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



## Dannyalcatraz

Kick the bullies out!


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## TrippyHippy

Good for them. You'd think someone involved in a 'geeky' hobby, would know enough not to be a bully.


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## frankthedm

Heh, business quoting the law trying to act intimidating. I've seen that before :rollyeyes:

It doesn't have enough intel, but this apology issued _weeks_ ago might be worth noting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvWWVqSu_sM&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIBtoNrWNgPp0c2WsNtGvqQ

Sounds like the mom harassed his associate over youtube comments, then harassed him in the line due to a rules issues and later he makes the insensitive comments in a train amoung his friends, not at the venue to the alleged victim. Due to the no politics rules, I'll withhold further comments


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## Janx

frankthedm said:


> Heh, business quoting the law trying to act intimidating. I've seen that before :rollyeyes:




As opposed to them just making it up as they go along?

Of course their declaration doesn't have legal standing or support.

However, as free individuals, they have a right to decide who enters their store.  They chose to identify a bad actor, and a real law that indicates the actor's behavior was bad and to ban said bad actor.

totally within their right to do so on their property.


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## ThirdWizard

Beware of starting something like this on the Internet. These things can turn ugly really quickly.


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## Umbran

frankthedm said:


> Sounds like the mom harassed his associate over youtube comments, then harassed him in the line due to a rules issues and later he makes the insensitive comments in a train amoung his friends, not at the venue to the alleged victim. Due to the no politics rules, I'll withhold further comments




*shrug*.  We weren't there, so to us, there's going to be some "he said, she said" to the reportage.  Let's say that's what happened, for argument's sake.  Mom gets on his case.  So, he strikes out at the kid?  I see you claim it was not at the venue, to the victim, but the OP says that the victim was present.

Do you take your anger at your neighbor out on the neighbor's kids?  Sounds like seriously bad form, to me.

As for the legalisms - they don't come across to me as trying to be more intimidating.  They are trying to display a justification for action.  "Since the law does this, we are taking that as our guideline."


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## Janx

ThirdWizard said:


> Beware of starting something like this on the Internet. These things can turn ugly really quickly.




It's certainly gets sticky by naming a person, who can then claim they were slandered or libeled or whatever it's called (do we really need 2 terms that mean the same thing but in different communication forms?)

I do see that folks DO need to start taking action like banning against these bully types.

Kind of like that high school foot ball star who recorded a youtube video where he laughed about some girl getting raped at a party he was at that he apparently witnessed.

While nobody should threaten the guy with violence, the entire village should shun that jerkhole and refuse service to him.

Remember when bad behavior got you kicked out of the club?


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## Salamandyr

He may be a complete prat, but publicizing his name all over the internet, to people _in other countries_, who have never met him and will never hear his side of the story, is also bullying.


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## Janx

Salamandyr said:


> He may be a complete prat, but publicizing his name all over the internet, to people _in other countries_, who have never met him and will never hear his side of the story, is also bullying.




In today's world of every idiot posting YouTubes of themselves acting like a jerk, that may be the consequence of doing so.

If you post a video of yourself doing something bad, that IS your side of the story and the internet is free to decide what to do with you.

Don't like the terms of service, don't put your name out there.

There's folks out there who are afraid of 1984-like government censorship.

The real problem is everybody is broadcasting their thoughts and information out by their own active choice and are then horrified to learn that other people don't like them anymore.


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## Morrus

Salamandyr said:


> He may be a complete prat, but publicizing his name all over the internet, to people _in other countries_, who have never met him and will never hear his side of the story, is also bullying.




That's what news is. Or are you suggesting that news should only ever be local to you? I hear about news, big and small, from other countries all the time.

And of course folks can hear his side of the story.


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## ThirdWizard

Janx said:


> In today's world of every idiot posting YouTubes of themselves acting like a jerk, that may be the consequence of doing so.




Was he doing that? 

And, even if he did (which isn't the story being posted in this thread), we still aren't talking about people not liking him. We're talking about harassing and bullying someone because someone else told us he's a bully. You know, maybe the kid deserves it. I don't know. But, I do know that a _lot_ of people get doxxed, and it isn't pretty when something like a phone number or an address gets leaked. Even if he is the whatever percent of people that are actually guilty, what control is there over the response level? None. And, its easy to get all kinds of information on people once you have their name and area. All it takes is one person to dig it up.

