Sexual harassment

[KaivaC]

You should read my post in full next time.
You'll find it makes you less foolish over all.
Because you just repeated what I said.

Your post is suggesting that it's really easy to just make a decision, get up, and just go DO something about it. I am saying that it is not that simple for some people. Some are afraid of the repercussions if they do step up and say no more, or take it to the next step and go to law enforcement. You are right that these are the steps that need to be taken in order to address something like this, but the person who finds themselves in this situation may not be capable of making that decision. It's just...not that simple. It is a known fact that a lot of victims in situations like these are terrified of coming forward to address something like this. That was the point I was trying to get across when I quoted you. And sometimes, an outside party may not even know what's going on because the victim themselves are good at hiding away their fears and pain because that's what they started to be accustomed to.

It's one thing to just blist in game. But as I've said before on the subject, a situation like what was reported in the OP can't be resolved by simply blisting. This is a real life situation and is just turning messier by the hour, and sadly, it's turning into a public war.

I think a lot of people do understand that it's difficult. But what then? What is society supposed to do for victims who won't reveal their situation or ask for help? Vulnerable people who get preyed on have all my sympathies but my sympathy won't get them to safety or heal the damage that continues being done.

Sadly, I don't believe there's much society can do further, from my viewpoint. At the end of the day, it comes down on those vulnerable individuals to be able to step forward. The best society can do in my opinion is just remain supportive of the programs and laws designed to combat the stigma that nobody cares/wants to help. It's a hard situation for me to really speak on because I've personally dealt with it a lot. And honestly, I wish I could give an answer that's more than what I've stated...but I can't, because the only thing I personally learned was finding the strength to say no more.

It's honestly a hard question to tackle.

[Solarra]

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.

Hang on a minute, you can't have this both ways. Either this was serious enough to take action or it wasn't.

I overreacted?!? Someone who started out oh so friendly and helpful started acting like a creep and I took steps to protect myself and my peace of mind and you think that's overreacting? No, it's not, it's what you're supposed to do.
I don't regret it for one moment. I did not give them the personal info they were fishing for, I didn't quietly endure their comments in the hope they'd get the message eventually, I walked. So as I see it, I did toughen up.

It was a small but very active guild and this person's partner was playing, as well as what appeared to be several long-term friends. I very much doubted the Guild leader was going to tell them the truth. I figured it was more likely they'd say I used them, got a lot of stuff out of them and then walked away. In other words, I expected them to play the victim. I weighed up the chances they'd all leave me alone if that happened, decided they were slim and left the game.
As I said in my original post, I had no other friends there outside of this guild but I did have friends who wanted me to play here, so it wasn't a hard decision.

Re your last two sentences -
Oh, I see, you're one of those plucky survivors who likes to belittle other victims because you handled it right. I guess other people were just stupid to get themselves into those situations, and since you've decided what happened to you was no big deal, everyone who thinks harassment is serious is simply overreacting, being over-emotional etc.
Well, if victim-blaming is your way of dealing with it (and by implication letting stalkers and creeps off the hook), I don't think you came through entirely unscathed.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

I never said it was easy.
You ASSUMED..it was.
I said it was simple.
Simple can be hard as hell.

Stop jumping to conclusions.
We have no right or say in what the victim will do or say.
Forcing them and discussing what should be done as a 3rd party is an insult and a joke to them.
Educate them....help them. But do not presume to act on their behalf.

[Solarra]

Sexual Harassment is a problem yes... yes its bad. But the problem is when people don't bother to do anything about it.

I agree and I'm glad we are having this discussion now and looking at what we can do about it.
It's certainly not new and I don't imagine many people think it is. However, I think there has been a distinct shift in attitudes recently. When I was younger, harassment was something you were expected to deal with quietly on your own, people didn't talk about it much and when they did, victim-blaming was rampant (you'd be hard-pressed to get any support). Online abuse was something most of my friends avoided by not saying they were female or even pretending to be male.

I've already covered what I think we could do as a community in my first post, so the next question is,

Could Square do more?
Clearly the recent articles about The Moogle Post are not the sort of publicity the company wants.
I think there are a few issues that they could address:

- Make dropping someone from your Friends List automatically remove you from theirs.
This is a big one, if you change your character's name, the new name pops up on their list and it isn't hard to work out who you are.
- Make 'divorcing' someone mean their wedding ring either disappears from their inventory or is disabled, so they cannot teleport to you.
- Remove the ability from FC leaders to lock members out of the FC house, thereby cutting off access to personal rooms (which means affected members cannot leave the FC)
- Allow PS4 users to hide their ID (even if you make a new character, that shows who you are).
- Allow us to hide our ID on the Lodestone.
- Make black-listing someone mean they cannot teleport to you using the RAF crystal or contact you in any way.

