Stalking and Harassment, GM/Square Enix Refusal to act

[Zealty]

I can attest to the severity of the situation in the view shared by Ashemmi as well as the post by Elina here. The degree of sociopathic tendencies the harasser represents is indeed terrible, and I'm one of the individuals affected and being referred to as having temporarily stopped playing as a result of their belligerent actions. I've honestly felt I had no recourse but to start playing on another character to even feel remotely secure, since every method I've taken against this person hasn't ever fully gone through and they've always been active in their harassment. It's an absurd situation in my mind considering the blatantly crude nature of their actions and how unrelenting they've been in them for so long.

Despite the indignation and discomfort here I still can't really bring myself to stop playing XIV altogether, though. While it cannot be understated how flawed the systematic application underlying effective moderation and the relevant social interfacing in confronting stalking-related harassment in XIV's environments truly is, I do think it's reasonable to assume that the body of moderating forces would want to be able to do all in their power to resolve these situations despite the "logistical barriers" impeding them.

Maybe there'll come a day that the Friends List and Blacklist systems get their much needed overhaul, and I'm thinking that that would be the first step to better handling situations like these overhead. But unfortunately, it doesn't seem too likely based on a lot of credible information presented elsewhere. I'm not holding out any hope or optimism for it happening, even though I wish I could. It's difficult to present an optimistic picture of potential in-house solutions for matters that get this severe, that go beyond a threshold of manageability, considering precisely what OdinelStarrei is highlighting.

As much as it pains me to admit it, I have to concede that these instances will ultimately end up being reduced to impersonal statistics in the whole of the XIV social setting, when it is somewhat by deliberate design that certain social interfacing features are the way they are for reasons deemed "necessary" (on a subjective user basis). It seems that unless on the individual level I, or the affected peoples can take matters into our own hands in our own ways (with my only effort so far being to play a different character altogether, or idle on my main infrequently), or perhaps even bring these issues into the real and legal world in some form this kind of nonsense is probably not like to get better.


OR MAYBE, this cynical outlook can be proven wrong by SE directly down the road. That would sure be nice..

[Ashemmi]

Emboldened, because nothing happens to them in game -- they also approach me on the outside.
Yes, that's a friend request from them.
The links they spread, call my character out specifically -- even inviting others to whisper those oh so "sweet" lewd nothings to me.

I've taken the time to black out the direct links, and obscure the images.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...24/discord.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...072/f-list.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...34/f-list2.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachmen...34706/link.png

[Blackweaver]

I will add my own voice here. Last year, I had a literal anxiety attack. I had long left Ashemmi's FC to join one that was more fitting for me. And one of these stalkers came into my private chambers of my new FC house, and did some very innappropriate emotes and /say at me and left. I reported them, and had to log but when I got back on a GM I talked to seemed sympathetic to what happened. However now I've learned that same person, is with the person that is harassing Ashemmi, and likely I was targeted because I used to be a member of their FC. That kind of behavior should of in my opinion, resulted in a far harsher punishment if they even experienced any kind of punishment. The fact they have joined with harassing others is quite upsetting.

[NekoMataMata]

They don't feel shame. They aren't human, they're a business.

This, but as usual people will defend businesses they're obsessed with until they go overboard.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with this kind of harassment OP, I hope a mod who is willing to escalate this issue sees this.

SE, are you there?

Have I ever told you that you strike me as being incredibly fake?

When posts like these come up you're always there to pretend to be wholesome, give your sympathies and do so forth despite the fact that you've openly supported the behavior that's antagonizing OP before.

But you also don't want to be able to indivually block people from entering houses because "muh right to enter venues".



Something that would go a long way to prevent some of these issues.

Thank you. Someone had to say it.

@ OP sorry about the mess. I have no solutions, we both know SE openly allows this issue to exist.

[Boblawblah]

Have I ever told you that you strike me as being incredibly fake?

When posts like these come up you're always there to pretend to be wholesome, give your sympathies and do so forth despite the fact that you've openly supported the behavior that's antagonizing OP before.

??

Do tell, when have I openly support stalking someone/making multiple alts, etc like the OP is mentioning their harasser is doing...? I don't generally delete my posts, so have at it.

[Bobby66]

If it has been three years, couldn't you in theory have had all your friends impacted by this create new characters on a new server? I know it sucks, but surely it must be better than dealing with this for three years.

[Jojoya]

You're going about this the wrong way. Posting in the forums won't get anything done. It's not going to be seen by anyone in a position to do anything about the situation.