This case probably won't go that far. Most don't. But, its still dangerous and still unprofessional for a group of businesses to pile up on a minor. If they want to ban him from their stores, that's fine. Just don't do anything to incite an Internet mob. Once its on, it cannot be called off. Maybe only one in a hundred cases of stuff like this leads to actual harm, but why take the chance?


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## Salamandyr

Morrus said:


> That's what news is. Or are you suggesting that news should only ever be local to you? I hear about news, big and small, from other countries all the time.
> 
> And of course folks can hear his side of the story.




EDIT: While I was writing this, Thirdwizard said it much better than I did.  So just consider me as saying "Ditto" to Thirdwizard.

If this was a public figure of some sort I'd agree with you.  Perhaps he's got some prominence that I'm not aware of, other than being a jerk?  

That all game stores in England have chosen to ban a single individual _is _news.  In general though, one doesn't quite so prominently use the persons name to tell that story.  That seems like it is inviting other people to join in, and that leads to harassment, and often death threats.

I'm not trying to defend this persons behavior; I don't know this person.  I just would like people to remember there's a limit to appropriate opprobrium.


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## Morrus

He hasn't been "outed" or "named". He himself made it public via the very public video sharing service, YouTube, under his own name, using his own face on video. Sure, he's removed it now (probably a wise decision). 

What's happened now is that people are reacting/responding to that public video. Which is the whole point of putting something publicly on YouTube. That's what the website is for.

You can see his further, again shared publicly, video response, above.


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## billd91

Salamandyr said:


> He may be a complete prat, but publicizing his name all over the internet, to people _in other countries_, who have never met him and will never hear his side of the story, is also bullying.




No it isn't. Public exposure of bad behavior (or any behavior for that matter) and ostracism isn't bullying. It may be somewhat daunting when you realize you've become internationally notorious, but that isn't bullying either. There's no use of force or coercion, there's no harassment, there's no assault. It may put public pressure on the target, but not all public pressure is bullying.


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## Janx

ThirdWizard said:


> This case probably won't go that far. Most don't. But, its still dangerous and still unprofessional for a group of businesses to pile up on a minor. If they want to ban him from their stores, that's fine. Just don't do anything to incite an Internet mob. Once its on, it cannot be called off. Maybe only one in a hundred cases of stuff like this leads to actual harm, but why take the chance?




I don't disagree with your logic either, as I alluded in my first post on this thread.  It may not be a good idea to go naming the guy you don't like in public.

Heck, chastizing somebody in public for their public act of bad behavior is the same risk for yourself as the bad actor took in drawing reactive attention.

To me it's just risk.  Each party is free to decide how how they want to react.

It is always wrong to behave badly.  It is not wrong to oppose and respond in force against bad behavior.  Sometimes, YOU are somebody else's Karma coming back to bite them.  Without this, there is no consequence for bad behavior.

Obviously, there is such thing as going overboard with the force used in a response.  If not legally, then societally.  Like the new car commercial where the kid keeps taking his clothes off and throwing them out the window while the car is moving and laughing about it.  

The commercial isn't going to show it, but the kid should not be laughing by the end of that episode.  A correct response might be a slap on the hand to teach him not to do that anymore.  Packing more clothes to replace the lost ones is not an acceptable adult response.  Nor is hauling the kid out and giving him 40 lashes with a crop.

Whatever your parenting style, doing nothing teaches nothing.  Likewise, doing too much will get you too much trouble.

Choose wisely


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## Salamandyr

billd91 said:


> No it isn't. Public exposure of bad behavior (or any behavior for that matter) and ostracism isn't bullying. It may be somewhat daunting when you realize you've become internationally notorious, but that isn't bullying either. There's no use of force or coercion, there's no harassment, there's no assault. It may put public pressure on the target, but not all public pressure is bullying.




There is a line that crosses from "public exposure of bad behavior" to bullying.  You see it a lot in politics, where agitating groups publish the names and addresses of their political opponents to invite attacks on them.  And when they're called out on it?  The excuse they use is exactly the on you just used.  It's an attempt to bully opponents into silence by using the power of the mob against them.

