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Wiki: List Of -gate Scandals And Controversies
This is a list of or controversies whose names include a -gate suffix, by analogy with the Watergate scandal, as well as other incidents to which the suffix has (often facetiously) been applied. This list also includes controversies that are widely referred to with a -gate suffix, but may be referred to by another more common name (such as the New Orleans Saints bounty scandal, known as "Bountygate"). Use of the -gate suffix has spread beyond American English to many other countries and languages.
Etymology, usage, and history of -gate
The suffix has become productive as a libfix and is used to embellish a noun or name to suggest the existence of a far-reaching scandal, particularly in politics and government. As a CBC News column noted in 2001, the term may "suggest unethical behaviour and a cover-up".
Such usage has been criticized by some commentators as clichéd and misleading. James Stanyer comments that "revelations are given the 'gate' suffix to add a thin veil of credibility, following 'Watergate', but most bear no resemblance to the painstaking investigation of that particular piece of presidential corruption". Stanyer links the widespread use of -gate to what the sociologist John Thompson calls "scandal syndrome":
The adoption of -gate to suggest the existence of a scandal was promoted by William Safire, the conservative New York Times columnist and former Nixon administration speechwriter. As early as September 1974, he wrote of "Vietgate", a proposed Nixon pardon and Vietnam War . Subsequently, he coined numerous -gate terms, including Billygate, Briefingate, Contragate, Deavergate, Debategate, Doublebillingsgate (of which he later said "My best -gate was the encapsulation of a minor ... scandal as doublebillingsgate"), Frankiegate, Franklingate, Genschergate, Housegate, Iraqgate, Koreagate, Lancegate, Maggiegate, Nannygate, Raidergate, Scalpgate, Travelgate, Troopergate, and Whitewatergate. The New York magazine suggested that his aim in doing so was "rehabilitating Nixon by relentlessly tarring his successors with the same rhetorical brush – diminished guilt by association". Safire himself later said to author Eric Alterman that he "may have been seeking to minimize the relative importance of the crimes committed by his former boss with this silliness".
The usage has spread into languages other than English; examples of -gate being used to refer to local political scandals have been reported from Argentina, Germany, South Korea, Hungary, Greece and the former Yugoslavia. He cites:
The term is also used in Mandarin Chinese with the suffix -mén (l=door, gate).
Some commentators have characterized this use of the -gate suffix as a snowclone. But Geoffrey Pullum, the coiner of the term snowclone, considers that it is only a "lexical word-formation analog". Martha Brockenbrough, the founder of The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, said that no one should aspire to write with cliches and that although they do help to get a lot of complicated things across in few words, they are not a good way to get people to keep reading what you're writing.
Similar phenomena
Like the -gate suffix, the Italian -opoli suffix emerged in Italian media from investigations in the 1990s that uncovered a system known as Tangentopoli. The term derives from tangente, which means 'kickback' (e.g., bribery given for public works contracts), and Polis]], meaning 'city'. Examples of snowclone-like use of -opoli include Bancopoli (a financial scandal) and Calciopoli (a 2006 Italian football scandal).
