Sexism and Hate Groups

"Hacking Tech Sexism in the Time of GamerGate" on Room for Debate reminded me of a similar incident involving sexism that occurred earlier this year. By early March, a vocal group of online commenters started protesting Nintendo's stance on American localization. They were upset about lackluster translations and the  removal of a few controversial game features that clash with American cultural values on sexualization.  They eventually made Nintendo employee Alison Rapp their scapegoat and started targeting her in online abuse and hackings. They dug up her history and tried to slander her name with an old college essay about Japan's views about sexuality and teens. The essay's already controversial content was used to call her a pedophile when she tried to defend Japan's culture of sexualization against western views. What followed was a series of death threats from people against censorship to people against child exploitation. Here's the kicker, Alison's job at Nintendo was in PR, not in localization or translation. In fact, she had absolutely no involvement in any localization changes whatsoever. The aftermath of this was that Alison was fired from Nintendo from unrelated causes, however, that did not stop her enemies from cheering victoriously. 

I bring this up to show how there is still sexism occurring in the tech industry a year and a half after the initial GamerGate controversy. Even in the face of many contradictions and flaws in logic, the campaign against her stood strong. Sexism was not the only hand at play here and we can thank mob mentality for that, but it is still very sad to see that the Internet as a whole has not progressed in a meaningful way. How do you guys see this? What do you think could have contributed to this mess? Do you agree or disagree that this is even about sexism?