Is that the case in this particular case?  Upon further reflection, I don't think it quite rises to that level.  (the behavior of the game stores all banding together to ban him might).   But it does come uncomfortably close, especially using the person's name and calling him a "bully" in the thread title.


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## Janx

billd91 said:


> No it isn't. Public exposure of bad behavior (or any behavior for that matter) and ostracism isn't bullying. It may be somewhat daunting when you realize you've become internationally notorious, but that isn't bullying either. There's no use of force or coercion, there's no harassment, there's no assault. It may put public pressure on the target, but not all public pressure is bullying.




Exactly.

Obviously, there could be some other jerkhole to take this new information about a jerkhole and do something ridiculous.  But that's on him.  Not you.  Information is information.  Misuse of it is on the individual using it, not the source.

it takes a village to raise a child.

With the advent of publishing your behavior on the internet, the internet became the village.

While nobody should ever lift a hand to your child, if he misbehaves, we are all entitled to the right to not interact with him and to advise others to do the same.

I suppose the kid and mom could be horrified at "why does the world hate my kid?" but the failure is on them.  The mom didn't raise her kid to be kind, didn't supervise enough him so he couldn't misbehave, didn't monitor his access to the internet where he could defame himself.  Only the last part is where the whole world hates him, instead of just every game store in england.  So it's really not an internet problem, given the first two failures.

Personally, I don't know that EN World should have published the kid's name.  It's a risky play, and I suspect the game store's banning of the kid was sufficient hand slappery.  Anything with minors is risky business, best let those folks whisper his name in hushed tones while they all refuse to serve him.


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## Eccles

For the record, the maximum penalty for a S.5 public order offence is a fine. At the upper limit it's capped at £1,000. Not the 6 months in custody quoted by the games stores. Assuming the lad involved in this case is under 18 and not in work, then there's no way that he would be expected to pay that much money. 

That said, it's their shops, they're free to ban anyone for any reason, and frankly what they are suggesting (assuming all is accurate) seems wholly proper. 

Just the dates they're basing it all on are utter nonsense, that's all...

(Though there are other possible offences available, I'd be getting too technical to explore them).


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## Nytmare

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


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## Lord_Blacksteel

billd91 said:


> No it isn't. Public exposure of bad behavior (or any behavior for that matter) and ostracism isn't bullying. It may be somewhat daunting when you realize you've become internationally notorious, but that isn't bullying either. There's no use of force or coercion, there's no harassment, there's no assault. It may put public pressure on the target, but not all public pressure is bullying.




Sure, assuming that the accuser is completely correct. What if they were not? There's a lot of finger pointing and some stores jumped on board but it seems like a pretty large reaction for something that might not be as cut and dried as the headline.



Morrus said:


> That's what news is. Or are you suggesting that news should only ever be local to you? I hear about news, big and small, from other countries all the time.




If this was a YuGiOh focused site you might have a better point here. For those of us who come here for "RPG News and Reviews" this is of limited relevance at best.

and just to get it all in at once:

_The following stores have signed up to ban Luke Lennard for six months beginning today the 20th of August and lasting until the 20th of February, at which point we will review his conduct._

So if he's banned for six months, how will they review his conduct? Ask a store that didn't ban him? Check his police file for new entries?


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## Morrus

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Sure, assuming that the accuser is completely correct. What if they were not?




Fortunately, he was kind enough to provide us all with a public YouTube video (which has now been removed). We are discussing that video, and the above letter was a reaction to it. The notion that one cannot discuss publicly shared YouTube videos is contrary to the purpose of YouTube.



> If this was a YuGiOh focused site you might have a better point here. For those of us who come here for "RPG News and Reviews" this is of limited relevance at best.




People come here for different things. We've been covering various tabletop games other than RPGs for quite some time here; indeed we have columnists and reviewers who focus on exactly that. You're welcome to enjoy whichever parts of the site interest you - and there's plenty of RPG content for you to enjoy!



> and just to get it all in at once:
> 
> _The following stores have signed up to ban Luke Lennard for six months beginning today the 20th of August and lasting until the 20th of February, at which point we will review his conduct._
> 
> So if he's banned for six months, how will they review his conduct? Ask a store that didn't ban him? Check his police file for new entries?




