Friday, September 26, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/us/ferguson-police-chief-apology-michael-brown.html?_r=0

Ferguson Police Chief Offers Apology to Michael Brown’s Family
By JULIE BOSMAN
SEPT. 25, 2014

CHICAGO — The police chief of Ferguson, Mo., issued a public apology on Thursday, in the death of Michael Brown, telling the Brown family directly in a short video that he was sorry for their loss and the four hours that the body was left in the street.

“I want to say this to the Brown family. No one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you’re feeling,” the police chief, Thomas Jackson, said, wearing a polo shirt and standing in front of an American flag.

“I am truly sorry for the loss of your son. I’m also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street,” Chief Jackson said. “The time that it took involved very important work on the part of investigators who were trying to collect evidence and gain a true picture of what happened that day. But it was just too long, and I’m truly sorry for that.”

Mr. Brown, 18, was shot to death on Aug. 9 by Darren Wilson, a police officer, and his body was left in the street for about four hours, stirring outrage in the community. Officer Wilson has not been charged with a crime.

“Please know that the investigating officers meant to no disrespect to the Brown family, to the African-American community, or the people of Canfield,” Chief Jackson added. “They were simply trying to do their jobs.”

Chief Jackson allowed his officers to point guns at citizens peacefully protesting the treatment and death of Michael Brown. The best penance he can offer up at this point is his resignation. 

Speaking for nearly two and a half minutes, occasionally glancing at notes in his hand, Chief Jackson also extended an apology to African-Americans in Ferguson, who have accused the police department of racial profiling and mistreatment.

“I’m also aware of the pain and the feeling of mistrust felt in some of the African-American community toward the police department,” Chief Jackson said. “The city belongs to all of us and we’re all part of this community. It is clear that we have much work to do. As a community, a city and a nation, we have real problems to solve.”

Since Mr. Brown’s death, Ferguson has been roiled by protests and anger over the circumstances of the killing. A grand jury has been meeting since late August to decide whether to indict Officer Wilson. A decision is expected as soon as late October.
A lawyer for the Brown family, Anthony Gray, said in a text message that the apology “comes at a time when the trust and confidence in the chief has reached an irreversible low.”


“It is nearly impossible to measure any reach of his apology at this time,” Mr. Gray wrote. “Most observers, I believe, are locked into their opinions about the handling of the shooting of this unarmed teen. Dynamite, much less an apology, will do little, in my opinion, to move anyone off their opinions at this point. Despite this, we remain prayerful that peace, calm, and justice will prevail.”

A Ferguson committeewoman, Patricia Bynes, said the apology was a “good thing,” even coming seven weeks after Mr. Brown’s death.

“I’m not going to discount it at all,” Ms. Bynes said. “I think that what’s happening is some assessment of what took place. One thing that I think the community feels is that no one in Ferguson is learning anything. Now it seems like there’s been some reflection. And this is a good way to let the community know that they’ve done some things that are wrong.”




http://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-police-chief-marches-protesters-calling-his-resignation-fracas-ensues-273527

Ferguson Police Chief Marches With Protesters Calling for His Resignation; Fracas Ensues
By Taylor Wofford
Filed: 9/26/14

An attempt by the police chief in Ferguson, Missouri, to join a march Thursday that included protesters calling for his resignation dissolved into a confrontation, with several arrests made, according to local media reports.

But when he tried to join the protesters in a march, the attempt “backfired spectacularly,” NBC News reports.

The march lasted for about a minute before devolving into a shoving match. Police in riot gear waded into the fray, as footage obtained by Disclosure Newszine shows.

One officer “shoved some of the protesters, which is when the altercation broke out,” according to a protester who spoke to local TV station KMOV.

Sharpton called the apology “too little, too late” at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Thursday, according to NPR.

