UK Game Stores Band Together To Ban Alleged Bully [Updated]

Below is an open letter published by a number of UK game stores which have banded together to ban an individual who they say bullies disabled gamers. If that's true - good for them! We don't need or want bullies in our hobby. Note: I removed the name of the guy.

It has come to our attention that at a recent tournament held by Groovy Frog, Yugioh player XXXX caused distress and harassment to an opponent who had learning difficulties, and had a confrontation with both his opponent’s parent and the store owners which has resulted in him being banned from the store.

Subsequently a video was made which showed XXXX and his mates joking about playing against someone with Downs Syndrome, something which was likely to cause further harassment, alarm and distress.

Under section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986:

(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he:
(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby."

This offence has the following statutory defences:

(a) The defendant had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be alarmed or distressed by his action.
(b) The defendant was in a dwelling and had no reason to believe that his behaviour would be seen or heard by any person outside any dwelling.
(c) The conduct was reasonable.

Because this was committed against a vulnerable person, we understand that under the law these actions are considered aggravated.

It is sometimes hard for Yugioh players to understand that the real world is not the playground. Our stores and clubs should be a refuge against bullying and discrimination in all its forms. Most players – and some store owners – will have experienced bullying at school to a lesser or greater extent. Traumatising a vulnerable player with learning difficulties, mocking him in person and then mocking him subsequently (albeit I suspect unintentionally) by talking about the incident on You Tube is the sort of behaviour we cannot countenance or condone.

It is because of this that we have decided, unilaterally to take action and ban XXXX Lennard from our stores and tournaments forthwith.

Under the law, the maximum penalty for an offence of this type against a vulnerable victim would be six months in jail. The following stores have signed up to ban XXXX for six months beginning today the 20th of August and lasting until the 20th of February, at which point we will review his conduct.

If during those six months it comes to our attention that XXXX has learned nothing from this experience, then we shall extend that ban until such time as he does. This ban and its condition should indicate how seriously we believe behaviour like this is totally unacceptable, and will run concurrent with whatever penalty Konami subsequently impose.

Yours sincerely

Acme Games
Area 51
Chimera Beeston/Cardslinger Events
Comics & Collectibles
Eclectic Games
Fan Boy Three
Gamers Nexus
Groovy Frog
Guys That Game
Highlander Games
Kids Dreams
Leisure Games
Orcs Nest
Patriot Games Sheffield
Patriot Games Leeds
Rules of Play
Scythe & Teacup
The Gamers’ Emporium
The Games Shop
The Games Store
Wayland’s Forge
Zone Out

[h=3]Update[/h]
The individual has posted the following video covering his side of the issue.

[video=youtube_share;iPGv78g7IbU]http://youtu.be/iPGv78g7IbU[/video]​

 

[Janx]

To me, this thread perfectly illustrates the power, and problems of vigilante justice.

I forget if you were in the Economics discussion, but economics is really Psychology and Sociology with math. I suspect that's where the idea got passed to the Psychology department to start learning how to use MiniTab.

Anyway, what I see is is a self-balancing system.

Kid misbehaves, people respond. If their response is over-handed (ex. vigilante justice), more people will respond to that, than the inciting incident.

Eventually, apologies and retractions will be made. AND, the next time an incident happens, the price for that incident has already been set in the market.

An economist will say Market. A sociologist will say society.

It will all work out in the end. And the kid hopefully learned a lesson about what he broadcasts to the world.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Kid misbehaves, people respond. If their response is over-handed (ex. vigilante justice), more people will respond to that, than the inciting incident.

That's incredibly optimistic. The most common response, I've seen, to misapplied outrage is to rationalize the previous outrage.

For example, on another website I read, someone outed another person as conning them in a Magic: the Gathering card trade worth about $50. The guy came to the post and professed their innocence, because he was harassed on the website with a barrage of PMs. For defending himself, he was rewarded with another user finding his address and publicly posting it, along with his employer, with threats to call the employer.

That's when the original poster came in and said he had accidently typed the name wrong, and this wasn't the guy. It was a different guy with a similar user name. Oops.

The harassers' response? The guy deserved it anyway because he came off as a jerk while defending himself. It was his own fault, and he shouldn't have been so mean to them. And, this is a case where the guy didn't even do anything wrong! Luckily he didn't lose his job over it. I've seen that happen, though. I've seen much worse than this, terrible accusations based on no more than some Internet detective work that hurt people. Harassment that leads to people having to change phone numbers because of the barrage of callers day and night. Calls to employers that get people fired. And nobody stops because they apologize.

Again, I don't think that will happen in this case. Googling the kid's name doesn't bring up this issue as a top result, so it hopefully won't cost him a future job. But, the business who put this up for the world to see didn't know that. They couldn't guarantee that this wouldn't go viral and mean that any future employer Googling his name didn't see this as the first result in their search, or that someone wouldn't dig up the kid's number and harass his parents into changing their number, or send death threats to his house. They didn't know, but they did it anyway. Without thought.

How someone can do something like this and write it off as "This probably won't harm the kid's life or his families much, so its okay" I don't even comprehend. How irresponsible.

So if you're wondering why I, and some others, are appalled by this thing, I hope I've given some explanation.

 

[Morrus]

Finally, we have news from Oklahoma about 3 teenagers who killed a college baseball player because they were bored.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/justice/australia-student-killed-oklahoma

1) Is this news here? I'd guess similar numbers of EN Worlders have played baseball at some point in their lives as have played Yu-Gi-Oh. There's not a game store involved but the incident was far more severe.

