Sexual harassment

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

So your solution to something like this is just stop playing?

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Quit nit picking and taking things out of context. Man, you are one for attention.

That's not what he said. Please read.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

This can't be conflated to real abuse in any way. You can block said person from contacting you. You can't do the same in real life. It's nowhere near as easy. As for the blackmail bits, yes that was wrong and possibly illegal (not educated enough in the law to fully say) but I don't think there needs to be a big movement over something that is ultimately a very minor issue. You have all the tools you can ask for to deal with this.

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So behavior of people shouldn't be kept to standard because you can block after the damage was done? What if abuser creates alternative accounts (not unheard of)? How many instances of abuse would be ok this way?

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Originally Posted by Gizensha

So behavior of people shouldn't be kept to standard because you can block after the damage was done? What if abuser creates alternative accounts (not unheard of)? How many instances of abuse would be ok this way?

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You also have the option of blocking before the damage is done too. If said "abuser" makes multiple accounts (which on FFXIV would be quite a boon to SquareEnix) you simply block each one. It is much more effort on their end to make an account than for you to block and they will move onto another "victim". My point is, there exists tools in almost every medium of social media and game to ignore someone. People should be held accountable for themselves. Both "abusers" and "victims" on the internet.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

My point is, there exists tools in almost every medium of social media and game to ignore someone. People should be held accountable for themselves. Both "abusers" and "victims" on the internet.

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Again, a potential abuser can get information from you far before they show signs of being an abuser...people don't just immediately start acting like that, they get close to you first, and if they have that information on you, and threaten to use it against you (show up at your house or place of work, or doxx you, or anything like that) how is blocking them going to help? Even reporting to a GM may not help because SE will only act on information relayed in game. Please stop blaming victims for this, it's really not a good look for you. Oh, and police frequently don't take reports of online harassment seriously, much like the rest of you here.

They make multiple accounts or alts, you block them, they have their friends help, you block them, they follow you around in game well you can't help that, they say bad things about you to others you can't necessarily defend yourself, you transfer servers or change character names and they find out where you went (remember it's EXTREMELY easy to find out a character's new name via Lodestone ID), you delete an old character and start over and they may STILL find you, in the meantime all of this is extremely mentally and emotionally taxing and suddenly you no longer want to participate in an activity you once loved and enjoyed and you drift away from the communities you were a part of and if they have RL information you may even be worried about that. But yeah, blocking will solve the problem.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

It's just online

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I'm not sure if you were referring to the Moogle Post issue because that definitely was not just online. Anyway, it doesn't matter, online interactions are still subject to laws, it's not a special exempt zone where people can do what they like and face no consequences.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

It's honestly a non-issue. If you gave nudes to someone online and were then blackmailed I mean... it sucks but ultimately it is your fault.

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So, if you trust someone and they abuse your trust, that's your fault? And even if they go as far as blackmail, that's still completely on you? I disagree.
I'm not suggesting people shouldn't take steps to protect themselves, but a person who breaks someone's trust like that is still the one at fault, regardless.
Also see above: laws still apply.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

You can't really be sexually harassed in a game, especially when you as a player have the tools to stop it, as well as a pretty supportive GM staff willing to assist.

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Ha! So the creepy Guild leader who basically got me to the point where I chose to abandon another game and three characters I'd put a lot of time into, rather than deal with any more unwanted advances, suggestive gifts, creepy comments etc, wasn't really harassing me? It certainly felt real.

I'm not talking about a throwaway line about my character's looks or a single invite to ERP, this was weeks of following my character around and constant pestering via chat and in-game mail. I honestly don't think anyone who dismisses this sort of behaviour as trivial can have experienced it.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

You also have the option of blocking before the damage is done too. If said "abuser" makes multiple accounts (which on FFXIV would be quite a boon to SquareEnix) you simply block each one. It is much more effort on their end to make an account than for you to block and they will move onto another "victim". My point is, there exists tools in almost every medium of social media and game to ignore someone. People should be held accountable for themselves. Both "abusers" and "victims" on the internet.

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But you have this tools in case of phones and even snail mail. Just block the number (the abuser would probably get prepaid) or throw the mail to trash, yet in real life these venues of abuse have lead to legal consequences. How is internet different? Why abuse on internet isn't as real as that through phone for example?