Scandals
Arts and entertainment
| Doritogate | 2012 | Two initially unconnected events involving video game journalists Geoff Keighley and Lauren Wainwright are questioned in an article by Robert Florence, triggering a chain of events;
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| Driv3rgate | 2004 | Video game magazines PSM2 and Xbox World gave favorable reviews of Driver 3, a game which received an otherwise lukewarm critical response. Some gamers and journalists accused Atari of having given early access to the game on the condition it would be given favorable ratings. | United Kingdom | |
| Elsagate | 2017–Present | A scandal and phenomenon referring to thousands of inappropriate YouTube videos deceptively targeted towards young children, often referred to as "content farms". These videos, in order to attract young viewers, mostly feature characters from famous cartoons and video games, such as Minecraft, Roblox, Five Nights at Freddy's, Poppy Playtime, Friday Night Funkin', and The Amazing Digital Circus. | Worldwide | |
| Envelopegate | 2017 | At the 89th Academy Awards, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway came onstage to present the award for Best Picture, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Bonnie and Clyde. Beatty opened the envelope, and Dunaway announced La La Land as the winner. Around two minutes later, when the La La Land producers were giving acceptance speeches, producer Jordan Horowitz declared that the announcement was a mistake, and announced Moonlight as the actual winner of the Best Picture. Beatty later came onstage to apologize for the mistake, stating that the envelope he had initially been given named Emma Stone for her actress performance in La La Land, after which the producers of Moonlight came on stage. The incident drew comparisons to the Miss Universe 2015 event, where Steve Harvey mistakenly announced Ariadna Gutiérrez of Colombia as the winner, when the actual winner was Pia Wurtzbach of the Philippines. | United States | Oscars 2017: Truth behind 'Envelopegate' emerges. BBC. 28 February 2017. |
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| Gamergate 2.0 | 2024 | A campaign against narrative design company Sweet Baby Inc. for its perceived "woke agenda" over support for DEI was referred to as "Gamergate 2.0". A Steam group with 100,000 members highlighted video games that Sweet Baby had been involved with, and discouraged people from playing them. A Kotaku reporter was subjected to online harassment after infiltrating and reporting on the group. | United States | |
| Gerstmanngate | 2007 | Refers to the controversy following the November 2007 dismissal of Jeff Gerstmann from his position as editorial director of GameSpot. Gerstmann had awarded a Fair rating to the game at a time when the game was being heavily advertised on GameSpot, which led to accusations from many games journalists of a lack of editorial integrity on the part of GameSpot, who denied that the review had been a part of the reasoning behind the dismissal. However, a subsequent interview with Gerstmann in 2012 countered this statement, with Gerstmann claiming that, although there was more to his firing than any single review, it would not be untrue to say that the Kane & Lynch episode contributed to it. | United States | |
| Mandragate | 2015 | Massive corruption that involves Indonesian senior comedian, Mandra, and state-owned television network TVRI over programming procurement on the network. | Indonesia | |
| Wayne Glowka, 2004 Words of the Year Nominations (PDF), American Dialect Society Jackson 'Nipplegate' illustrates the danger of chilling free speech, Julie Hilden, Findlaw columnist, CNN.com, February 20, 2004 | ||||
| Pandoragate | 2023 | A scandal among Polish which started when Sylwester Wardęga and Konopskyy revealed videos proving that many popular Polish influencers were acting abusive toward their viewers. One of them, Stuu, wrote lewd messages to a 14-year-old girl. The case was loudly commented on by Polish media and politicians, including Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro. | Poland | |
| Papoosegate | 2018 | British television host Piers Morgan retweeted and mocked (commenting, Oh 007.. not you as well?!!! and including the hashtag "#emasculatedBond") a photo of English actor Daniel Craig holding his newborn daughter in a papoose while walking down the street. After facing backlash for the tweet (notably from celebrities such as American actor Chris Evans), Morgan attempted to explain it by claiming that "James Bond would never use a papoose to carry his babies". | United Kingdom | |
| Penisgate | 2015 | While performing at a concert in Stockholm, singer Lenny Kravitz squatted and his pants split open revealing his penis to concertgoers. | Sweden | |
| Queuegate | 2022 | Controversy surrounding the accusation that This Morning presenters Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby jumped the queue to walk past the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II during her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. Schofield and Willoughby's actions were compared to that of other celebrities, such as David Beckham and fellow television presenters such as Susanna Reid, who had queued several hours with the public rather than skip the queue at Westminster Hall. The scandal prompted the creation of a Change.org petition calling for the presenters to be dismissed from the programme, which reached 75,000 signatures within a week. | United Kingdom | |
