anti GG rapists at it again

Tech journalist and anti-#GamerGate critic, Matt Hickey — who also happens to espouse feminist ideology — has been formally charged on three counts of rape by King County in Washington state, based on allegations from a total of five victims.

According to The Stranger, the charges that were levied against Hickey are not light. Rape in the second degree is stated as being sexual intercourse with an individual who is mentally or physically incapable of consenting under the circumstances of intercourse. They’re asking $200,000 for Hickey’s bail because they see him as a flight risk, and the prosecuting attorney has stated in the court documents that…

“The defendant has committed multiple rapes, going back as far as 2001, in which he has had sexual intercourse with women who were either too incapacitated by alcohol to know what is going on, to stop what is going on, to provide consent, or to express a lack of consent. The defendant has raped both acquaintances and women he has just met. His pattern is always the same. He provides alcohol to them, waits until they are drunk to the point they are having difficult knowing what is going on or remembering what is going on, and then has sex with them.”

“If the victim later confronts the defendant and accuses him of rape, he denies raping them and tells them they initiated it or were “into it” and that he would never rape a woman.”

According to a separate article on The Stranger published back on July 20th, 2016, Hickey had denied the accusations made by some of his victims, one of which claimed he had raped her multiple times while she was blacked out. She explained to The Stranger…

“I asked him if he had used condoms, and he said, ‘Yes, until I ran out.’ So I asked him how many times, and he said, ‘I had three condoms and then it was two or three times after that.’ So he raped me at least five times in one night while I was too drunk to stand up or walk home to my house, which was five blocks away,”

Hickey responded by saying…

“I don’t know what she’s talking about in regards to the multiple condoms and stuff—even back then in my 20s I sadly didn’t have that kind of stamina.”

Some of the women reported waking up after having blacked out, naked and feeling violated. One of Hickey’s alleged victims tried committing suicide after she discovered what he had done to her.

One of his victims told The Stranger…

“I was really ashamed and disgusted, and didn’t know how to deal with that.”

Almost all of the women have the same story about Hickey; and charges of second degree rape are being pushed forward by the prosecutor. Hickey has denied the claims of rape, however.

Originally, Hickey would lure women in under the prospect of being a pornographic star using a fake Facebook account of a woman named Deja Stwalley, who was based on a high-school crush he had. He claimed to run a porn recruitment agency. He would get them drunk and claim that in order to get into the business they would have to have sex with him. He would proceed to have sex with the women after he got them drunk enough, and in some cases, after they had passed out.

Matt Hickey used to write for the Stranger and was a contributor for Forbes. Hickey had attacked Microsoft for having gogo dancers at an after-party at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, and also was critical of #GamerGate, attacking the consumer revolt that has been aimed at improving ethics in journalism. In the piece published on Forbes on March 18th, 2016, he wrote critically of Microsoft and gaming industry, stating…

“[…] many women are turned off by the prevalent sexism and thus don’t game. There’s money to be made by not putting off would-be gamers, and most of the industry seems to have figured that out.”

Following Hickey’s attack on Microsoft and #GamerGate, the news surfaced in June that certain women had come forward to claim that Hickey had raped them. Hickey isn’t the only male feminist to have accusations of sexual assault disrupting his social justice activism, Devin Faraci, another journalist, also came under fire for alledgedly sexually assaulting a woman recently, forcing him to resign from his position as editor-in-chief at Birth.Movies.Death.

Samsung to Ditch Note Brand

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20161012000790

Speculations are high that Samsung Electronics may discard the Note brand, as the company’s brand reputation has suffered serious damage from the Galaxy Note 7 explosions and the consequent pullout.

“Samsung is recommended to drop the Note brand as consumers may still find it dangerous even when the new Note 8 comes out,” Kim Duk-jin, the vice chief of private-run Korea-Insight Institute, told The Korea Herald. 

The tech giant Tuesday decided to discontinue the phablets upon repeated incidents of it catching fire in different parts of the world. The suspension led the company Wednesday to revise its operating profit estimate for the third quarter down by 29.63 percent on-year to 5.2 trillion won ($ 4.6 billion). 

According to the institute, the perception of the Galaxy Note 7 has significantly changed over the past two months, even in Samsung’s home turf Korea. 

Negative perception of the phone rose to 53 percent in October from 34 percent in August when the phone was first rolled out. Positive perception has dropped to 42 percent from 62 percent during the same period, according to the institute, citing local solutions firm Konan Technology which analyzes social network services. 

Its brand reputation has also been hit hard globally as many airports issued notices banning passengers from carrying the Galaxy Note 7 onboard or in cargo, following dozens of reports of the fire-prone smartphones. 

However, Samsung is likely to retain the Galaxy brand because the cost would be too high to rebuild another premium brand like Galaxy, which still has a high profile and loyalty globally, according to experts. 

Lee Hae-hoon, a lawmaker of The Saenuri Party, said the halt in production of the Note 7 costs Samsung around 2.2 trillion won ($1.9 billion), adding, “Samsung appears to have given up the money to save the reputation of the Galaxy brand.” 

The Galaxy series was first unveiled in 2010 after the production of Omnia -- which was known for bugs and low performance -- was discontinued. 

At this point, the most critical move for Samsung is to find out the causes of the Note 7 explosions and restore trust in the market, experts said. 

“Samsung should first accurately find out what led to the explosions and honestly disclose them to consumers. If the design was the problem, thorough investigation should be carried out before launching the Galaxy S8,” said Lee Byung-tae, a professor at KAIST’s College of Business. 

Samsung’s new flagship smartphone Galaxy S8 is expected to be unveiled with drastic changes at the Mobile World Congress in February next year. The new phone is likely to adopt a bezel-less screen without a home button. 

But this significant physical change may also lead to technical faults, as a bezel-less screen is more vulnerable to external shock and consumes more battery, which may also cause heating problems, experts said. 

“As the hasty launch of the Galaxy Note 7 has been said to have contributed to the crisis this time, Samsung should not feel rushed to unveil new features for Galaxy S8,” an industry source said.