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Again, a potential abuser can get information from you far before they show signs of being an abuser...people don't just immediately start acting like that, they get close to you first, and if they have that information on you, and threaten to use it against you (show up at your house or place of work, or doxx you, or anything like that) how is blocking them going to help? Even reporting to a GM may not help because SE will only act on information relayed in game. Please stop blaming victims for this, it's really not a good look for you. Oh, and police frequently don't take reports of online harassment seriously, much like the rest of you here.

They make multiple accounts or alts, you block them, they have their friends help, you block them, they follow you around in game well you can't help that, they say bad things about you to others you can't necessarily defend yourself, you transfer servers or change character names and they find out where you went (remember it's EXTREMELY easy to find out a character's new name via Lodestone ID), you delete an old character and start over and they may STILL find you, in the meantime all of this is extremely mentally and emotionally taxing and suddenly you no longer want to participate in an activity you once loved and enjoyed and you drift away from the communities you were a part of and if they have RL information you may even be worried about that. But yeah, blocking will solve the problem.

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There's a reason why the police don't take it very seriously. It's not very serious. Honestly if some gossiping person came up to me and told me information about someone, primarily negative, I'd wonder what their problem is, moreso than the person they are talking about. I mean, what information is so dastardly that you must concede to some random online? Your address? What's that going to do? Why do they even have your address to begin with? Will they send you manure in a box? Glitter bomb? That's a physical thing.

You don't even need to transfer servers. If someone is stalking you to this degree, you can report that. Again, in the time it takes them to make a new account (which also needs a new email, etc) you blocking them gives them a net loss in time. No one will keep this up. I think the victim complex needs to ease up. People have far more power than they think, especially online.

And I'm sorry but if you give anyone your address or even nudes of yourself with your face in it, I mean, that's on you. Yes obviously the person using this against you is bad, but honestly, why would you give anyone your address online? I get it. Emotional abuse, manipulation, etc, etc. But this isn't a FFXIV problem.

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Originally Posted by Solarra

Ha! So the creepy Guild leader who basically got me to the point where I chose to abandon another game and three characters I'd put a lot of time into, rather than deal with any more unwanted advances, suggestive gifts, creepy comments etc, wasn't really harassing me? It certainly felt real.

I'm not talking about a throwaway line about my character's looks or a single invite to ERP, this was weeks of following my character around and constant pestering via chat and in-game mail. I honestly don't think anyone who dismisses this sort of behaviour as trivial can have experienced it.

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I mean, it sounds like you overreacted. Just block him, leave the guild if necessary. Losing 3 characters over it? Sorry but I think you need to toughen up. You know what I did when I got a stalker? I ended things and blocked them.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

And I'm sorry but if you give anyone your address or even nudes of yourself with your face in it, I mean, that's on you. Yes obviously the person using this against you is bad, but honestly, why would you give anyone your address online? I get it. Emotional abuse, manipulation, etc, etc. But this isn't a FFXIV problem.

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It's very clear to me with this post that you do not understand what we are talking about. Have a good night, I guess. If you have some free time you may want to read about the laws on harassment, threats (particularly in relation to suicide or attack) and revenge porn. Maybe look up a few articles on why the victims of abuse can't so easily walk away. Perhaps then you can have an actual understanding of this conversation.

Also, maybe move into the year 2018 and realize that people do form important, strong, and lasting relationships online. I myself am living with and engaged to someone I met online. Seems to have worked out just fine. These are real people online. And just like any other person, sometimes things go wrong.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

Starting to think some people here have a personal interest in NOT dealing with this issue...

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What is this view based off? Is it wrong to still believe in innocent until proven guilty? Is the system perfect? Far from it. Do investigations take time? Yes. Do I feel as if the community should take action against a person that has yet to be proven guilty most differently not. Those who are victims of abuse have many avenues they can take, but I will never be for trying to rally the community together to act on what amounts to an emotional response fueled by pity or remorse, or any other emotion. If that makes me a horrible person to hold off judgment until all the facts are presented because well people have the capacity of lie or even misread certain interactions so be it. Speaking in the general sense here not just about the most recent case. The proper authorities cannot do anything to help unless those being impacted seek out help. Even if they do seek out it is unreasonable to think that a resolution will happen overnight, which one reason I do feel people seek a community response. At times I am sure despite wanting to most authorities cannot act on a emotional response they have to go based off the facts, and the longer people wait to come forward to them regarding such issues it just makes things that much harder to prove, thus making a long investigation process even longer.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

It's very clear to me with this post that you do not understand what we are talking about. Have a good night, I guess. If you have some free time you may want to read about the laws on harassment, threats (particularly in relation to suicide or attack) and revenge porn. Maybe look up a few articles on why the victims of abuse can't so easily walk away. Perhaps then you can have an actual understanding of this conversation.