Between four to six people were arrested following the scuffle, KMOV estimated.


http://www.newsweek.com/ferguson-slapped-40-million-civil-rights-lawsuit-267452

Ferguson Slapped with $40 Million Civil Rights Lawsuit
By Taylor Wofford
Filed: 8/29/14 

A group of Missouri residents, including a clinical social worker, are suing the city and police department of Ferguson for $40 million for what they describe as “wanton and excessive force” by police during recent unrest after the shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer.

Six plaintiffs—Tracey White and her minor son, Dewayne Matthews; Damon Coleman; Theophilus Green; and Kerry White—all claim they were unjustly arrested between Aug. 11 and Aug. 13, according to court documents. Attorney Malik Shabazz said the suit could be broadened to include additional plaintiffs.

Tracey White, the social worker, was told she was being arrested “because she would not ‘shut up,’” she alleges. Her son was also arrested “for no reason at all,” she claimed.

Newsweek Magazine is Back In Print 

Matthews was shot with rubber bullets, had his face slammed into concrete and had his head pushed underwater “to the point that he felt he was going to be drowned,” he said. He was arrested on a charge of failure to disperse, although, he alleges, he had not been involved in any protests. 

Coleman and Green “were engaged in peaceful protests...regarding the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr.,” they said, when police in riot gear arrived and began firing tear gas at them. Coleman and Green were gassed and shot with rubber bullets, despite the fact that “Coleman and Green got on their knees and presented no threat,” they said. They were also arrested and charged with failure to disperse.

Kerry White was filming the protests in Ferguson when police officers took his camera, removed his memory card and threw it on the ground, he said. He was arrested and charged with failure to disperse, “even though no basis at all existed for that charge,” he said.

The suit lists as defendants the chiefs of police of Ferguson and St. Louis County, various Ferguson and St. Louis County police officers, the city of Ferguson and the county of St. Louis, court documents state.




“The police chief of Ferguson, Mo., issued a public apology on Thursday, in the death of Michael Brown, telling the Brown family directly in a short video that he was sorry for their loss and the four hours that the body was left in the street. 'I want to say this to the Brown family. No one who has not experienced the loss of a child can understand what you’re feeling,' the police chief, Thomas Jackson, said, wearing a polo shirt and standing in front of an American flag.... 'I’m also aware of the pain and the feeling of mistrust felt in some of the African-American community toward the police department,' Chief Jackson said. 'The city belongs to all of us and we’re all part of this community. It is clear that we have much work to do. As a community, a city and a nation, we have real problems to solve.'... A grand jury has been meeting since late August to decide whether to indict Officer Wilson. A decision is expected as soon as late October. A lawyer for the Brown family, Anthony Gray, said in a text message that the apology 'comes at a time when the trust and confidence in the chief has reached an irreversible low.'”

“Six plaintiffs—Tracey White and her minor son, Dewayne Matthews; Damon Coleman; Theophilus Green; and Kerry White—all claim they were unjustly arrested between Aug. 11 and Aug. 13, according to court documents. Attorney Malik Shabazz said the suit could be broadened to include additional plaintiffs.
Tracey White, the social worker, was told she was being arrested “because she would not ‘shut up,’ she alleges. Her son was also arrested 'for no reason at all,' she claimed.... Kerry White was filming the protests in Ferguson when police officers took his camera, removed his memory card and threw it on the ground, he said. He was arrested and charged with failure to disperse, 'even though no basis at all existed for that charge,' he said.”

Looks like there are a lot of hard heads in Ferguson, no? At any rate, the solution to their interracial problems is nowhere near at hand. It will be interesting to see how the lawsuit goes. Kerry White was arrested for filming the protests, though of course they won't charge him with that. They charged him with “failure to disperse.” I'll keep checking on the situation for more news.







http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/25shooters.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

F.B.I. Confirms a Sharp Rise in Mass Shootings Since 2000
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
SEPT. 24, 2014

WASHINGTON — A report released by the F.B.I. on Wednesday confirmed what many Americans had feared but law enforcement officials had never documented: Mass shootings have risen drastically in the past half-dozen years.