From an earlier thread on the subject of the Friends List -

People not on your Friends List but who have you on their friends list can...
• Teleport to any estate you're associated with (personal, FC, apartment)
• Moogle mail you
• Teleport to the nearest aetheryte to you if you're a new adventurer

I think we've established that the most serious harassment tends to come from people who have posed as friends and gained someone's trust, so changing these things would help people deal with that sort of situation much more effectively than they can at present.

Edit: Since the new App will synch with your Friends List, I think it's even more important that Friends List removal only being one way should be looked at ASAP

[Alleo]

There's not enough evidence and a lawyer would never take up the case. Physical hard evidence is needed. Not chat logs from a discord.

We simply dont know how much evidence they have because they surely would not talk about every single one of them. Some might be a bit too private for the whole internet to know.

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.

And what if that person you blacklisted goes around and see whom you hang out with, or in which FC you are and try to turn people against you? What can one do if its opinion against opinion and you cant prove stuff because nothing ever happened but the other person tells lies about them? I mean this even happened in that case..that the person who abused was such a nice guy on the outside that people did not believe the other person and went against them...and heck you yourself dont even need to tell that person about personal information..what if you have a naive rl friend that is also friends with them and they tell them your name? Suddenly its getting real.

[Reinha]

Sadly, I don't believe there's much society can do further, from my viewpoint. At the end of the day, it comes down on those vulnerable individuals to be able to step forward. The best society can do in my opinion is just remain supportive of the programs and laws designed to combat the stigma that nobody cares/wants to help.

I want to believe that most people would delete sexual harassment out of existence with the snap of their fingers, if they could. Even the victim blamers. People in society are told to care about this issue and try to fix it, and we come equipped with support groups, hotlines, lawyers, police, workplace codes of conduct, safehouses and public media. We are ready to tackle this issue. Then some victims don't contact support networks, don't report to law enforcement, don't try to remove themselves from the situation and don't let things go public. Because it's too hard and they can't cope with the fallout.

While totally understandable that a damaged person can't always make the right decisions, it can also be very frustrating for the other side to feel impotent to help as a result of the victim's own (in)actions. They might wrongly take that frustration out on the victims of abuse by victim blaming despite the fact that the victims have too much on their plate already and never wanted to be in that situation to begin with. So even if it originates from good intentions, putting too much pressure on victims can have the opposite effect from being helpful.

[Baingoleth]

- Make dropping someone from your friend's list automatically remove you from theirs.
This is a big one, if you change your character's name, the new name pops up on their list and it isn't hard to work out who you are.
- Make 'divorcing' someone mean their wedding ring either disappears from their inventory or is disabled, so they cannot teleport to you.
- Remove the ability from FC leaders to lock members out of the FC house, thereby cutting off access to personal rooms (which means they cannot leave the FC)
- Allow PS4 users to hide their ID (even if you make a new character, that shows who you are)
- Make black-listing someone mean they cannot teleport to you using the RAF crystal or contact you in any way.

All of these things should be implemented.

[KaivaC]

I want to believe that most people would delete sexual harassment out of existence with the snap of their fingers, if they could. Even the victim blamers. People in society are told to care about this issue and try to fix it, and we come equipped with support groups, hotlines, lawyers, police, workplace codes of conduct, safehouses and public media. We are ready to tackle this issue. Then some victims don't contact support networks, don't report to law enforcement, don't try to remove themselves from the situation and don't let things go public. Because it's too hard and they can't cope with the fallout.

While totally understandable that a damaged person can't always make the right decisions, it can also be very frustrating for the other side to feel impotent to help as a result of the victim's own (in)actions. They might wrongly take that frustration out on the victims of abuse by victim blaming despite the fact that the victims have too much on their plate already and never wanted to be in that situation to begin with. So even if it originates from good intentions, putting too much pressure on victims can have the opposite effect from being helpful.

I agree. It's tough to deal with on both sides. And unfortunately, because everybody is different, it's hard to apply a one-size-fits-all solution for everything under this umbrella. And it's hard to equip some people with the tools to prepare for the possibility of something even remotely close to this happening to them, or to someone that they personally know.

[SomeRandomHuman]

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.

This changes nothing in the advice I posted. All it does is say the obvious that probably occurred in a lot of people's minds.

[NephthysVasudan]

<snip>

Valid points all across the bow so to speak....but this detracts from the heart of the issue.
You speak of Quality of Life features that honestly are needed.
But these features are for a broad-spectrum of reasons...not just Sexual Harassment.
SE could implement them all they way....still won't stop it.

It starts with people....those who give it..and those who...well are victimized by it. If the victims don't step up and bother to say anything. Nothing happens.
And likewise - false accusations ALSO hurt people. This is why I do not like this thread-naught..save but a few posts such as yours.
Easily caught up in a flame/drama/troll fest.

Again...I'd love those features to be implemented....but they are "in a different zip code" - that just happens to coincidentally help the problem..but it won't solve it. People always find a way....sad truth anymore.