So, tonight was an unpleasant shock, to say the least. After taking stock of things I want to apologize on behalf of the team, particularly to the trans community. Black Chamber was able to fool us and in hindsight he shouldn't have been able to get as far as he did. This was a massive oversight on our part, and one that's completely unacceptable on our behalf.
When the staff initially approached Black Chamber about how we were planning to handle the Cyberpunk OT and other threads, we expected a confrontation with a superfan. We were surprised when he said all the right things and seemed very eager to cooperate. It was the kind of attitude we wished more fans of controversial media would have. Because of this, we did not do the due diligence that we might otherwise have done, and we missed or accepted explanations for red flags that should've cost him the benefit of the doubt.
I know it must be incredibly frustrating for the members who raised concerns about Black Chamber that not only were they not heeded, he turned out to be even worse than anyone knew - but many of you clearly suspected, and we should've listened. This is especially true in regards to the trans members of the community, who openly voiced their concerns and were talked down to, instead of being heard. We know the community relies on us to catch this kind of thing, and in this case we fucked up, plain and simple. Again, I apologize for that.
Apologies require action, to ensure that mistakes are not repeated. Going forward, as we noted earlier, due diligence will be done in the future when this kind of situation arises. No exceptions. We haven't made a habit of digging for members' social media in the past, but when serious suspicion exists that's going to become more regular. We are very determined that this sort of incident will never happen again. We will be personally handling OTs for controversial releases, and we will be vetting the entire contents of them and running them by the appropriate minority staff. And once more, from myself, and from everybody else on the team: We're sorry.
