Square Enix now threatens to send players to jail for criticizing their employees

[Archeron]

Recognizing the efforts in Dawntrail and giving praise to the people behind them is akin to giving a round of applause to the Captain who sunk the Titanic. Way to go, Captain! Bang up job you've done. Can't wait to see more of your work! When they deliver us content of decent quality, then they can ask for praise that will be deserving of the quality of work delivered. Mindless positivity drives failure, and sends the ship into the iceberg. - Critical feedback provides an alternative route, around the iceberg.

Their policy (As it is translated in English) is a massive failure. It could be applied to broadly as to silence anyone providing critical feedback on any feature of any SE game. This is not the answer at a time when SE should be listening and responding to its community as player numbers hemorrhage in response to Dawntrail's many, and continued failures.

[Mawlzy]

Recognizing the efforts in Dawntrail and giving praise to the people behind them is akin to giving a round of applause to the Captain who sunk the Titanic. Way to go, Captain! Bang up job you've done. Can't wait to see more of your work! When they deliver us content of decent quality, then they can ask for praise that will be deserving of the quality of work delivered. Mindless positivity drives failure, and sends the ship into the iceberg. - Critical feedback provides an alternative route, around the iceberg.

Their policy (As it is translated in English) is a massive failure. It could be applied to broadly as to silence anyone providing critical feedback on any feature of any SE game. This is not the answer at a time when SE should be listening and responding to its community as player numbers hemorrhage in response to Dawntrail's many, and continued failures.

I imagine it's quite confusing for Yoshi-P et al when they go to fanfest and get treated like rock stars, then finding the fawning of the fans replaced by furious forum feedback.

[sindriiisgaming]

https://www.vice.com/en/article/squa...ant-be-normal/

L O L

I've seen people stalk and harass KATE and SENA on kiwi and 4chan during my morbid observation and at this point something needs to be done to stop it. with sena i understand (no i dont condone it ofcourse not god) but with kate.. i cannot understand this. xiv's localization is not even that bad. yes i prefer the japanese names but this is like dub vs sub puritanical argument. the english is its own thing. who cares. I cant believe ppl are harassing them over this.

[DiaDeem]

[Rueby]

What is unreasonable changes? That's so vague, then again their ToS has always been vague, according to it hurting someone's feelings is considered an offense or so I've been told 5 years ago.

[CidHeiral]

Anyone who finds issue with this policy is probably a very toxic individual and exactly who it's aimed at.

[Yshnal]

Anyone who finds issue with this policy is probably a very toxic individual and exactly who it's aimed at.

It actually looks to be aimed at people that can be identified easily by SE themselves in order to terminate their service. For example, people using these forums or content creators. My guess is that it's especially aimed at the latter, as their opinions are what can actually damage SE more.

If anyone actually thinks that the people unstable enough to be sending death threats are going to stop doing so just because of this new policy, well, you're free to think so, I guess. But I can guarantee you that they'll just become even more vicious if anything were to happen to their access to their games (per the new policy: "cease providing support services or to refrain from providing our group's products and services").

To make it perfectly clear, since many people are just reading the article and not the actual policy, allow me to try to explain what might be worrying some people:

Should Square Enix determine that an individual has engaged in an action against one of our employees or partners that exceeds socially acceptable behavior or is harmful, we reserve our right to cease providing support services or to refrain from providing our group's products and services.

This means that SE can remove your access to your games if they think that you did something unacceptable, without any third party being able to intervene. Keep reading.

Where such action is egregious or with malicious intent, Square Enix reserves its right to protect its employees and partners and to take legal action or criminal proceedings upon consulting the police and/or lawyers.

Okay, fine. It's a warning, nothing against it. Even better, I think that that's what they should do. So, all is good on this part.

However, let's see some of the things that SE can consider "customer harassment or exceeds socially acceptable behavior or is harmful", among others that aren't even mentioned directly due to a vague "but are not limited to" in the sentence (to make things worse):

Harassment:
Act of violence, violent behavior
Repeated visits
Trespassing by visiting or staying in an office or related facility without permission
Unlawful restraint including via telephone calls and online inquiries
Infringement of privacy by taking pictures or making video recordings without consent
Sexual harassment, stalking, repeated stalking behavior

This is reasonable, easy to discern, and also highly illegal behavior. No ifs or buts on these points. Make the full weight of the law come after the people doing any of them.

Harassment:
Abusive language, intimidation, coercion, duress, excessive pursuit or reprimand
Defamation/slander, denial of personality, personal attack (including email, contact in contact form, comment or post on the internet), advance notice of wrongdoing, advance notice of obstruction of business
Persistent inquiries
Discriminatory speech and conduct regarding race, ethnicity, religion, family origin, occupation, etc.

