind allowed. Making racist, sexist, trans-/homo-/queerphobic, otherwise demeaning and hateful comments is not ok. Disabilities and mental illnesses are not to be used as insults and should not be part of your comment unless speaking of your own or absolutely relevant.

No gatekeeping and being rude to people who don't agree with you. Leave “gamer” stereotypes out of your comment (e.g. sexless, neck bearded, teenaged, basement-dwelling, etc). Don't compare people to animals, or otherwise deny their humanity. Even if you think someone is the worst human on the planet, do not wish death or harm upon them.

No "justice porn". Posts regarding legal action and similar is allowed, but celebrating someone being harmed is not.

Contrarianism for its own sake is unnecessary and not welcome.

No planning operations, no brigading, no doxxing or similar activities allowed.

Absolutely no defense of GamerGate and other right-wing harassment campaigns, no TERFs and transphobia, racism, dismissing of war crimes and praise of fascists. This includes “JAQing off”, intentionally asking leading questions while pretending to be a neutral party. This also applies to other forms of authoritarianism and authoritarian or criminal actions by liberal or leftist governments.

NSFW threads, such as ones discussing erotic art, pornography and sex work, must be tagged as such.

Moderators can take action even if none of the rules above are broken.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone

othello@lemmy.blahaj.zone

chewinchawingum@lemmy.blahaj.zone

YrRhyfelwr@lemmy.blahaj.zone

GhaziMods@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Solidarity with the Workers at Sweet Baby Inc (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 8 months ago by GhaziMods@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

0 comments fedilink

"History does not repeat itself but it often rhymes."

If you're not aware of what's going on Aftermath have an excellent write-up:
https://aftermath.site/sweet-baby-detected-conspiracy-theory-steam

Currently another right-wing harassment campaign is raging and it keeps escalating, drawing wider circles every day. At the heart is a small consultancy company, called Sweet Baby Inc. They are accused of "destroying games with diversity and inclusivity". It is - of course - conspiratorial nonsense, the company isn't even doing what the chuds accuse them of. The fake outrage is yet again a pretext to spout hate and revel in sexism, racism, homo- and transphobia.

If all of this feels familiar to those who have been around the last time, that's because it is: 2024's Gators have fully the moniker of "GamerGate 2.0"

In the tenth year since GamerGate, we're seeing a repeat of it in the harassment campaign against narrative design studio Sweet Baby Inc. The same forces that set off the initial one have changed their language and targets, but the reactionary current is back, only strengthened in the intervening years, and still enabled by a corporate class that cares more about profit margins than worker well being.

This campaign - like in 2014 - is a part of the larger right-wing attack against anything that their fascist ideology disapproves of. Like the last time, they choose a small group to punish and harass in order to send a wider message. This needs to be stopped. But what we get instead is yet another failure of management class: Valve and Discord who own the platforms where (currently) the majority of the harassment is organized, have yet to take any measure. All we can do at the moment is to support each other and oppose the fascists.

So to SBI and its workers, solidarity, always.

~ The Ghazi mod team

PPS: Free Palestine

School failed to report AI nudes of kids for months. Now parents are suing. (arstechnica.com)

submitted 4 hours ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

1 comments fedilink

Parents test if school leaders can be prosecuted over failure to report AI nudes.

Everything We Know About The Allegedly Shelved "Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur" Episode (animesuperhero.com)

submitted 2 days ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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A firestorm began brewing on social media late last night when members of the staff from Disney's Moon Girl And Devil Dinosaur alleged that..

Workers at Bethesda parent company strike over remote work policies (www.theverge.com)

submitted 4 days ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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The strike is scheduled to last for a single day.

Sean “Diddy” Combs: An Updated Timeline Of Charges, Allegations & Consequences The Rap Mogul Faces (deadline.com)

submitted 5 days ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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An updated list of Sean “Diddy” Combs’ charges, lawsuits and allegations against him, including sexual assault and sex trafficking.

