Twitch guy Ninja: gamers should not be anonymous

Hexprone

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Some striking quotes from Twitch streamer Ninja in a NYTimes profile:

Twitch streamer Ninja said:
Your information and data are precious and should remain private, but it sucks that there are kids who can say racist things and be incredibly aggressive and threatening to women online and have zero repercussions. It would be awesome if when someone said something threatening, you could be like, “Let me look up this dude’s gamer tag on this website” — if the law could do this, not a normal person — and then boom: “It’s Jimmy. He said this. Let’s call his parents.”

Does the Watch agree? Most of us are a little old to be caught out as Jimmy in this scenario, and would instead be cast as the embarrassed parents. But what if in fact the online trash-talker is not little Jimmy but little Jimmy's dad?

More quotes:

Twitch streamer Ninja said:
How does a white kid know he has white privilege if his parents never teach him or don’t talk about racism? If they’re gaming and their first interaction with racism is one of their friends saying the N-word and they have no idea what it is — what if it was on my stream? Is it my job to have this conversation with this kid?

Um sorry is this P&R fodder -- if so feel free to move it, but it's gaming-related so…?
 
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Well, I don't really have time to read twitch people's ideas or comments and have zero interest in what somebody who blabs on the internet thinks. Does "Ninja" have a degree in psychology, medicine, physics? No? Why would I care what this guy thinks is my very first thought. Jimmy doesn't even enter the picture till I've taken a long, hard look at "Ninja" first.

Also, "Ninja" should give full disclosure about who he is before posting his thoughts. After all, he's hiding behind a nickname too.

P.S. Nothing against your post at all though, @Hexprone;. I'm always going to look at the speaker first before I give any credence to their words.
 
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How does a white kid know he has white privilege if his parents never teach him or don’t talk about racism? If they’re gaming and their first interaction with racism is one of their friends saying the N-word and they have no idea what it is — what if it was on my stream? Is it my job to have this conversation with this kid?

Sounds racist to me! But is it my job to have a conversation with Ninja about this? After all, he clearly didn't come up with this stunning mental hypocrisy all by himself... he's clearly worried that he might have to employ someone to monitor his stream and is just trying to think of a workaround. You know, like most gamers do when they experience a broken game.

"I don't have the means or intelligence to control my audience without denting my bottom line, therefore can the publicly funded people please do my job for me and get rid of all my trolls for me, I'll frame my proposition in a way that makes it sound like it's a socially important issue using all the keywords that activate the moral outrage club so that it has a greater chance of succeeding".
 
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What's described in those quotes is clearly a moderation job, not a job for "the Law".

"Hello 911? Jimmy said the N-word, can you please send a SWAT team and CSI?" :roll:
 
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Well, I don't really have time to read twitch people's ideas or comments and have zero interest in what somebody who blabs on the internet thinks. Does "Ninja" have a degree in psychology, medicine, physics? No? Why would I care what this guy thinks is my very first thought. Jimmy doesn't even enter the picture till I've taken a long, hard look at "Ninja" first.

Also, "Ninja" should give full disclosure about who he is before posting his thoughts. After all, he's hiding behind a nickname too.

P.S. Nothing against your post at all though, @Hexprone;. I'm always going to look at the speaker first before I give any credence to their words.

He doesn't hide behind a nickname. He's famous and couldn't if he wanted too. His name is Richard Tyler blevins and if he sneezes it's probably posted somewhere.

As for the topic I wont get to far in to it because it would get too P&R related but I'll just say that it starts with parenting which is scary given the lack of parenting as a whole.
 
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In general, I'm suspicious of the impulse people have to sacrifice our privacy for whatever issue happens to vex them. I think that will get us to a bad place, if we're not very careful.

It would be very easy to do this in an opt-in way - people could have the option of creating a verified identity through a credit card or some-such, and then creators could have the option of only allowing participation of verified users. But, they won't do that, because they know it will hit their viewing figures. So, they want everybody to be monitored, so any transgressions can be looked up at their convenience.

No thanks.
 
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I will keep reminding myself and everyone that I know not to use Twitch.
Bravo best reply in this thread just add Facebook and Twitter also.:cool:
 
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He doesn't hide behind a nickname. He's famous and couldn't if he wanted too. His name is Richard Tyler blevins and if he sneezes it's probably posted somewhere.
Never heard of him.
 
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Never heard of him.

Well, I doubt everyone has.:)

He does have over 16 million followers on twitch though so I’d consider that famous. I have never watched one of his streams but I have still heard of him several times on more mainstream sites. I’ve even seen articles about him on ESPN’s website.
 
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Actually, I *did* start a topic like this in the P&R forum regarding a non-anonymous internet. I was thinking along the lines of death threats, slander, and catching hackers, though, not cleaning up online shooter chat.
 
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I'm a big fan of anonymity, in that I think its very important to keep it in a free society. There are too many people with thought police type mindsets and snitches who want to get everyone who disagrees with them in trouble, like those who try to get people fired for having opposing political views.

I think there is some famous philosopher who wrote about the importance of being anonymous and how it relates to free speech, but I am forgetting the details now.
 
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I'm two-sides, so to say. I think that the internet has become far too much of a "discussion weapon" these days. I could imagine people swatting others just because "someone is wrong on the internet". And once I liked here in a thread by me the tale of a pure troll swatting someone who was shot to death by that SWAT team.

On the one hand, not being anonymous forces people to be more conscious, on the other hand, not being anonymous makes one become a better target, so to say.

So, non-anonymity would imho rather become into something driven by fear : Fear to become a target.
This could make people become more conscious, though.

But … - is fear the right incentive ?
 
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