There were, on average, 16.4 such shootings a year from 2007 to 2013, compared with an average of 6.4 shootings annually from 2000 to 2006. In the past 13 years, 486 people have been killed in such shootings, with 366 of the deaths in the past seven years. In all, the study looked at 160 shootings since 2000. (Shootings tied to domestic violence and gangs were not included.)

Many of the sprees ended before the police arrived, the report said. In 44 of the 64 cases in which the F.B.I. was able to determine the length of the shooting, the gunfire lasted less than five minutes. Twenty-three shootings ended in less than two minutes. In 64 of the 160 total cases, the gunmen committed suicide.

The report was prompted by the spate of mass shootings in recent years, like those at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo.

Thirteen Years of Shootings

From December 2000 to 2013, 1,043 people in the United States were wounded or killed by “active shooters” attempting to kill people “in a confined and populated area.”

After the Sandy Hook massacre, in which 20 children were killed, President Obama announced that administration and law enforcement officials would study how the country could stop the shootings from occurring.

There was a widespread belief that the number of shootings had risen significantly, but the federal government had no uniform way of tracking them. As part of the administration’s efforts, the F.B.I., which keeps track of national crime statistics, was asked to determine whether the shootings had increased. The report was the first time that the federal government had determined the number of mass shootings over a significant period of time, according to the F.B.I.

Academics had previously tried to quantify mass shootings by using news media reports. In the new study, the F.B.I. relied on court documents, reports from all of its 56 field offices, and news media reports. The team of agents and analysts who worked on the study said they would use the numbers as a baseline in studying other shooting trends.

The report raised questions about the effect the mass shootings are having on law enforcement officers who respond to the grisly scenes. It also reinforced one of the recommendations from the administration’s study: that local officers need to be better trained and equipped to stop gunmen intent on slaughter.

In 21 of 45 shootings in which officers confronted the gunmen, nine officers were killed and 28 were wounded. Four officers were killed in ambushes, and in three cases, armed security guards who were not law enforcement officers were killed. In two other shootings, two unarmed security officers were killed and two were wounded.

Officers killed the gunmen at the scene in 21 of the cases. Nine gunmen who exchanged fire with the police committed suicide, and two surrendered.

Just two of the 160 shootings involved more than one gunman, and six of the killers were women. Two of the twelve shootings that occurred at colleges or universities were by women.

Roughly 45 percent of the shootings occurred in offices or stores, and about 25 percent at schools or universities. Other sites included military bases, government offices, homes, places of worship and medical facilities. In 24 of the 160 shootings, the gunmen attacked more than one location. Mass shootings occurred in all but 10 states.

The most deadly shooting occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007. In that shooting, 32 people were killed and 17 were wounded. The most injuries — 58 of them — resulted from the shooting at the Aurora, Colo., movie theater, where 12 people were killed.

F.B.I. analysts said that many of the gunmen had studied high-profile shootings, like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, before going on their own killing sprees.

The analysts said the gunmen had been attracted to the attention that mass killers received. They were often motivated by a sense that they had no other way to resolve the issues they faced other than violently lashing out, the analysts said.




“There were, on average, 16.4 such shootings a year from 2007 to 2013, compared with an average of 6.4 shootings annually from 2000 to 2006. In the past 13 years, 486 people have been killed in such shootings, with 366 of the deaths in the past seven years. In all, the study looked at 160 shootings since 2000. (Shootings tied to domestic violence and gangs were not included.) Many of the sprees ended before the police arrived, the report said. In 44 of the 64 cases in which the F.B.I. was able to determine the length of the shooting, the gunfire lasted less than five minutes. Twenty-three shootings ended in less than two minutes. In 64 of the 160 total cases, the gunmen committed suicide.... The report was the first time that the federal government had determined the number of mass shootings over a significant period of time, according to the F.B.I. Academics had previously tried to quantify mass shootings by using news media reports. In the new study, the F.B.I. relied on court documents, reports from all of its 56 field offices, and news media reports. The team of agents and analysts who worked on the study said they would use the numbers as a baseline in studying other shooting trends.... Just two of the 160 shootings involved more than one gunman, and six of the killers were women. Two of the twelve shootings that occurred at colleges or universities were by women..... F.B.I. analysts said that many of the gunmen had studied high-profile shootings, like the one at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, before going on their own killing sprees. The analysts said the gunmen had been attracted to the attention that mass killers received. They were often motivated by a sense that they had no other way to resolve the issues they faced other than violently lashing out, the analysts said.”