| On March 27, 2022, during the live television broadcast of the 94th Academy Awards, actor Will Smith walked onstage and slapped comedian Chris Rock across the face during Rock's monologue before presenting the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film. Just before, Rock had made a comment about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, and her shaved head, which Pinkett Smith has said was due to her alopecia areata. Smith then walked onto the stage and slapped Rock before returning to his seat, where Smith repeatedly shouted profanities at Rock, on live television. | United States | Boxing play-by-play: Slapgate, The New Yorker, April 11, 2022 Slapgate Is Chris Rock's Defining Moment, Variety, March 29, 2022 Sources: Academy Members Furious About Will Smith, Chris Rock Slapgate, Rolling Stone, March 28, 2022 | ||
| Snakegate | 2016 | A controversy involving Taylor Swift, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian, stemming from a lyric in Kanye West's song "Famous." The term was popularized by Swifties to describe the criticism she faced and the subsequent portrayal of her as a "snake" by some online, due to the perceived deception surrounding the lyric. | United States | |
Journalism and academics
Politics
| Abu Ghraibgate | 2004 | The torture and abuse of inmates at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. | |
| Agrokomerc | 1987 | The Agrokomerc in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia exposes the extent of the economic and political corruption and decay in Communist Yugoslavia as its economy collapsed, contributing to its disintegration in 1991. | |
Two related cases that leads to Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid's impeachment:
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| Clonegate | 2020 | Russian president Vladimir Putin has been accused of having Human cloning, proponents say that his extremely different appearance is a giveaway, however this hoax has been disproven, as this appearance change is easily explained with Botox use and . | Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: |
| Cryptogate | 2025 | Controversy following Argentine President Javier Milei's promotion of the cryptocurrency $LIBRA on social media which subsequently suffered a severe price crash. | |
| Campbell, Meagan, et al. (May 21, 2016). "An oral history of Elbowgate", Maclean's. | |||
| During her tenure as United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton drew controversy by using a private email server for official public communications rather than using official State Department email accounts maintained on federal servers. Clinton's server was found to hold over 100 emails containing classified information, including 65 emails deemed "Secret" and 22 deemed "Top Secret". An additional 2,093 emails not marked classified were retroactively designated confidential by the State Department.
The controversy was a major point of discussion and contention during the 2016 presidential election, in which Clinton was the Democratic nominee. In July, FBI director James Comey announced that the FBI investigation had concluded that Clinton had been "extremely careless" but recommended that no charges be filed because Clinton did not act with criminal intent, the historical standard for pursuing prosecution. Clinton claimed that her use complied with federal laws and State Department regulations, and that former secretaries of state had also maintained personal email accounts (however Clinton was the only secretary of state to use a private server). Unlike the official system, which was hacked by the Russians, her private system was never hacked. | |||
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| Faceliftgate | 2017 | Controversy surrounding two Donald Trump tweets criticizing Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. Together, the tweets read "I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came... to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year's Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!" | |
| Farmgate | 2022 | In February 2020 US$4 million was stolen from South African president Cyril Ramaphosa's private game farm. The theft was not reported and only became public in June 2022 following the lodging of an official criminal complaint against the president by the controversial former head of the State Security Agency Arthur Fraser. The incident raised a number of questions about why the theft was not reported, why Fraser only reported it two years later, and what impact it might have on future South African politics. | |
| Fartgate (Canada) | 2016 | In a speech at the Canadian House of Commons made by Michelle Rempel Garner, the MP for Calgary Nose Hill, Alberta, about jobs in her province, Rempel asked, "Why does this government treat Alberta like a fart in the room that nobody wants to talk about or acknowledge?" The member of Parliament for Saanich—Gulf Islands and leader of the Canadian Green Party, Elizabeth May, stood up and described Rempel's use of the word "fart" as "unparliamentary". May requested for Rempel to withdraw the word "fart", which Rempel refused to do. The crowd watching the House of Commons proceeded to heckle May. | |
| Fridgegate | 2019 | After refusing to be interviewed a number of times in the 2019 election campaign UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson hid in a fridge to avoid being interviewed by Good Morning Britain. Reporter Jonathan Swain attempted to ask Johnson for an interview live on TV while he was campaigning in Pudsey, Yorkshire. In the brief encounter a Johnson aide can be heard saying "oh for fuck's sake" before Johnson disappears into a fridge at Modern Milkman. He did not return for the interview. The event was coined 'fridgegate' with a number of memes being created and the tag '#fridgegate' trending on Twitter. |
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| Frockgate | 2024 | Recently elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer accepted valuable gifts which he initially failed to declare. | |
