Actually, I haven't seen screencaps of the Cracked chat, wasn't it dumped on pastebin as raw text?
No. It was originally posted on /v/ before it made the rounds. And while I can't confirm its authenticity, I
do believe it was posted by the mod of /d/ and that what he said about m00t cleaning house and turning 4chan into an echo chamber is true. That's why it's a part of a preponderance of evidence.
What I can't understand is anyone buying that fake as shit chat log, specifically, because it's just silly as hell. Try saying it out loud: Cracked tried to blackmail 4chan by threatening to hire feminist hackers to bring down the site and writing articles to expose it as bad, because no one knows it's bad. 4chan had a stellar reputation across the globe until a dick joke site wrote an article about it and moot completely lost his shit. Please say that out loud, or have one of those text to voice programs read it.
To tell you the truth Mxy, with Cracked being a magnet for all the narcissistic hipster retards that are housed within it, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to learn that they actually believed that would work. I hold them in the same esteem that I do MSNBC or CNN, both of which thought they could destroy the NRA on the mere premise that the organization promotes selling firearms even though they've been openly doing that for decades.
Like ED said, the veracity of the Cracked claim could be reasoned either way. In which case, what bugs me about the whole 'intuitively fake' kneejerk is that it suggests a version or permutation of the chat that isn't obviously fake--the concept of which leaves you to prove, abstractly, the intuitive legitimacy of the theoretical chat that you would find more convincing.
You said no one would be stupid enough to say the chat is fake: I clearly said "it's fake", and as a bonus provided quotes of Gamergate supporters and other 4chan-related types saying it's fake. I'm not proving the chat wrong as part of a culture war, I'm proving your specific post wrong because it's funny. Pretty simple. Don't try to read other arguments into that.
I didn't say anyone was stupid to claim the chat was fake. I was pointing out that they (and you) were making a rush to judgement. I paralleled its relevance with all of the incriminating GG convos captured on imgur or archive.today and pointed out that while the captured BBS/Twitter/Reddit chats
could be just as subject to editing as the skype chat, it's far less likely (to the extent that it would be stupid to claim they were edited). One source of anecdote is more verifiable than the other, but because both still occupy the same contextual realm of evidential ambiguity, it would be more prudent not to discount either.
Do I think Cracked would have any socially effectual influence over 4chan? No. Do I think the ilk at Cracked has an ideological oar to stick into the discussion through their articles as well as the level of self-absorption required to believe said articles would change anything (especially if they're in tandem with Gawker, Polygon, Kotaku, etc.)? Yes (case in point: Cracked hosting Zoe Quinn's "5 Things I learned as the Most Hated Person on the Internet" screed). What's more, do I believe that m00t is so embedded in the SJW sub-culture that he'd feel intimidated by its vastly-networked community of blackballing thugs (to say nothing of his girlfriend)? Yes.