I had never noticed any of these cases in which women did the shooting. It is out of character for the average woman to go on a shooting spree. The number of shooters who then kill themselves on the site doesn't surprise me, though. They have just severed their last link with society and they know they can't get away from the police in most cases. Suicidal people usually are just depressed and want to die, but some, in their deep negativity, are also furious at someone else, such as their boss who just fired them. It always surprises me to see the number of people, men and women, who will kill all of their children first and then kill themselves. The FBI report, however, left out domestic violence. In so many of these cases there is no specific malice at anyone, just the desire to kill.

The FBI comment states that they often want attention, and in many cases they have personal problems and don't know how to resolve them. One thing that people need to be able to do is think through emotional issues and stop living in the past, rather than obsessing and then acting out in general. It would stop many fights if people would talk to each other. This increase in incidents from 2006 to the present makes me wonder if the troubled economy and joblessness is partly a cause for the problems. I think that is a cause of the rampant political rancor that is so prevalent now. Angry, poor and jobless men and women reach out to wild eyed political groups like the militia and the neo-Nazis, because they find other angry people there to commiserate with and look together for a mutual scapegoat like blacks, gays or Jews. I wonder how many of these spree shooters fall into the far right or left wing categories politically. I think that would be interesting for the FBI to look into. I have read large numbers of murder mysteries in my life because the psychology of killers interests me. True crime stories and forensic non-fiction are even more fascinating. This was a very good article, even if it is upsetting. Hopefully if we can improve our public health issue of so many mentally ill people walking around the streets. I clipped an article on that subject within the last month or so. Authorities are looking at the matter.






http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/navajos-to-get-554-million-to-settle-suit-against-us.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=article

Navajos to Get $554 Million to Settle Suit Against U.S.
By JULIE TURKEWITZSEPT. 24, 2014

BOULDER, Colo. — In the largest settlement obtained by an American Indian tribe from the federal government, the Navajo Nation will receive $554 million to end a lawsuit alleging that the government mismanaged the community’s assets for more than 50 years.

The settlement, which the Justice Department outlined on Wednesday, is the latest agreement made between the Obama administration and Indian tribes that say the government did not act in their best interests when managing their natural resources. The sum the Navajos will receive exceeds agreements with other tribes by more than $170 million; the arrangement will be formally announced Friday at the Navajo Nation headquarters in Window Rock, Ariz.

“This landmark resolution ends protracted and burdensome litigation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. “It will provide important resources to the Navajo Nation, and it fairly and honorably resolves a legal conflict.”

The federal government oversees 14 million acres of land held by the Navajo Nation, leasing out parcels for coal and oil extraction, timber harvesting, farming, housing and other purposes in a system that dates back to the 1800s. In 2006, the tribe filed a lawsuit that claimed that the government had failed to invest tribal resources in a way that would maximize profits. The mismanagement dated back to 1946, according to the suit, which sought $900 million in damages.

“When the government negotiated the contracts, they didn’t do a good job in getting a fair market value,” said Andrew Sandler, a lawyer who represents the Navajo Nation. “The government didn’t do a good job in monitoring the extraction to make sure the proper royalties were paid, and the government didn’t do a good job in investing the money.”

The money will be transferred to the tribe within two months, Mr. Sandler said. “Virtually every resource that’s in that part of the country was part of the case,” he said.

Ben Shelly, the president of the Navajo Nation, called the compensation “fair and just,” saying in a statement,  “After a long, hard-won process, I am pleased that we have finally come to a resolution on this matter.”