| Note: the PJ is the Judiciary Police (" Polícia Judiciária"). | |||
| Ghaligate | 2021 | A diplomatic crisis between Morocco and Spain following the admission of Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali to a Spanish hospital. | |
| Gombakgate | 2025 | Grassroots volunteers from two Singaporean political parties, People's Action Party and Progress Singapore Party, were involved in a series of altercations at Bukit Gombak on 4 January, four months prior to the events of the 2025 Singaporean general election which was held on 3 May. The term was coined by PSP's Hazel Poa during her rally on 1 May, where she also questioned the PAP's motives behind attempts to further disrupt the PSP's campaigning walkabouts, after a series of WhatsApp messages suggesting that volunteers linked to PAP candidate Shawn Huang (both Huang and Poa contested West Coast-Jurong West Group Representation Constituency that election, previously known as West Coast Group Representation Constituency) on further disrupting the PSP's campaigning walkabouts went viral online; Poa also demanded Huang to issue a statement. PSP also demanded a request for probe findings prior to Polling Day. The police investigations ended on 29 August that no action were taken against both parties, and the police announced that they have declined to disclose their investigation findings to the public. | |
| Gropegate (1) | 2003 | Refers to the allegations of groping and sexual misconduct against actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger during his campaign in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. | |
| Corruption as a threat to the Rule of Law. Report by the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. AS/Jur (2013) 19. | |||
| Nigel Hamilton, Bill Clinton: Mastering the Presidency, p. 118. | |||
| Ibizagate | 2019 | A scandal featuring senior members of Austria's far-right FPÖ party in a sting operation that happened on the island of Ibiza, involving them offering government contracts to alleged Russian backers in return for favorable coverage in the country's press. This caused the First Kurz government of ÖVP and FPÖ parties to collapse. | |
| LadyRussiagate | 2022 | A South African scandal involving the secretive docking of a sanctioned Russian cargo ship carrying military cargo at a naval base in South Africa. The United States accused South Africa of selling arms to Russia that would be used in its war with Ukraine resulting in the damaging of South African-USA bilateral relations. | |
| Lecterngate or Podiumgate | 2023 | Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders' office purchased a replica of the Presidential Falcon lectern and road case using a state-issued credit card for $19,029.25, which was reimbursed by the Republican Party of Arkansas. Public record requests revealed the purchase to the public, and it was criticised for alleged waste and potential wrongdoing. The Arkansas General Assembly opened an audit. | |
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| Liquorgate | 2022 | Irrelevant licensing, extensions and inviting private firms and businessmen into liquor sector, shutting away government power and grip over the retail liquor sector in New Delhi. | |
| Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: | |||
| Mehrangate | 1990s | In which senior Pakistan Army and ISI (Maj. General Asad Durrani, under the direction of COAS Aslam Beg) officials had withdrawn large sums of money from Mehran Bank Limited (MBL) and Habib Bank Limited (HBL) to be used in an 'intelligence fund' to fund the electoral opponents of Benazir Bhutto and the PPP (the IJI and Nawaz Sharif) before the 1990 general elections. some Rs. 499 million was distributed to various politician and used to "topple" the provincial government in NWFP. The operation had the support of then President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and caretaker Prime Minister Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, while Yunus Habib of HBL was involved. Those who received money included Nawaz Sharif, Lt.-Gen. Rafaqat (of the Presidents election cell), Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, Pir Pagaro, Muhammad Khan Junejo, Jam Sadiq Ali, Altaf Hussain, etc. This was revealed following the collapse of Mehran Bank and a case registered by retired Air Marshal Asghar Khan, when neither Aslam Beg or Asad Durrani continued to hold office. | |
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| Namagate | 2015 | A Northern Irish political and financial scandal in which the First Minister of Northern Ireland allegedly stood to benefit from the sale of a portfolio of loans and properties by the National Asset Management Agency. | |
| Nueragate | 2015 | Chilean president Michelle Bachelet was accused of giving advantageous business deals and credits to her daughter-in-law ("nuera" in Spanish) through a position that her son also held in the government. | |
| Nukegate | 2017 | A political and legal scandal which arose from the abandonment of the Virgil C. Summer nuclear expansion project in South Carolina by South Carolina Electric & Gas (a subsidiary of SCANA) and the South Carolina Public Service Authority (known as Santee Cooper) in 2017. It was the largest business failure in the history of South Carolina and resulted in criminal charges. | |
| Oniongate | 2015 | Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was filmed biting into a whole onion, seemingly including its skin. | |
| Ongoing political scandals in several countries, associated with the Panama Papers, a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies listed by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca.