“Your body, my choice:” Hate and harassment towards women spreads online (www.isdglobal.org)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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'Free Eren from Elon': Elon Musk grossly misinterprets the messages of 'Attack on Titan', 'Jujutsu Kaisen', and more in pro-MAGA post (www.themarysue.com)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Anime fans are shocked at how poorly Elon Musk represented 'Attack on Titan's Eren Yeager and other anime characters in an X post on election night.

To appease a Steam user's demands for straight representation, Webfishing added a 'Straight' title that costs 9,999 fish bucks (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Blazingtransfem98@discuss.online to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Why the Dragon Age: The Veilguard team designed its trans-inclusive storylines (www.polygon.com)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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It goes beyond the character creator, and ultimately is up to the player to craft

G/O Media Cuts Kotaku To The Bone As More Writers Are Laid Off (aftermath.site)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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'G/O Media’s management is once again punishing workers for its own bad decisions'

RTO mandate was attempt at thwarting Grindr workers unionizing: US labor board (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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80 out of 120 workers trying to unionize reportedly quit due to Grindr’s RTO mandate.

Metacritic responds after Dragon Age: The Veilguard review bombing (www.eurogamer.net)

submitted 1 week ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Review aggregation site Metacritic has spoken out in response to the ongoing review bombing of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

"Every Inch of My Imagination": Mangaka Makoto Yukimura on writing women and slavery in 'Vinland Saga' (www.animefeminist.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Anime Feminist also had the remarkable opportunity to interview Yukimura about Vinland Saga, writing female characters, portraying slavery and the role of Buddhist Philosophy in his work. Our interview with him, which was one of the great honors of my time in anime journalism, is below.

Twitch now requires a warning label for 'politics and sensitive social issues,' and it's going over exactly as well as you'd expect (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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The new policy follows weeks of back-and-forth complaints about Islamophobia and antisemitism on the platform.

And - of course - LGBT+ rights are now a "sensitive topic".

Former Disco Elysium Devs Embrace Worker/Player-Owned Structure To Bring ‘True Democracy’ To Game Development (aftermath.site)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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And because letting “random people steer a company Twitch Plays Pokémon-style” instead of venture capitalists is “fucking funny”

If anyone encounters a paywall: Archived version here

Fox News significantly boosts coverage of trans athletes in the weeks before the election (www.mediamatters.org)

submitted 2 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

1 comments fedilink

The network has aired at least 42 segments mentioning the topic in the last two weeks

FF14 director Yoshi-P says transphobic abuse sent to Wuk Lamat's English VA 'breaks my heart', pleads for players to 'refrain from personal attacks' (www.pcgamer.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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"It doesn't do anything except make the staff lose motivation."

Sony shuts down Concord developer Firewalk, permanently cancels game (www.polygon.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

3 comments fedilink

It’s official: Concord is never coming back

Mega Jynx Is Real And Still Kinda Racist (aftermath.site)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

3 comments fedilink

The recent Pokemon hack has provided tons of information about the series

Twitch’s changing guidelines could have a real economic impact on Vtubers (www.polygon.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

1 comments fedilink

Vtuber models are not cheap and the wait times can be months long

Google, Microsoft, and Perplexity promote scientific racism in AI search results (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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AI-powered search engines are surfacing deeply racist, debunked research.

Lawsuit: Chatbot that allegedly caused teen’s suicide is now more dangerous for kids (arstechnica.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

2 comments fedilink

Google-funded Character.AI added guardrails, but grieving mom wants a recall.

Korea's WEBTOON Entertainment In Midst of Labor Dispute (www.animenewsnetwork.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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WEBTOON Entertainment's labor union is requesting fair compensation after its CEO was awarded an eye-popping $30 million in cash and stock options.

Streamer’s apology for racist rant exposes the rot in streaming culture (www.theverge.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Streaming culture incentivizes this kind of hateful rhetoric.

The strange evolution of the sponsored stream (www.polygon.com)

submitted 4 weeks ago by squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/ghazi@lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Sponsored streams have had three distinct phases, or eras, since 2014.