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Again, I don't see how this is a FFXIV problem. If you think you can sue someone over harassment, then do it. But don't cry about it on FFXIV. You have more than enough ways to stop someone from bothering you. Again, this is online. Stop conflating it with real abuse. You can quite easily walk away from someone.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

What is this view based off? What is are people that still believe in innocent until proven guilty.

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Based on people thinking this type of thing is funny or immediately blaming the victims... or even using the words victims and abuser in quotes to sort of dismiss the legitimacy... guilty until proven innocent is fine, its how it should be... but my issue is with how people are willing to dismiss the victims story all together or to blame the victims... why is it ok to give the benefit of the doubt to one and not the other?

Guilty until proven innocent is not fine. It's not even remotely fine.

Let me be clear this thread isn't just about this one case in the article... I wanted to see if maybe other people had a similar experience. Maybe this was an isolated incident maybe it's far more rampant... the idea was to see if this is a common occurrence or not... and to give people a place to tell their stories of need be...

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Originally Posted by Zsolen

Guilty until proven innocent is not fine. It's not even remotely fine.

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Yeah i meant innocent until proven guilty....

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

Based on people thinking this type of thing is funny or immediately blaming the victims... or even using the words victims and abuser in quotes to sort of dismiss the legitimacy... guilty until proven innocent is fine, its how it should be... but my issue is with how people are willing to dismiss the victims story all together or to blame the victims... why is it ok to give the benefit of the doubt to one and not the other?

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If you feel innocent until proven guilty, being leery of both sides is a reasonable response. May not be a popular opinion I personally feel the only person that can actively prevent or mitigate abuse is the person it is happening to. No system in place would have prevented this or any form of abuse really from happening. We can try to educate people on the signs, agencies to content but if the person themselves are blind to the abuse nothing anyone can do.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

Let me be clear this thread isn't just about this one case in the article... I wanted to see if maybe other people had a similar experience. Maybe this was an isolated incident maybe it's far more rampant... the idea was to see if this is a common occurrence or not... and to give people a place to tell their stories of need be...

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Having a place share is fine, but I think some (could be wrong, lol 23 page thread) people in this thread advocated for the community to blacklist and shame others when abuse / harassment has not yet been proven. People need to be careful as to how those stories are used / stored. Let us say even if that was not their intent, when people write blogs about their abuse before going to the proper authorities it will foster an emotional response to those that read the story which often leads the issue being thrown into the court of public opinion. Which I never been a fan of.

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Originally Posted by Okamimaru

Let me be clear this thread isn't just about this one case in the article... I wanted to see if maybe other people had a similar experience. Maybe this was an isolated incident maybe it's far more rampant... the idea was to see if this is a common occurrence or not... and to give people a place to tell their stories of need be...

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It is unfortunately a very common occurrence, particularly as MMOs seem to commonly be a refuge for emotionally damaged people online, where they can be either victim or abuser.

This thread hurts to read, because it's very clear that people do not understand. And while I'm glad, because it means that they've never experienced it, it's never fun reading about how you were the weak idiot that allowed someone you were friends with to hurt you, and how the pain you experienced is all your fault.

I just don't get it myself. How was I supposed to just "walk away" from someone who I had been good friends with for a long time, who knew my name, where I lived, because we had plans to meet up someday (as online friends often do these days!), who knew the names of my other accounts separate from the game (not only my Facebook, but also my Tumblr as we both liked to use the website and my Skype)? How was I supposed to just "walk away" from someone who I deeply cared about and wanted to see happy, who threatened suicide if I stopped talking to him? (This is illegal in many places, by the way, and is a hallmark of emotional abuse, because the average person is going to have a hard time letting someone they care about just do that to themselves if they walk away.)

I never understand why people assume the victim just didn't do anything because I can tell you I did. I removed him from my friends list and put him on ignore, removed him from Facebook, blocked him on Tumblr and Skype. He made new characters, new accounts, to get to me, I blocked those too. I made an entirely new tumblr blog and he found it too, through a mutual friend of ours that was sympathetic to him. He told friends of his that I had met before the "truth" about me being this horrible, awful person (he was careful to limit this to people who only vaguely knew me because if you even hang out with me for like 30 minutes you'll quickly realize that what he was saying was not true at all). I had to cut out those mutual friends of ours too because the risk of them revealing information was too high. I felt like I was being stalked across the internet by this guy. I found myself checking my messages and notes, checking every unfamiliar name that popped up, because I was so paranoid.