In Malta, Panamagate refers to a March 2016 scandal surrounding Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi with an undeclared trust in New Zealand and a company in Panama. In Pakistan, the Panama Papers case, or Panamagate case, resulted in the disqualification of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from holding public office for 10 years. | |||
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| 2021 | Report raising concerns over the data integrity and regulatory oversight of Pfizer vaccine trials. | ||
| Phone call-gate | 2025 | Also called the "Thailand–Cambodia phone call leak", a 9-minute phone conversation between Prime Minister of Thailand Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen on 15 June was leaked to about 80 Cambodian officials on 19 June. Hun (who he referred to as "uncle") published on Facebook on the entire 17-minute call on 18 June to avoid misunderstandings, while on the same day Paetongtarn (referred to as "niece") acknowledged that she was speaking in the leaked call, discussing on aims to threaten the Thailand's government in the midst of the ongoing border conflict. The leak precipitated a political crisis following the resignation of the Bhumjaithai Party from the governing coalition and become an opposition party, and by 1 July, Paetongtarn was suspended from office by the Constitutional Court of Thailand. On 29 August, the Constitutional Court upheld their decision and removed her from the office, and was later succeeded by Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul on 7 September. | |
| Pizzagate | 2014 | Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio dined on pizza with a fork and knife, causing a humorous reaction on the internet. | |
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| 2024 | Scandal of Russian interference in EU elections. | ||
| Salmondgate | 2018 | Scandal involving former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond who had been accused of sexually harassing two female aides in Bute House, Edinburgh. Salmond was eventually acquitted. | |
| Sleep-gate | 2018 | Conservative MP for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Bill Grant was twice caught sleeping in the House of Commons. First, in December 2017, Grant appeared to have fallen asleep during a debate on pensions equality for women however, he claimed he was "listening intently". Then, in July 2018, during questions to the then Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire, Grant was again caught asleep but this time admitted that he had taken "a wee nap" and was "guilty as charged". | |
| Sofagate | 2021 | The event when the first female EU commission president Ursula von der Leyen had to take place on a sofa while EU council president Charles Michel and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were offered seats | |
| Strippergate (Canada) | 2004-5 | Canadian federal immigration minister Judy Sgro was accused of providing favours to people who helped with her political campaigning during the 2004 Canadian federal election. | |
| Strippergate (Israel) | 2018 | Yair Netanyahu was secretly filmed at a Tel Aviv strip club, referring to a controversial gas deal signed by his father, the Prime Minister of Israel (see Netanyahu corruption investigations) | |
| Swinggate | 2019 | Irish politician Maria Bailey sued a hotel after falling off a swing while holding a drink, at a time when insurance costs were rising due to high levels of personal injury claims. | |
| Telegramgate (also known as Chatgate and RickyLeaks) | 2019 | A political scandal involving Ricardo Rosselló, Governor of Puerto Rico, that began on July 8, 2019, with the leaking of several pages of a group chat on the messaging application Telegram. The leak came in the midst of allegations by the ex-Secretary of Puerto Rico's Treasury, Raúl Maldonado Gautier, that his department boasted an "institutional mafia" which Rosselló was involved in. | |
| Trousergate | 2016 | Controversy following a photograph taken of then UK Prime Minister Theresa May in The Sunday Times in which she was wearing a pair of brown leather trousers, reportedly worth £1000. Former Conservative Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan criticized May for the photo and claimed she had never spent that amount of money on anything except her wedding dress. When Morgan withdrew from her scheduled appearance on Have I Got News for You on December 16 at short notice, following an ensuing row with May's aide Fiona Hill, she was replaced with a leather handbag on the show after it transpired she owned a similar bag costing £950. | Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: |
| Updated June 3, 2016. | |||
| Willowgate | 1988–1989 | A corruption scandal in Zimbabwe in which The Bulawayo Chronicle revealed illegal resale of automobile purchases by various government officials. The ensuing investigation resulted in the resignations of five members of President Robert Mugabe's cabinet. One of the five, Maurice Nyagumbo, later committed suicide after being charged with perjury. The reporters who had broken the story, Geoffrey Nyarota and Davison Maruziva, were subsequently removed from their posts. | *
