"Another developer, who chose to remain anonymous, faced an especially coordinated attack, albeit an incompetently-handled one: The company this developer freelances for, she told Kotaku in a DM, received a "a three-digit number's" worth of letters complaining that it was morally wrong to hire "a transgender," that the quality of the studio's games had gone down since she and another woman were hired, and that her Twitter account set "a bad example for the letter-writer's children, who supposedly play this game."
For a brief period of time, the developer said, her CEO was ready to tell her boss to fire her. Then, another employee realized something was amiss with the letters. "Fifty or so of them glitched out with a lot of variables exposed, including %FEMALENAME," said the developer. This made it clear that the letters were simply form letters with blank spaces for the name of any woman that the mob wanted to attack.
A deeper look at the names and emails associated with the letters went to Facebook bot profiles and people whose profiles indicated associations with Gamergate or 4chan.
"This is 100% a response to the ArenaNet thing," the developer said. "Last Saturday there was a post on 4chan in the game's general discussion thread that said something like 'Reddit proved we can get bitches fired, isn't there a female that posts here? Let's get her fired, it'll be awesome, we have the power to do it.'"
Source: Kotaku
It is deeply concerning to see this, especially given the state of anti-discrimination laws in the United States. Particularly that the CEO was almost willing to go through with this. Imagine if the harassment mob wasn't so blisteringly incompetent?
For a brief period of time, the developer said, her CEO was ready to tell her boss to fire her. Then, another employee realized something was amiss with the letters. "Fifty or so of them glitched out with a lot of variables exposed, including %FEMALENAME," said the developer. This made it clear that the letters were simply form letters with blank spaces for the name of any woman that the mob wanted to attack.
A deeper look at the names and emails associated with the letters went to Facebook bot profiles and people whose profiles indicated associations with Gamergate or 4chan.
"This is 100% a response to the ArenaNet thing," the developer said. "Last Saturday there was a post on 4chan in the game's general discussion thread that said something like 'Reddit proved we can get bitches fired, isn't there a female that posts here? Let's get her fired, it'll be awesome, we have the power to do it.'"
Source: Kotaku
It is deeply concerning to see this, especially given the state of anti-discrimination laws in the United States. Particularly that the CEO was almost willing to go through with this. Imagine if the harassment mob wasn't so blisteringly incompetent?