The Navajo Nation is the largest Indian tribe in the country, with more than 300,000 members spread over 27,000 square miles in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.

The agreement is part of the Obama administration’s effort to resolve breach-of-trust claims by Indian tribes. Including the recent settlement, the administration has negotiated $2.61 billion in agreements with 80 tribes that alleged mismanagement.

“This settlement is yet another example of the administration’s promise to strengthen the ties between the United States and the Navajo Nation,” Sam Hirsch, the acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement.

Dwight Witherspoon, a delegate in the tribe’s 24-member legislative body, the Navajo Nation Council, called the suspected mismanagement “an egregious breach of trust.” It is unclear how the tribe will use the money, he said, and the council will host a public hearing in October to solicit ideas. “Roads, water, housing, basic infrastructure,” he said. “We have so much need.”





“In the largest settlement obtained by an American Indian tribe from the federal government, the Navajo Nation will receive $554 million to end a lawsuit alleging that the government mismanaged the community’s assets for more than 50 years.... “This landmark resolution ends protracted and burdensome litigation,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement. “It will provide important resources to the Navajo Nation, and it fairly and honorably resolves a legal conflict.” The federal government oversees 14 million acres of land held by the Navajo Nation, leasing out parcels for coal and oil extraction, timber harvesting, farming, housing and other purposes in a system that dates back to the 1800s. In 2006, the tribe filed a lawsuit that claimed that the government had failed to invest tribal resources in a way that would maximize profits. The mismanagement dated back to 1946, according to the suit, which sought $900 million in damages. … The money will be transferred to the tribe within two months, Mr. Sandler said. “Virtually every resource that’s in that part of the country was part of the case,” he said. Ben Shelly, the president of the Navajo Nation, called the compensation “fair and just,” saying in a statement,  'After a long, hard-won process, I am pleased that we have finally come to a resolution on this matter.'... The agreement is part of the Obama administration’s effort to resolve breach-of-trust claims by Indian tribes. Including the recent settlement, the administration has negotiated $2.61 billion in agreements with 80 tribes that alleged mismanagement.

“'Roads, water, housing, basic infrastructure,' he said. 'We have so much need.'” I am on the telephone list of some half a dozen American Indian groups. I give them small amounts of money every now and then, so they keep calling me. According to them they need more than housing. They need food. $554 million is a good bit of money, but I'll bet their needs will outrun that amount. They are in so many ways a forgotten people, and have been treated in the past with as much ill will and contempt as the blacks have. I want to help, but I don't have much in my budget for charities. I'm glad to see the Obama administration rectifying this situation. Maybe the Indians will make more on their casinos or something.





#Gamergate Controversy Fuels Debate On Women And Video Games – NPR
by NATE ROTT
September 24, 2014

For the past several weeks, the video game industry has been embroiled in a heated, sometimes ugly, debate, under the hashtag #Gamergate.

It's a debate about a lot of things and it involves a lot of people, but at its heart, #Gamergate is about two key things: ethics in video game journalism, and the role and treatment of women in the video game industry — an industry that has long been dominated by men.

Many in the industry believe that those two things need to be talked about, as the video game industry moves more toward the mainstream than ever before. But it's the way that they're being talked about that has drawn international attention.

Online trolls have long attacked women in the video game industry. But during #Gamergate, it's gotten so bad that two women left their homes because they feared for their own safety, and the FBI has said that it will look into the harassment of game developers.

The first of those two women is Zoe Quinn. Quinn is an independent game developer and a community organizer who's been actively involved in the video game industry for most of her life, both as a consumer of video games and as a developer.

"I basically make weird little games that are about feelings, so not the traditional sort of game [that] people usually think of when you say video game," she says.

Quinn's most notable game is called Depression Quest, which simulates the experience of having depression through multiple-choice text.

