1/ A high-profile journalist writing a book about online radicalization told me recently that all his research kept pointing back to Gamergate, and he regretted not taking it more seriously.

I'd like you to imagine an alternate timeline where we took it seriously.

2/ We'd have stopped the massive disinformation juggernaut on Facebook before it wrecked American politics.

Women in tech were *BEGGING* Facebook to act on this, as we realized these tools destroying our reputations would be welded against others.

3/ The online radicalization pipeline of YouTube would have been acted on before it recruited an entire generation of angry young men to extremism.

Reddit would have moderated /theDonald before it could have become a disinformation disease vector.

4/ The foreign interference with elections through social media manipulation would never have happened, as we were trying to get Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to take this seriously in 2014.

The alt-right would have been stopped and Trump would not have won in 2016.

5/ Law enforcement would have prosecuted 8chan for the many felonies, including trafficking child pornograpy. The Christchurch massacre would never have happened.

Breitbart and their clones would not be allowed to cheat social metrics to fan the flames of bigotry and hate.

6/ Metaphorically, Gamergate was our moment to kill baby Hitler. Only, no one needed to die - you just needed law enforcement, Facebook, Reddit and Youtube to take the harassment of women seriously.

They did not. And now our entire political system is poisoned.