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Sports
| Astrogate | 2018 | In Game 1 of the MLB American League Championship between the Boston Red Sox and the Houston Astros, a Houston Astros employee was removed from the stadium after being caught spying on the Red Sox dugout. | |
| NBCOlympics profile of Bill Demong for the 2010 Winter Olympics, including "Bibgate". – accessed March 28, 2010. | |||
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| Handshakegate | 2025 | Used to describe the Indian cricket team's players refusal to shake hands with the players of the Pakistan cricket team after a match in the 2025 Asia Cup, and the subsequent controversies. | |
| Liegate | 2009 | Allegations of Lewis Hamilton lying to stewards at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix, where Hamilton and McLaren told stewards another driver passed him under the Safety car illegally when McLaren had ordered Hamilton to let the other driver pass. | |
| Scandal involving United States swim team members Ryan Lochte, Jimmy Feigen, Gunnar Bentz, and Jack Conger during the 2016 Summer Olympics held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While initial news stories reported that Lochte and three other US swimmers had been robbed at gunpoint after a night out in Rio, later details emerged that the "armed robbers posing as police" were actually security guards at a gas station where the swimmers had urinated outside the bathroom and Lochte allegedly vandalized a framed poster, and ended with the swimmers providing money to the guards. Some of the swimmers were detained in Brazil as witnesses. Ultimately, the athletes each released statements, and one swimmer paid a fine of approximately $10,800 to a Brazilian charity in order to get his passport back. Lochte apologized for not being more candid about the gas station dispute, and subsequently lost four major sponsorships. |
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| Monkeygate | 2008 | During the verbal altercation between Andrew Symonds and Harbhajan Singh in the second Test between India and Australia in Sydney in 2008, the off-spinner allegedly hurled a racist abuse at Symonds, referring to him as a 'Monkey'. |
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| Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: | |||
| GMs support Vladimir Kramnik, Chessbase, October 3, 2006 | |||
| allegations against F1 tyre supplier Pirelli and Mercedes carrying out illegal tyre testing during June 2013 followed by a series of tyre failures during the 2013 British Grand Prix. | |||
| Jeansgate | 2024 | During the 2024 FIDE World Rapid Chess Championship, Norwegian grandmaster and defending champion Magnus Carlsen was handed a $200 fine for wearing jeans, which violated FIDE's dress code. He was given an ultimatum to either change or not be paired in round 9 of the tournament, but wouldn't be disqualified or be unpaired for the remaining rounds. However, Carlsen decided to resign from the tournament, which would have meant resigning from the following World Blitz Championship a few days later as well. On the 29th of December 2024, one day before the Blitz Championship, Carlsen and FIDE confirmed that he would still participate in this tournament, with FIDE giving him the green light to play with jeans. |
Technology
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| Bumpgate | 2008 | Nvidia Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) chips experienced high failure rates because a design flaw lead to cracked solder bumps | Worldwide | |
| Flexgate | 2019 | Some of Apple's fourth generation MacBook Pro can feature uneven lighting at the bottom of the screen, which looks a bit like a "stage light" effect, and the display can eventually fail entirely after frequent opening and close the lid due to fragile flex cable. | Worldwide | |
| Locationgate | 2011 | The controversy surrounding the discovery that the Apple iPhone stored location coordinates and timestamps of owner's movements in a hidden file, with a year's worth of location recorded on the phone. Led to multiple class action lawsuits, a US Senate hearing, and a mention on South Park. | Worldwide | |
| MoFi Gate | 2022 | The controversy within the audiophile and vinyl communities surrounding the discovery that audiophile reissue label Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab was pressing records using digital masters, despite implying in their marketing that they were using all-analogue sources. | Worldwide | |
| Rapidgate (and Coldgate) | 2018 | A phenomenon in the rapid charging (DC Fast Charging, Supercharging) of a few electric car models (especially Nissan Leaf 2nd generation) where the charging speed is greatly reduced due to high battery temperatures after the first or second rapid charge. This causes much longer charging stops on long road trips. Most other cars have cooling systems and are not affected. Also, in low temperatures, Lithium Ion batteries would be damaged if charged too fast. Most cars can heat up their battery, either from the grid when plugged in, or even from the battery itself when a charging stop is planned. | Worldwide | |