Undue demand:
Unreasonable changes or exchange of product or request for monetary compensation
Unreasonable response or request for an apology (including face-to-face response or request for an apology specifying the position of our employee or partners)
Excessive requests for the provision of products and services exceeding socially accepted norms
Unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment of our employees

These are the ones that can actually be troublesome, since they can be highly subjective. For example, what qualifies as intimidating, a personal attack, or discriminatory can depend on the person. And what's "unreasonable" for one person won't be for another one. The main problem is that it will be SE the one deciding if it was or if it wasn't, and not someone external to the issue (like a judge). In other words, they can terminate your service just because they decided that you made too many posts asking for viera hats, or complaining about the English localization, or asking for more content, or asking for a previous worker to come back instead of some new one, etc. Yes, acording to that policy they could, if they decided that you were tresspassing what they consider "unreasonable". And God help you if you are a content creator, since then you posting that online would make it even worse, the larger your audience is, since they could consider that it makes the supposed harassment worse (it could be considered obstruction of business, for example, if they recommend not buying certain game).

Source: https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/c...nt_policy.html

Maybe if this had been done some years ago no one would had been worried back then. But the problem is the timing, what has been happening in the industry as of late, and the current circumstances surrounding SE and their games. And remember, again, that it would be SE alone the ones deciding if you did or didn't actually do something bad, and that some can be heavily subjective. Considering this, I think that it's normal that even people that aren't toxic are worried about certain parts of the policy.

[sindriiisgaming]

Harassment:
Abusive language, intimidation, coercion, duress, excessive pursuit or reprimand
Defamation/slander, denial of personality, personal attack (including email, contact in contact form, comment or post on the internet), advance notice of wrongdoing, advance notice of obstruction of business
Persistent inquiries
Discriminatory speech and conduct regarding race, ethnicity, religion, family origin, occupation, etc.

Undue demand:
Unreasonable changes or exchange of product or request for monetary compensation
Unreasonable response or request for an apology (including face-to-face response or request for an apology specifying the position of our employee or partners)
Excessive requests for the provision of products and services exceeding socially accepted norms
Unreasonable and excessive demands for punishment of our employees

These are the ones that can actually be troublesome, since they can be highly subjective. For example, what qualifies as intimidating, a personal attack, or discriminatory can depend on the person. And what's "unreasonable" for one person won't be for another one. The main problem is that it will be SE the one deciding if it was or if it wasn't, and not someone external to the issue (like a judge). In other words, they can terminate your service just because they decided that you made too many posts asking for viera hats, or complaining about the English localization, or asking for more content, or asking for a previous worker to come back instead of some new one, etc. Yes, according to that policy they could, if they decided that you were trespassing what they consider "unreasonable". And God help you if you are a content creator, since then you posting that online would make it even worse, the larger your audience is, since they could consider that it makes the supposed harassment worse (it could be considered obstruction of business, for example, if they recommend not buying certain game).

a lot of these are very.. shall we say "tailored" and it makes me wonder what exactly has been going on ever since DT released. I did see many people threatening for refunds due to wuk lamat english VA. i did see xenosys attack her and call her names. and i did see an insane amount of transphobia and tranvestigating of Sena/Kate ever since all of this. I wonder how bad this problem is that SE felt they had no other recourse.

[Kandraxx]

The moment you sign up they (like virtually all other game companies doing online content) have already reserved the right to close your account, at any time, for any or no reason at all.

Seems pretty pointless outside of serving as a weird backwards kinda PR stunt.

[CidHeiral]

It actually looks to be aimed at people that can be identified easily by SE themselves in order to terminate their service. For example, people using these forums or content creators. My guess is that it's especially aimed at the latter, as their opinions are what can actually damage SE more.

If anyone actually thinks that the people unstable enough to be sending death threats are going to stop doing so just because of this new policy, well, you're free to think so, I guess. But I can guarantee you that they'll just become even more vicious if anything were to happen to their access to their games (per the new policy: "cease providing support services or to refrain from providing our group's products and services").

Allowing people to have free reign to continue their inappropriate behavior because you're afraid banning them will make them angrier is a pretty nonsensical policy.

These are the ones that can actually be troublesome, since they can be highly subjective. For example, what qualifies as intimidating, a personal attack, or discriminatory can depend on the person. And what's "unreasonable" for one person won't be for another one. The main problem is that it will be SE the one deciding if it was or if it wasn't, and not someone external to the issue (like a judge). In other words, they can terminate your service just because they decided that you made too many posts asking for viera hats, or complaining about the English localization, or asking for more content, or asking for a previous worker to come back instead of some new one, etc. Yes, acording to that policy they could, if they decided that you were tresspassing what they consider "unreasonable". And God help you if you are a content creator, since then you posting that online would make it even worse, the larger your audience is, since they could consider that it makes the supposed harassment worse (it could be considered obstruction of business, for example, if they recommend not buying certain game).

Nobody is getting banned because they're complaining about Viera hats unless they're also making vile toxic comments toward the devs in the same breath. Again, people concerned about this policy are clearly dog whistling that they want to be able to tell the devs to off themselves over every little grievance with no repercussions. Any decent human being has nothing to worry about.