Since he knew where I lived and I was alone all day and he was a former military guy with a (as I had found out too late) violent personality I was scared whenever there was an unexpected knock at the door. He got my phone number and would call me at odd hours, I had to block those, and switch my number, to get that to stop. Because of all of this I stopped participating in the activities I loved, stopped associating with people I had been good friends with, to try and put distance between us, and it was never. Enough. Finally, FINALLY, he got some sort of mental counseling and stopped bothering me. But the damage was done and that's a year and a half of my life that I spent in fear and pain that a formerly friendly relationship I had online that was very important to me had devolved into something so horrible that extended into my online life. Because I didn't want to be his girlfriend, because I didn't want to engage in sexual activities with him, all of this happened.

I wasn't afraid of getting a rude letter or some completely random person I had never met online not liking me. I was afraid of losing even more friends than I already had. I was afraid of him showing up to my door and shooting either me or himself, because that's what he had insinuated he would do. So like, thanks for making this out like I was just overreacting over some guy pestering me about my character looking "sexy." It's really enjoyable to hear that I'm just a shrieking harpy trying to ruin some guy's life with false accusations.

Oh yeah, and if you think people just give up eventually, or the police will help, here's someone who called the police 125 times over her stalker who eventually tried to murder her. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.b4347e939f4c And yes, someone online is just as capable of getting the information they need to do this.

It has nothing to do with not understanding and everything to do with patience and letting information come out. I've lived on this planet too long to simply jump to conclusions or become a vigilante of sorts.

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Originally Posted by Zsolen

It has nothing to do with not understanding and everything to do with patience and letting information come out. I've lived on this planet too long to simply jump to conclusions or become a vigilante of sorts.

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That's good for you, but I'm talking about the people who say it's the fault of a victim for being online or for "not blocking" the abuser in these kinds of situations. I'm not saying you should jump to assuming the guy's guilty, I'm talking about the people who say this stuff doesn't happen or isn't serious.

The worst part about this whole mess is that it's detracting from just how severe domestic and sexual abuse can really be whilst also distracting people from the lesson that really needs to be learned from all of this.

Chasing, hassling, threatening with lawyers etc. At the end of the day, that achieves absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. There's always going to be another smooth talking creep to pop up next. SE can't protect you from this, Discord can't protect you from this, there's always going to be another platform or avenue to be approached on.

The harsh reality of this is that you need to look after yourself. Your privacy is your responsibility above all others. If you struggle to say no then you need to have a heart to heart with some close friends or family and have them look out for you as no one else is going to do it if they aren't even aware of what's going on. I'm not suggesting that you wall yourself off in your inn room, but you need to be at least a little bit guarded. Don't allow anyone to rush you into things. It's easy enough to feign an AFK to get a second opinion and regroup if you're unsure about something.

Your life will be an order of magnitude easier and more serene if you can learn to pop conversations with these sort of people in the bud before it goes anywhere. Don't rise to the bait, don't go along with it, don't give them details for your social media or messenger apps and it has to be said that passing nudes and other sensitive personal stuff to random people on the internet is practically meme worthy in 2018. Don't be that guy/gal. It's just not worth it.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

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This has been my main issue with this thread as well. The Moogle Post situation is something I won't pass final judgement on until it's actually litigated, though the evidence against Old Bear is such that I wouldn't want to deal with him. Especially after seeing how he and his few remaining, loyal staff handled the retaking of the magazine not that long ago which left a bad taste in my mouth. My biggest issue is the people laughing at the victims and assuming they're lying out of the gate or that situations like they describe either cannot happen, or are their fault to begin with. It's a worrisome trend. You don't /have/ to believe everything wholesale and frankly I agree that skepticism is the right course of action when you have no personal stakes in a conflict. It's the broad strokes 'anyone who /allowed/ themselves to be in this situation /deserves/ it' generalizations that I see most people discussing and being disgusted by.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

How does this detract from the seriousness of those? It's entirely possible for the two situations, of online and RL abuse, to both stand on their own, as serious issues, especially since online abuse can and frequently DOES spill into RL. Also, I don't realize if someone's told you this, but people make friends and form relationships with people online very, very frequently these days and it doesn't make those relationships any less legitimate. Have you every been friends with someone that turned out to be not who you thought they were? That's what happening, and that can happen in RL too, just like online, because - shocker - there's an actual person talking to you.

