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1436740cookie-checkThe Mary Sue, Calgary Expo Head To Court In January Over #GamerGate Fallout
Features
2016/12

The Mary Sue, Calgary Expo Head To Court In January Over #GamerGate Fallout

The Honey Badgers Brigade is a media outlet that gained tons of attention when they were kicked out of the Calgary Expo convention back in 2015 on the unsubstantiated grounds of harassment. The charge of harassment was due to them asking questions during a panel discussion at the Calgary Expo. Well, after filing a lawsuit against The Mary Sue and Calgary Expo, and after plenty of legal lingo has permeated the news media surrounding the event, they’re finally going to have their day in court.

Karen Straughan from Honey Badger Radio posted up a nine minute video explaining where they are with the lawsuit and gives a quick overview of why they’re taking The Mary Sue and Calgary Expo to court and how gamers can help. You can check out the video below, which was recently posted to Karen Straughan’s YouTube channel.

The court date for the lawsuit is set to take place on January 12th, 2017 next month. It will be located at the Alberta Provincial Court in Calgary, Canada, room 1508.

So some of you might be wondering why The Mary Sue is listed in the lawsuit if Calgary Expo staff was the one who kicked out the Honey Badgers and made the claim that they were there harassing people under the guise of a #GamerGate operation? Well, aftr Calgary Expo claimed that #GamerGate was a harassment campaign aimed at attacking female gamers/feminist, even though the FBI’s report indicates that there was no harassment campaign, The Mary Sue made fiery statements about the event, attributing wrongful actions to the Honey Badgers and used their platform to misconstrue what happened.

According to Straughan they see this as an opportunity to finally hold the media accountable, where she states…

“We want to put forward the best possible case we can. And we want to – for once, for a change – hold the media to account for publishing things that are not just biased, not just with spin, but downright untrue.”

Publishing untrue, damaging information about people actually did come back to bite the Rolling Stone in the butt, particularly with the fake UVA rape story.

As for The Mary Sue… the article was originally published back in April of 2015, and the comment section was closed. However, to their credit, The Mary Sue did update the story multiple times, including linking to the Honey Badgers’ audio capture of the event, which you can listen to below.

Opposite of The Mary Sue, after listening to the audio The Daily Caller proclaimed…

“[…] that even by the most liberal interpretation of the word, no harassment took place. That claim is risible.”

Due to the Honey Badgers keeping evidence on hand and having witnesses who could provide testimony about what actually happened, The Mary Sue and Calgary Expo have tried procrastinating any trial dates to avoid facing the facts. However, after a lot of expenses and a lot of hard work on behalf of the Honey Badgers, they managed to nail down a date in court.

They do have a hurdle to overcome in the form of expenses… very steep expenses. They’re attempting to crowdsource funds to help get all of the witnesses from across the country into Calgary so they can offer their testimony in court, and they’re hoping to cover all the travel expenses.

Right now they’re seeking to get $15,400 in the pot to fly out all of the witnesses in time to hit the court date, as well as pay for accommodations and legal fees. They’ve raised $3,780 as of the writing of this article and have 13 days left to accrue the necessary funds to hit their target. If you want to contribute to the cause, you can do so by visiting the Feed the Badger donation page.

Finally having the media face their day in court for misrepresentation could pave the way for holding more media outlets accountable for misleading readers and attempting to distort the facts to falsely portray a situation to fit their ideology.

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