If a bunch of game stores band together to ban them and write an open letter about it, then sure - that would be news here.

 

[Morrus]

That's when the original poster came in and said he had accidently typed the name wrong, and this wasn't the guy. It was a different guy with a similar user name. Oops.

If that we're the case here, I agree that it would be terrible. It's not, though!

Again, I don't think that will happen in this case. Googling the kid's name doesn't bring up this issue as a top result, so it hopefully won't cost him a future job. But, the business who put this up for the world to see didn't know that. They couldn't guarantee that this wouldn't go viral and mean that any future employer Googling his name didn't see this as the first result in their search, or that someone wouldn't dig up the kid's number and harass his parents into changing their number, or send death threats to his house. They didn't know, but they did it anyway. Without thought.

How someone can do something like this and write it off as "This probably won't harm the kid's life or his families much, so its okay" I don't even comprehend. How irresponsible.

So if you're wondering why I, and some others, are appalled by this thing, I hope I've given some explanation.

Bear in mind the primary source - his own public video - was still up until yesterday. A video that has had a lot of views. If anything was going to go viral, it was that. He's finally removed it and posted the above video in its place, also publicly.

I think what people aren't realising is that he made it public, not anyone else.

What I will, do, though, for my own little part, is edit his name out of the article.

 

[ThirdWizard]

If that we're the case here, I agree that it would be terrible. It's not, though!

Bear in mind the primary source - his own public video - was still up until yesterday. A video that has had a lot of views. If anything was going to go viral, it was that. He's finally removed it and posted the above video in its place, also publicly.

I think what people aren't realising is that he made it public, not anyone else.

My point was mainly that anyone who would partake in internet vigilantism wouldn't stop because of an apology. The belief by the businesses that everything would just end if there's an apology ignores the reality of what the Internet is. Once it is out there, you can't pull it back in. By the same token, he pulled the youtube video, but he can never be sure it is gone for good. Someone could have saved it and it could pop up later without his approval. He'll have to live with that possibility from now on, if he realizes it. A lot of stupid kids on youtube will have to live with that.

It reminds me of a guy I used to work with who was flirting with a woman at a Christmas party one year who was most assuredly not his wife . That photo got out onto the Internet. He came to us (IT department) to see if we could remove it from the Internet. No such luck there. You have to live with your mistakes, and the consequences. No questions there. If a future employer saw the kid's own youtube video, I'd say that's his own fault.

What I will, do, though, for my own little part, is edit his name out of the article.

I want to say thanks for listening to my concerns. I try to stray away from "serious" topics around here in order to keep from ruffling any feathers. I hope I've been measured and respectful in my posts. I have strong opinions on some topics and this is one of them.

 

[Janx]

That's incredibly optimistic. The most common response, I've seen, to misapplied outrage is to rationalize the previous outrage.

...snip...
The harassers' response? The guy deserved it anyway because he came off as a jerk while defending himself. It was his own fault, and he shouldn't have been so mean to them. And, this is a case where the guy didn't even do anything wrong! Luckily he didn't lose his job over it. I've seen that happen, though. I've seen much worse than this, terrible accusations based on no more than some Internet detective work that hurt people. Harassment that leads to people having to change phone numbers because of the barrage of callers day and night. Calls to employers that get people fired. And nobody stops because they apologize.
..snip..

So if you're wondering why I, and some others, are appalled by this thing, I hope I've given some explanation.

Those are terrible things. For which the law provides protection under slander and libel laws. The guy was falsely accused and financially hurt. That's big money in court.

Further, it's a free internet. The guy was free to go hunt down his harassers in the same way and sabotage their reputations with facts in the same way they did to him.

Once the system self corrects by someone like this guy going postal on false accusers or suing them back to the stone age, and false accusers will think twice before they go on a witch hunt.

Just like this situation where Shop Owners thought it was a good idea to not only ban a bully, but to publicize his name.

 

[Salamandyr]

What I will, do, though, for my own little part, is edit his name out of the article.

Thank you.

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

What I will, do, though, for my own little part, is edit his name out of the article.

I think that's a completely sensible response. Thank you sir.

 

[Janx]

I want to say thanks for listening to my concerns. I try to stray away from "serious" topics around here in order to keep from ruffling any feathers. I hope I've been measured and respectful in my posts. I have strong opinions on some topics and this is one of them.

I think they were totally valid concerns and nicely explained.

My philosophy that the planet will sort it all out, doesn't account for any empathy to the eggs that get broken along the way.

 

[sabrinathecat]

The stores have the right to refuse service to anyone.
I don't know if the open letter is quite the right way to go about announcing it, but then again, none of us were there.
Libel: written (demonstrable) falsehoods that assault character and causes damage to business or reputation
Slander: verbal (demonstrable) falsehoods that assault character and causes damage to business or reputation.
In this case, there was clearly an incident. The letter, itself, does not cause any harm to the minor's business, but as for reputation... well, again, we weren't there for the incident.
What other people choose to do is not in the control of the businesses issuing the ban.

Simple way to prevent the problem: don't behave like a prat or a complete and total smeg-head!

I for one find people posting every time they sneeze or break wind on facebook and suchlike to be mind-bogglingly annoying and short-sighted. A little discretion goes a long way.
For years we had "let it all hang out." I think I'd like it if people learned to "suck it back in" a little.