I will repeat it again - yes, take steps to protect yourself, don't give out your info to any random person that asks, but if someone starts threatening you, cyberstalking you, harassing you, it wasn't your fault. If you've been talking to and playing with someone for a really long time it only makes sense that you'd eventually learn things about their life outside the internet. People are curious about each other, and there's nothing wrong with saying to someone "Wow, the weather in [where I live] is so bad right now" or something like that. The vast majority of people online are still normal people who won't hurt you because, of course, the vast majority of people in the world are normal people who won't hurt you. The role of the internet in our lives has changed and it's about time people realize that.

Please stop with the hyperbole.

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Saying that the only person that can actively protect themselves from such behavior is the "you" is not wrong. While it is tough to hear and may sound harsh the reality is it is your fault for not seeing the signs for whatever reason. We are human mistakes happen, all we can do is learn from them and take steps to ensure the same mistake does not happen again.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

Saying that the only person that can actively protect themselves from such behavior is the "you" is not wrong. While it is tough to hear and may sound harsh the reality is it is your fault for not seeing the signs for whatever reason. We are human mistakes happen, all we can do is learn from them and take steps to ensure the same mistake does not happen again.

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Let me phrase this in a different way.

If your house isn't locked, and someone comes in and robs it, is it your fault for being robbed? Or is it the fault of the person who robbed you?

The law has made it clear that regardless of door locked vs. unlocked, it is still the fault of the person who robbed you and you are not at fault for the crime, and the robber will still face criminal charges. While you should lock your door to avoid being robbed, you don't abdicate your right to legal recourse when you are robbed because your door was unlocked. He still faces charges, because you weren't asking to be robbed. Just like someone wasn't asking to be abused because they may have told the wrong person the wrong information online. The person who does the abuse is still an abuser, and it's THEIR FAULT ONLY for abusing the person.

You don't have to abuse someone just because you have the information to do so.

Reading this thread is kind of sad, especially with the "block and move on" "don't send pics in the first place"

I mean yeah, that's great if you giving advice to people this hasn't happened to yet, but this advice is like watching Jerry Springer give his "Final Thoughts" after watching people beat each other on stage

Or telling a person who got pregnant, or hit with an STI "well shouldn't have had sex to begin with" it's pretty useless information and does nothing after the fact.

What I think people are asking for in discussing this topic is "okay some reason or another plan A has failed, what do we do for plan B" some cases it may be a plan C.

Here is the thing, notice this isn't one "X said, Y said" issue? It tends to be in numbers, that is a pattern. The fact is, with the "you did something stupid so you should face harsher consequences than the offender" is why this keeps happening and why the people who do this keeps doing it till it's a multitude of victims.

I agree that there does need to be some caution in stringing out those to dry before all the facts are out, but at the same time what should be done? Encourage people to still hang around abusive people?

I think a good solution would be a special task force on SE's part to handle this, not just some GM who probably doesn't have the kind of training to help in a situation like this. That probably means costing money on their part, but that kind of step to at least look into it would go a long way.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

Let me phrase this in a different way.

If your house isn't locked, and someone comes in and robs it, is it your fault for being robbed? Or is it the fault of the person who robbed you?

The law has made it clear that regardless of door locked vs. unlocked, it is still the fault of the person who robbed you and you are not at fault for the crime, and the robber will still face criminal charges. While you should lock your door to avoid being robbed, you don't abdicate your right to legal recourse when you are robbed because your door was unlocked. He still faces charges, because you weren't asking to be robbed. Just like someone wasn't asking to be abused because they may have told the wrong person the wrong information online. The person who does the abuse is still an abuser, and it's THEIR FAULT ONLY for abusing the person.

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I am a strong believer that their are degrees of fault, and personal responsibility. If someone broke into my house they are most at fault, but it would be wrong to say that I am not immune of fault because I left my doors open. I was mugged once went to am ATM in some deli so I had cash on me for a cab. It was my fault for using that ATM instead of just paying a little extra and having the cab stop at at the nearest bank. Might just be me, just because we have laws in place does not mean I view myself as immune from actively trying to protect myself, or leaving from my past mistakes. Hope that makes sense, please do not think each party shares the same amount of blame.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

I am a strong believer that their are degrees of fault, and personal responsibility.

