Brianna Wu running for US Congress in 2018
Games developer and victim of hate campaign wants a place on technology subcommittee, plans to combat cyber-bullying and revenge porn
Reports have emerged that Brianna Wu, a games developer whose prominence sadly stems in part from the harassment she has received, has set her sights on a position in the US House of Representatives.
GamesBeat reports that the developer has confirmed she is very serious about her Congress ambitions, and has already her first campaign image via her Facebook page - although the campaign has yet to officially kick off as Wu is still gathering advisors.
Already on the team is sci-fi author and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow, with Wu planning to add "legal experts on cyber-bullying and revenge porn" soon. As and when she formally runs, Wu will step back from her role at her studio Giant Spacekat.
The campaign images bears the slogan: "She fought the Alt.Right and won. Now she's fighting for all of us. Fearless leadership for 2018."
"The reason I decided to run is simple: [President-elect Donald] Trump is terrifyingly now in the White House," she told GamesBeat. "I can't sit by making pleasant video game distractions for the next four years while the constitution is under assault. Hillary [Clinton] ran a brave marathon, and now it's time for women of my generation to pick up that baton and commit to public service.
"I've been called a lot of names over my career, but I've never been told I'm scared of a fight. You know just how passionate I am about women in tech. But I believe we've hit an asymptote with what activism in tech can accomplish. People are aware of the problem, but all that's getting done is window dressing. We don't need more catered women in tech lunches, we don't need speeches - we need structural bias against us to stop. And I think women in tech serving in the legislative branch is the next step forward."
Wu has said her main agenda will be "economic", hoping to keep more start-ups in her home state of Massachusetts and helping to revive the games industry in Boston that has been "devastated... with the loss of Irrational and others". She hopes to serve on the House's technology subcommittee to improve understanding of tech, invasions of privacy and more.
The developer was one of the more prominent victims amidst the wave of hate and harassment surrounding the games industry back in 2014. She was driven out of her home, with death threats prompting her to avoid major events such as PAX East. She described the hate campaign as a "literal war on women".