South By Southwest Under Pressure To Reinstate 'GamerGate' Panels

South by Southwest is getting blowback for its decision to cancel two panels about sexism and harassment in the gaming community, after the conference said it received “threats of on-site violence related to this programming.”

Several major partners have threatened not to participate in the event at all if the decision isn’t reversed.

Members of the “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games” panel received emails Monday notifying them that SXSW had cancelled the discussions after receiving threats, according to a press release.

The panels included women involved in the “GamerGate” controversy, where several female members of the gaming community in 2014 were harassed and threatened for speaking out against sexism in the industry.

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“We had hoped that hosting these two discussions in March 2016 in Austin would lead to a valuable exchange of ideas on this very important topic,” SXSW Interactive Director Hugh Forrest said in the release. “However, in the seven days since announcing these two sessions, SXSW has received numerous threats of on-site violence related to this programming.”

The festival’s critics say the decision to cancel the panels empowers harassers the panel was supposed to address.

Most notably, BuzzFeed, a partner organization of the festival, threatened to completely pull out of the events if SXSW doesn’t reverse its decision.

“BuzzFeed has participated deeply in SXSW for years, and our staffers are scheduled to speak on or moderate a half-dozen panels at SXSW 2016,” the BuzzFeed staff in an email to SXSW. “We will feel compelled to withdraw them if the conference can’t find a way to do what those other targets of harassment do every day — to carry on important conversations in the face of harassment. We hope you can support the principle of free speech and engage a vital issue facing us and other constituents on the event.”

Buzzfeed said that several of its own employees were slated to speak at the panels and offered to assist SXSW in creating extra security measures to address the ongoing threats.

Vox Media said it is “reevaluating its participation in the SXSW conference.”

“By approving the panels in question, SXSW assumed responsibility for related controversies and security threats,” Vox said in a statement. By canceling the panels, they have cut off an opportunity to discuss a real and urgent problem in media and technology today.”

U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to the director of SXSW, asking for him to reconsider his decision.

SXSW has yet to respond.

We will update this story as we receive more information.