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Ok then, so does that mean the perp gets a lesser punishment because you made the crime easier for them to commit? I think that's really what's being asked here. There's already the sense of shame and fear when you are a victim of a crime, even more so if you knew you did something ignorant or stupid to help with that crime. So what is blame going to do here? I'm curious.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Ok then, so does that mean the perp gets a lesser punishment because you made the crime easier for them to commit? I think that's really what's being asked here. There's already the sense of shame and fear when you are a victim of a crime, even more so if you knew you did something ignorant or stupid to help with that crime. So what is blame going to do here? I'm curious.

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They will get whatever sentence the law seems is just. Not sure what you are asking I never said that they should get lesser sentence. All I am saying is I feel as if their are degrees of fault, and people should actively try to protect themselves. If ignorance leads to something negative happening after the appropriate authorities are contacted, the next step is to make sure you learn from what happened and take steps to do what you can to prevent it from happening again. I am extremely confused as to why it seems as if you feel I feel they should get lesser time for the crime because I did not do what I could to protect myself. The only way we can learn from our mistakes is if someone points out the mistake, even if it is in hindsight.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

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So you are saying that we should not point out what people can do after the fact the prevent it from happening again? How is a person supposed to learn from the event if they are unwilling to admit that some of the fault is on them? As I mentioned before what can we reasonably do to prevent such issues from happening? Sadly the only way to prevent such issues is for people to learn and protect themselves in the most practicable way. If you want to have sex just do what is most practicable to protect yourself from getting pregnant or an STD but you do so knowing that their is a still a chance something might happen, so is it better to do nothing? Educating yourself as to what and how it happened is moving forward since that really is the only way to protect yourself from it happening again. I mentioned in another post sure we can educate people before the fact but often times people are blind to what is happening or do not see the risk until it happens or a scare happens. Not sure what preemptive thing anyone can do to combat such a thing, since sadly this is one of those things that a lot of people feel oh it can never happen to me until it does. Hope that makes sense.

Sorry going to hit my post limit soon so going to edit this post with my comment.

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Originally Posted by Elamys

How does this detract from the seriousness of those?

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Because both the twitter post and this thread quickly degraded into a mush of victim blaming, he said/she said and borderline trolling. To the outsider, it just looks like petty fluff.

None of that helps anyone, nor does it achieve anything.

I don't care who's at fault, what I care about is that people take the necessary steps to protect themselves from getting into these kind of situations in the first place. At the end of the day, this is the only thing that really matters looking forward. I totally agree about the role our net footprint reflects on us and my point is that this needs to be at the very forefront of the discussion here.

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Originally Posted by Rogatum

They will get whatever sentence the law seems is just. Not sure what you are asking I never said that they should get lesser sentence. All I am saying is I feel as if their are degrees of fault, and people should actively try to protect themselves.

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Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

How to deal with sexual harassment in an MMO:
1. Block and Report the offender
2. Move on with your life. If it bothers you so badly, then seek proper mental/emotional assistance on top of it.
3. If the offender tries to reach out again via alt or third party repeat step 1.
4. If you go through steps 1-3 several times and the GM team does nothing about it, then its time to head to SE's customer service and share your experiences or skip to step 5.
5. Repeat step 1 one final time and stop playing for a while or permanently depending on your level of faith left by this point.

Sexual harassment sucks anywhere. There's only so much one can do on their own. You do what you can since that's all you can do.

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Originally Posted by QT_Melon

Again, what does that mean. It still in the end means that the person who committed the crime get the same sentence because there's no distinguishing factor in law that "oh well victim is somewhat to blame" It also does absolutely nothing to even talk about blame when what happened, already happened. So you wonder why I'm asking. I'm asking while you're worried about the symptoms (in the sense of next steps to take course), you're not looking at the cause in the end.

"Don't want the possibility of pregnancy or STI" don't have sex, even birth control has a possibility of failure. Ok. Great. Still happened. Now what. We just work backwards or forwards here?

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Block and move on? It's the internet. Do you want the police involved? If so, do it. Do you want the "abuser" banned or punished? Contact GMs. Do you want to complain about it? This is a MMORPG.