If this individual is as bad as you claim they are, each of you that have been targeted by this individual need to take all the evidence collectively accumulated and go to your local law enforcement agencies to file complaints. On the off chance your local law enforcement is not the correct agency, they should refer you to the one that is.

In the US, the FBI oversees the Internet Crime Complaint Center. While they only investigate certain types of crimes happening online, they do track reports for all types and will also refer reports they get to the appropriate agency for investigation. If you feel uncomfortable going directly to your local law enforcement (usually the correct agency for most US states for cyber harassment/bullying), you can file a report here: https://www.ic3.gov

If anyone that has been targeted is a minor child in the US, they (or their parents) need to file a report here: https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/cybertipline
(National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). These situations get taken far more seriously when a child is directly involved.

You may also want to contact legal aid organizations that offer free consultations to see if this is something that could be pursued at a civil law level against this individual if law enforcement won't consider it worth their time for criminal investigation (and perhaps even if law enforcement does take it up at a criminal level).

Anything that SE does is going to be temporary at best. As should be apparent by now, they cannot stop this individual from setting up new accounts if they're intent on continuing the harassment. Banning their account will give you maybe an hour's relief before they're back online again to continue using the new account.

SE also have no ability to control what this individual does outside of the game, such as posting lewd/suggestive images on Discord. If there is nothing that comes up in their game logs that clearly shows inappropriate activity, they will not take action unless they are instructed to do so by a court order.

Take it to law enforcement. This is not a problem that SE will be able to fix to your satisfaction if the harassing material is being distributed outside of game and not being linked in game chat channels. A player simply being in the same place as your characters is not a violation of the ToS regardless of whether you think they have reason to be there or not.

[strawberrycake]

The problem with this is, I've seen you trying for a while to get something done, at this point they have 2-3 years worth of evidence to ban their MAC address and keep them off the game for good, but ofc they won't.

[Bobby66]

You're going about this the wrong way. Posting in the forums won't get anything done. It's not going to be seen by anyone in a position to do anything about the situation.

If this individual is as bad as you claim they are, each of you that have been targeted by this individual need to take all the evidence collectively accumulated and go to your local law enforcement agencies to file complaints. On the off chance your local law enforcement is not the correct agency, they should refer you to the one that is.

In the US, the FBI oversees the Internet Crime Complaint Center. While they only investigate certain types of crimes happening online, they do track reports for all types and will also refer reports they get to the appropriate agency for investigation. If you feel uncomfortable going directly to your local law enforcement (usually the correct agency for most US states for cyber harassment/bullying), you can file a report here: https://www.ic3.gov

If anyone that has been targeted is a minor child in the US, they (or their parents) need to file a report here: https://www.missingkids.org/gethelpnow/cybertipline
(National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). These situations get taken far more seriously when a child is directly involved.

You may also want to contact legal aid organizations that offer free consultations to see if this is something that could be pursued at a civil law level against this individual if law enforcement won't consider it worth their time for criminal investigation (and perhaps even if law enforcement does take it up at a criminal level).

Anything that SE does is going to be temporary at best. As should be apparent by now, they cannot stop this individual from setting up new accounts if they're intent on continuing the harassment. Banning their account will give you maybe an hour's relief before they're back online again to continue using the new account.

SE also have no ability to control what this individual does outside of the game, such as posting lewd/suggestive images on Discord. If there is nothing that comes up in their game logs that clearly shows inappropriate activity, they will not take action unless they are instructed to do so by a court order.

Take it to law enforcement. This is not a problem that SE will be able to fix to your satisfaction if the harassing material is being distributed outside of game and not being linked in game chat channels. A player simply being in the same place as your characters is not a violation of the ToS regardless of whether you think they have reason to be there or not.

Can law enforcement do anything? From what they claim the targeted harassment is more so aimed towards their characters in a video game? Has their ever been a case where law enforcement has done something regarding this kind of behavior?

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

The problem with this is, I've seen you trying for a while to get something done, at this point they have 2-3 years worth of evidence to ban their MAC address and keep them off the game for good, but ofc they won't.

That wouldn't do anything. MAC address blocks only work for the last hop. SE gets the MAC address of their ISP. It changes with every hop you make. So by the time any traffic reaches the servers, the MAC address has changed about 30 times. Its not kept with the packets. IP address blocking also doesn't really work, as ISPs rotate them, no one has a static IP unless requested.


And if they are using trial accounts with fake info to circumvent bans, theres nothing SE can do. You have to go to the authorities for things like this.