| Radeongate | 2011 | In 2011 15" and 17" MacBook Pro models, the AMD Radeon HD 6000M series graphics processing units (GPUs) were prone to catastrophically failing due to poor usage of lead-free solder, as well as poor thermal design being implemented into the laptops. | Worldwide | |
| Webcamgate | 2010 | Lower Merion School District allegedly do surveillance by using student's Apple | United States |
Other
| Buttergate | 2020–2021 | In February 2021, reports emerged regarding industry-wide changes in the consistency of Canadian-produced butter, which softened at a slower pace at room temperature than before. It was speculated that the increased use of palm oil or palmitic acid in feed by dairy farmers to help meet demand may have had an impact on the resulting butter products. | |
| Fartgate (United States) | 2019 | In November 2019 US Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) appeared on MSNBC's Hardball, when a fart sound "ripped through the airwaves". Swalwell denied the allegations, writing "It was not me!!!!!" to BuzzFeed News in a text. The show later attempted to explain away the sound, claiming "it was the #hardball mug scraping across the desk". | |
| Flossgate | 2016 | A scandal when the 2015 United States Dietary Guidelines for Americans did not include a recommendation about flossing. | |
| Horsegate (also "Horsemeat-gate") | 2013 | A UK scandal in which it emerged that several large supermarket chains were selling meat containing horse or equine meat while claiming they were "100% beef". Further context to this is that, while horsemeat is mostly fine for human consumption and is eaten in countries throughout Europe and the rest of the world, it is rarely sold on the mainstream UK market and is considered somewhat culturally unacceptable to eat in British society. | |
| Monkeygate | 2018 | The controversy after it was revealed that Volkswagen had experimented on monkeys to prove that diesel exhaust was not harmful to primates. | |
| Nutellagate | 2013 | A controversy at Columbia University surrounding allegations of widespread Nutella theft that cost the university $5,000 per week. | |
| Nutgate | 2014 | Korean Air vice president Heather Cho, dissatisfied with the way a flight attendant served her nuts on a plane, ordered the aircraft to return to the gate before takeoff, before dismissing the flight attendant and cabin crew chief. She was arrested two months later and charged with interfering with flight safety. The crew members eventually returned to their positions. | |
| Smooshgate | 2018 | A proposal for a JavaScript language feature called Array.prototype.flatten turns out to be Web-incompatible. The proposal author jokingly suggested renaming flatten to smoosh to avoid the compatibility issue. The joke was not clear to everyone, some people started to incorrectly believe that the new name had already been decided, and things escalated quickly. |
Conspiracy theories
| Obamagate | 2020 | Used by President Donald Trump as a nickname for unsubstantiated claims that his predecessor Barack Obama had spied on his incoming administration. | United States | |
| Piggate | 2015 | The name given to the accusation Lord Ashcroft made against British Prime Minister David Cameron, of performing a ritual in which he engaged in sexual acts with a dead pig's head. | United Kingdom | |
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In popular culture
Film and television
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| Notegate | The Traitors US | Season 1, Episode 3: 'Murder They Wrote' | In Episode 3 just before the round table, Brandi (who was banished) and Kate discussed who is a traitor, in which they discussed the possibility of Shelbe and Amanda being The Traitors next target Shelbe's name was crossed out and after the round table in which Brandi was banished Anjelica found the note and shared it Cirie who revealed it to a small group of the remaining contestants Cirie dubbed it "Notegate" | |
| Strawberry-Gate | I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! | UK series 17, Episode 11 | Contestants Amir Khan and Iain Lee won the Dingo Dollar challenge receiving the opportunity for a reward; Chocolate coins or Strawberries & cream. Their campmates got the question right, and Amir and Iain were given Strawberries & cream. However, while returning to camp, they decided to eat the treat and pretend that the camp got the question wrong. | |
| "Stupid Watergate" | Last Week Tonight with John Oliver | Season 4, Episode 13 and Season 5, Episode 14 | A recurring segment called "Stupid Watergate" is concerned with the appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and resulting coverups. It is called "Stupid Watergate" because, according to Oliver, it is "a scandal with all the potential ramifications of Watergate, but where everyone involved is stupid and bad at everything".Archived at Ghostarchive and the
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Wayback Machine: | |
Notes
External links
- Campbell, Alex. Turning a scandal into a '-gate' BBC News, May 11, 2013.
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