For a while Quinn dated a programmer named Eron Gjoni. Gjoni sparked the #Gamergate debate when he wrote online that Quinn had cheated on him, one time with a journalist for the games website Kotaku. The implication was that she had done so to get better reviews for Depression Quest. Quinn and Kotaku have denied those claims, but what followed was #Gamergate.

The claims instigated a hugebacklash on Twitter and online forums like Reddit and 4chan. Some people used the allegations against Quinn as proof that there's corruption in video game journalism — that game developers and game journalists have grown too cozy. Others attacked Quinn based on her gender, calling her a "social justice warrior" — an insulting term for people who are deemed to be uninterested in games themselves, just in using those games as a platform to promote themselves or their ideals.

That's where things got ugly — horribly ugly.

Quinn was soon flooded with death threats and rape threats. Her personal information, even photos, were hacked and posted online, forcing her to leave her home.

"It's like the Internet is eager and waiting for a reason to be a total scumbag to you — at least if you're a woman and you're a loud, outspoken woman," she says.

Quinn says she's seen a lot of sexism in the video game industry, for as long as she's been involved.

"It's absolutely there. I don't think I've ever released a game without getting some sort of rape threat," she says. "And that includes stupid little stuff, like one time I made a game called Jeff Goldblum Staring Contest, which is exactly what it sounds like. And I still got people being like: Girls can't make games. Who made this for you?"

She's also seen that sexism and harassment lobbed at other women in the industry, like Anita Sarkeesian, who Quinn says has been basically living #Gamergate for two years.

Sarkeesian is a video game critic who looks at the way video games portray women, in an online blog called Feminist Frequency. In her video critiques, she takes clips of games and talks about the roles female characters often play. In one, she talks about how women are often relegated to the role of damsel in distress — a prize to be won or a goal to be achieved — using Princess Peach from the Super Mario series as an example. 

In other blogs, Sarkeesian talks about some of the darker, secondary roles women play.
"How sexualized female bodies often occupy a dual role as both sexual playthings and the perpetual victims of male violence," she says, in a video that cuts to a scene from the Assassin's Creed game series where a man asks about a prostitute.

Sarkeesian has been getting angry backlash for her critiques since she's been doing them, but during #Gamergate, that backlash got so bad that she tweeted she had left her home too, after calling the authorities.

"It can turn your stomach pretty quick," says Adam Saltsman, a small games developer based in Austin, Texas. Saltsman, his wife and many in the industry watched as the backlash spread from Sarkeesian and Quinn to other men and women in the industry who spoke up in their defense.

Andreas Zecher, an independent games designer in Germany, wrote in an email: "For a short moment that strategy of the harassers seemed to work. There was a brief, but unbearable silence. People were afraid to become the next target, if they would speak up and show solidarity."

To address that, Zecher wrote an open letter to the gaming community that read, in part:

"We believe that everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or disability has the right to play games, criticize games and make games without getting harassed or threatened. It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish."

The letter quickly gained about 2,500 signatures that included names from people at major studios like Rockstar North, Naughty Dog, Bungie and Ubisoft.

Many in the industry, including Saltsman, point to those signatures as proof that the people sending vicious attacks at Quinn and Sarkeesian weren't representative of the video game industry overall.

"The people doing the most harm are absolutely a vocal minority," Saltsman says.

United Kingdom-based games journalist Leigh Alexander agreed with that sentiment but was more leery of disregarding the attackers as just a vocal minority.

"The sexism stuff and the harassment and the gatekeeping is definitely a thing," she says. "I've had way too many experiences with people working in this field to not believe that it is a thing."

Alexander believes that the reason those things became so vitriolic in the past several weeks is the changing nature of the video game industry itself.

"What I think is going on is that there's a cultural spasm happening that nobody expected that accompanies this mainstreaming of video games and the diversification of video games," she says.

Alexander is referring to games like Candy Crush and Words With Friends — games that are now on smartphones and tablets, accessible to a far wider range of people than ever before.

Alexander thinks that the conventional audience — which she calls a "boys club" — is shaken up by that change.