When it pertains to strictly interactions in an MMO environment, it is sound advice to protect yourself, and if harassment does happen, blocking, reporting, and moving on can be sound advice. I don't think anyone is knocking that. The issue at the core of this thread, though, is that this has gone beyond the game. I don't think it's fair for some of these folks to be judged when their decisions occurred during emotionally vulnerable periods in their lives. People tend to act irrationally or outside of their norms. It's part of the reason why abuse is still very prevalent today. Not all victims have the wherewithal to be able to say no. Not all of them know how to say no. It's more than just a two letter word.

That's not to say that the victims are free from any faults, but some people aren't equipped to respond to certain situations in the way some of you might. If we all took a trip to a combat zone and we suddenly came under attack, can you say for certain that you'd be able to keep a leveled head? Be able to return fire and call in the direction of gunfire? Not everyone can to certain things in the same way.

And on that note, whomever said that online abuse is not that serious, there is something morally wrong with that statement. It's not the serious? A friend of mine committed suicide not too long ago because of cyber bullying (yes, this is online abuse too). But it's not that serious? Perhaps not to you, but don't say it's not that serious when have been national awareness movements about this.

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Originally Posted by Rubiss

This is a MMORPG.

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Yeah, okay. So apparently places like Fanfest is just full of Avatars, not people. The fact is people do form relationships for better or for worse outside the game. Unless this is supposed to be a myopic mindset?

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Originally Posted by KaivaC

And on that note, whomever said that online abuse is not that serious, there is something morally wrong with that statement. It's not the serious? A friend of mine committed suicide not too long ago because of cyber bullying (yes, this is online abuse too). But it's not that serious? Perhaps not to you, but don't say it's not that serious when have been national awareness movements about this.

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I want second the wrongness of saying the online abuse isn't serious, games like this should be a place of safety and fun for people.
Also Kaiva I am really sorry to hear about your friend.

Recently in my country's news, is a story about how a guy flew to america to try to attack a 14 year old girl he met on the internet.

It's sadly one of the many risks of the internet, and it's up to parents and role models to teach kids how to be ultra-careful on the internet. And also up to role models and parents to, of course, teach their kids not to do the harassment in the first place. There would be no harassment if nobody harassed people after all.
Also, the entire world could use more funding for mental health, as many of the harassers and harassed experience mental health issues. When human's brains are their most important thing, you'd think that keeping them healthy would be the most important thing in our society.

Also screenshots. Take screenshots of terrible stuff said, so you can use it to get them banned, and send it to those people who accuse you of lying.

Wow... the amount of drama in EU/NA servers are so freakin' high.
-waves from Tonberry-
The only shit we get in JP servers for the English community is probably blaming of gaijins for everything that goes wrong.
I think I rather the gaijin bullcrap over what you guys have to deal with any day.

I have a question for SE since there are activities outside the game like Fanfest going on. If the situation comes to light that members/users of the game in this community harass members, sexually or otherwise, what steps does your team make an event like Fanfest something that be seen as a safe place for other people to meet up and join. I get that they can't investigate every matter. I'm just curious onto your general stance on things. I mean, it was apparent that one such predator did use the convention to continue the abuse towards female members of the community, so it is a bit of a concern on what stance would be taken.

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Originally Posted by SomeRandomHuman

How to deal with sexual harassment in an MMO:

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Ok, maybe I need to shout this for people who apparently can't read.

MOST ABUSE CASES ARE NOT ABOUT RANDOS. MOST ABUSERS ARE TRUSTED INDIVIDUALS WHO CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PERSON BEING ABUSED. BLOCKING, IGNORING, CHANGING SERVERS ETC. WORK WHEN THE PERSON IS JUST SOME RANDO WHO HARASSES ANYONE WHO PASSES BY. BUT IF THE RANDO GETS A PARTICULAR BUG UP THEIR BUTT YOU MIGHT HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO DELETE EVERYTHING TO ESCAPE THEM.

AND CHANCES ARE, THE WORST ABUSERS ARE NOT GOING TO BE SOME RANDO, IT WILL BE SOMEONE YOU THOUGHT GENUINELY CARED ABOUT YOU. THIS IS WHY ABUSE IS SUCH A TRICKY PROBLEM, BECAUSE THEY EARNED THE TRUST OF THE ABUSED PERSON.

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Originally Posted by Corfish

Ok, maybe I need to shout this for people who apparently can't read.

