Any investigative work done by the non-journalist audience, that has ramifications beyond...say...finding a glitch in a looter shooter, will be met with much harsher scrutiny and upturned noses by outlets. This is just one more negative side effect of GamerGate; any audience dogpiling or "bitch eating crackers" on something will be met with pushback.
Gamergate did a number on the video gaming public and its relation with the Video gaming media. I don't blame the media for distancing themselves and taking the stance that often the gaming public needs to take a breath and step back from the mob. We've got work to do and I don't mind the games media calling us out every now and then.
I'm not even against RPS take, as we all have spy devices in our pockets. Its the world. However, I'm not really interested in downplaying someone's concern/anger over this. I don't know what steps people take to secure their private information and how controlling it matters to them and I'm not going to finger wag and they them they're overacting. Also, many others have pointed out how Epics explanation of the feature doesn't match up with the data and local file information collected and perhaps sent back to Epic.
What frustrates me more about the recent RPS articles is that even when Steam offers a new feature, its because of Epic games. When Epic Games gives a dev a bag of money, they stop short of calling a spade a spade. I thought they were more of a actual investigative outlet, when it seems like now they're more a place for offering opinions on just games themselves and the gaming landscape in broad strokes and relaying press releases. In 2008 they were openly critical of major gaming companies when they gave us the PR spin and now Epic Games is getting the kid gloves treatment.