"In part because they're used to being explicitly catered to as a precious special market demographic and they feel like they might get left behind," she says.




Troll (Internet)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as anewsgroup, forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response[3] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4]
This sense of the word troll and its associated verb trolling are associated with Internet discourse, but have been used more widely. Media attention in recent years has equated trolling with online harassment. For example, mass media has used troll to describe "a person who defaces Internet tribute sites with the aim of causing grief to families."[5

][6] The Internet dictionary NetLingo suggests there are four grades of trolling: playtime trolling, tactical trolling, strategic trolling, and domination trolling.[28 According to Tom Postmes, a professor of social and organisational psychology at the universities of Exeter, England, and Groningen, The Netherlands, and the author ofIndividuality and the Group, who has studied online behavior for 20 years, "Trolls aspire to violence, to the level of trouble they can cause in an environment. They want it to kick off. They want to promote antipathetic emotions of disgust and outrage, which morbidly gives them a sense of pleasure."[29] Psychological characteristics of trolls
Two studies published in 2013 and 2014 have found that people who are identified as trolls tend to have dark personality traits and show signs of sadism, antisocial behavior, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.[36][37] The 2013 study suggested that there are a number of similarities between anti-social and flame trolling activities[36] and the 2014 study suggested that the noxious personality characteristics known as the "dark triad of personality" should be investigated in the analysis of trolling, and concluded that trolling appears "to be an Internet manifestation of everyday sadism."[37] Their relevance is suggested by research linking these traits to bullying in both adolescents and adults.




“For the past several weeks, the video game industry has been embroiled in a heated, sometimes ugly, debate, under the hashtag #Gamergate. It's a debate about a lot of things and it involves a lot of people, but at its heart, #Gamergate is about two key things: ethics in video game journalism, and the role and treatment of women in the video game industry — an industry that has long been dominated by men. Many in the industry believe that those two things need to be talked about, as the video game industry moves more toward the mainstream than ever before. But it's the way that they're being talked about that has drawn international attention.... Online trolls have long attacked women in the video game industry. But during #Gamergate, it's gotten so bad that two women left their homes because they feared for their own safety, and the FBI has said that it will look into the harassment of game developers.... Quinn was soon flooded with death threats and rape threats. Her personal information, even photos, were hacked and posted online, forcing her to leave her home. 'It's like the Internet is eager and waiting for a reason to be a total scumbag to you — at least if you're a woman and you're a loud, outspoken woman,' she says. Quinn says she's seen a lot of sexism in the video game industry, for as long as she's been involved.... Sarkeesian is a video game critic who looks at the way video games portray women, in an online blog called Feminist Frequency. In her video critiques, she takes clips of games and talks about the roles female characters often play. … In other blogs, Sarkeesian talks about some of the darker, secondary roles women play. 'How sexualized female bodies often occupy a dual role as both sexual playthings and the perpetual victims of male violence,' she says...”

I personally couldn't be less interested in video games per se, but I am interested in the intense interaction of people on the net, now that video games and Facebook have become such a really huge focus of the public mind. This computer bullying has been taken so seriously that several teens have killed themselves over it. Sometimes I see a parent commenting that they don't want to “spy on their teen,” but they had better be looking to see what the kids have become involved with. And the number of teens and even older people who spend all their waking hours on the computer playing these dang games, which add nothing whatsoever to their intellectual development, is disturbing to me. I think it's definitely pathological, and it isn't helping the society at large at all.

Two women, in this article, have left their homes for fear that someone will actually come and rape or kill them over a game. Is this one of the Internet issues that needs some legislation written about it, to curb these “trolls” who are harassing people? They're already looking at laws concerning cyber bullying, I seem to remember. Maybe these games need to be regulated if they show violent actions against anyone, women, gays, blacks, etc. There is no doubt in my mind that they are genuinely harmful, especially to the mentally disturbed. I have no doubt that they have caused rapes and murders. This FBI article earlier is about a rise in spree shootings. I wonder if these games show such shootings.