MOST ABUSE CASES ARE NOT ABOUT RANDOS. MOST ABUSERS ARE TRUSTED INDIVIDUALS WHO CAN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE PERSON BEING ABUSED.

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What's great about the people that are ignoring what you're writing is that in the case of the what prompted this topic to begin with, people are belittling the issue to "Guy finds crazy hard up women that send him nude pics".

The thing is, it's not even that. The stories are people who created a friends network in game, and this guy comes into their lives. He's involved with everyone. So he harassed them right? Okay block and move on. Except that people were friends with each other in the FC, he found a way to interfere with activities that surrounded the game, like the magazine.

He wasn't just blackmailing a ton of females that sent him nude pics.
He bullied women when they didn't go for his sexual advances.
He constantly made sexual advances even when the topic wasn't welcome.
He made threats to some people's jobs (even if they were unpaid ones).
He used his influence and clout to make sure these women were ostracized from their network of friends or community.
He also did the same to male members if he felt they were too close to a female he was interested in for what ever reason.


So yeah, the not all the women he harassed sent him nude pics he could later blackmail (and even then that's besides the point).

He was treating women and men pretty poorly in order to control or manipulate things to his outcome.

I'm not sure what some of the posters in this thread want or expect Square-Enix to do. Square-Enix has some wording in the terms of service to give them the right to take appropriate action if people violate the terms. I'd expect them usually to only resort suspensions or bans if people violate the terms consistently. They might notify the authorities in clear cases where a player breaks some laws. If any sexual abuse case goes to court and the courts issue a warrant for Square-Enix to release chat logs, I'd expect Square-Enix to comply. If you are continually harassed and filing GM reports doesn't stop the harassment, escalate. Ask if a manager is available or try going through contact options on the website.

I'm also not sure what some of the posters want the player base to do. Most people just want to play the game and not get involved in conflicts between strangers or people they barely know. I think most people would agree that sexual harassment can start on the internet and that players of Final Fantasy XIV should be aware and manage their online risk in the game. Some people will get into bad situations anyway because they make risky decisions. Are those people victims? Yes. Are the manipulative people who harass others in the wrong? Absolutely. When people give advice to be more careful online after someone is harassed, most of them are not trying to legitimize the harassment. They are trying to educate people about online risks as a preventative measure so that victims are not victimized again and so that naive people don't end up in a similar situation.

I'm always troubled when stories like the one in PC Gamer come out. It would be better if people didn't have to deal with manipulative creeps but there will always be more of them. It's a sad reality and trying raise awareness is a good thing.

Once someone has already become a victim, the right thing to do is to let the authorities deal with the abuser. If you know the victim, the kind thing is to do is to come alongside and be there when the victim needs support. Be a friend and help the victim heal from the abuse. If it comes to it and you were a witness, testify on the victim's behalf. Even if you feel that the authorities aren't acting fast enough or aren't doing what you think they should do, trying to take the law into your own hands to circumvent due process is a bad plan. It is better to work with the authorities and present any information that will help expedite their investigation.

I have always been against sexual harassment in video game community more so due to how bad it can get more towards female video gamers. Due to this I think the only solution is to take a picture of the event and report it so they can take action with solid proof so that the person cannot make a "excuse" to avoid what really happened. If the abuse is constant long after all attempts of block and reports then I say let the community know about it so they know what type of person he or she really is.

As a Male gamer myself, I find the things done to female gamers only contribute to the bad reputation people who do not understand video games have about people who play video games.

While certain amount of the male video gamer community will just say "just ignore them" and "this does not happen often", the reality is that it does but more on the Female Gamer side.

I actually had a college class lesson about this with a short research assignment and the stories you hear are rather disturbing just because the female video gamer openly admits she is female in real life to male video gamers.

One of the most disturbing stories I saw was probably the one when a female gamer was playing with her friends in FPS game for multiplayer and they finally heard the things other male gamers only say to her just because she admited she was female. One of the opponents got so mad for losing to her and her friends in a match appearantly the guy found her home address and posted it up on the internet with a picture of the house after saying in voice chat a few days ago he hopes she gets well.... sexually assulted and her family murdered.

She and her friends did call the police and the guy was arrested but his sorry excuse of defense was that he was not being serious, it was a joke, and he say these things a lot with his other male friends and they all brush it off because they know they are not being serious with each other. Well guess what.... he never posted the address information nor picture of their home on the internet with his "male" friends that he plays with nor was his insults ever death threats.