However they want to, I suppose; as long as they're not discriminating against a protected class of people. They haven't specified how they're doing that. It would be an interesting question to ask - I'd be interested in the answer, too.


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## TrippyHippy

I think the OP using the word 'alleged' somewhat exempts them from a lot of this criticism. 

Is it newsworthy that anybody gets banned from all game shops in the UK? Yes it is. 

Video apologies notwithstanding, the accusations are pretty serious and the shops are entitled to make their choices about who they serve or not. I suspect there may be more to the story that goes beyond the accused account of events, and I doubt anybody not privy to these things will ever know the full picture beyond the outcome.


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## Fanboythree

We sought this course of action because banning someone from a local store - even 22 stores - really has no effect. He would have laughed at us (and in fact did). Regardless of his actions on the day, because of the nature of the nature of the internet, his 'crime' was repeated every time somebody clicked on his Youtube video.

We were seeking two things. A public apology, not just to that one player he insulted offhandedly but to everyone that was appalled by his language in that video. And the removal of said video from the public domain. As of this morning the offending video has finally been made private.  

Because our game stores contain lots of people who were bullied at one point or other in their lives and our hobby has always been a welcome safe haven for players with Aspergers. Because to do nothing is simply unacceptable. 

I have maintained a dialogue with Luke throughout the process. Once we've achieved our twin goals - public apology and removal of the video - I will contact all the site owners who posted or reposted the original notification and ask them to delete these threads and replace them with his apology. As of this morning, we’ve achieved one of our two goals and I expect to be able to confirm we we have achieved the second goal later today. 

None of us should be forced to live with the consequences of our actions when we were 18.


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## Fanboythree

I'd just like to address a couple of your points, although I won't be around to subsequently take further questions. 

It's pretty easy to review his conduct - he's all over the internet.

Because the person in question is a vulnerable adult, the offence is aggravated.

Yes, the internet is a village. The reason businesses use verbatim recitation of the law is that they want to remind you how far outside the walls of the village you are going. You may think your behavior is fine and acceptable. Your friends may think it is fine and acceptable. People on like minded special interest groups may think it is fine and acceptable, but there will be people out there in that wider society who don't.


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## Nytmare

I think that there is a HUGE difference between righting a wrong, and creating a public spectacle to attempt to crush someone under a weight of public disapproval.  There are laws that handle Luke's behavior for a reason.

To me, it feels like the stores involved need to reassess their own, possibly hypocritical behavior.


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## Bedrockgames

I have to admit, the manner in which this was done, even though it does seem some action ought to have been taken if someone was being bullied, makes me quite uncomfortable. I do think it is important for store owners to stand up for customers who are the target of harrassment or bullying. Here in the states I've seen that from time to time, when people are insensitive to a person who has something like autism. But this seems to go too far. I am looking at it from a distance, and it is possible I am missing some key details. It just doesn't feel right to me, on a gut level.


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## Fanboythree

The offending video has now been taken down and here is the text of Luke's apology, posted on a well known UK Yugioh FB page: 


"Hey guys despite everything thats gone on these last few days I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to everyone, not just the boy effected. 


"I would like to apologise to all the hard working TOs this put under stress and above all to anyone with learning difficulties who feel victimised, its not ok to make fun of people even if it isnt meant in a bad way."


I now consider this matter closed and dealt with, and I'd appreciate it if, in the spirit of what we've attempted to achieve here, admins on the pages I am posting this would delete the original post with immediate effect. 


Every single one of us has been eighteen once (or will be). The things we do, the things we say, the things we post are not the people we will grow up to be. It is grossly unfair to expect todays teenagers to live in a world where they cannot make mistakes and learn from them as we once did.


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## Lord_Blacksteel

It looks like this is being resolved but the whole episode raises some questions in my mind.

First there is this:

_It has come to our attention that at a recent tournament held by Groovy Frog, Yugioh player Luke Lennard 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._ 

One teenager is a jerk to another teenager. Sounds like it was handled appropriately on the scene. Then it escalates to this:

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

And things are escalated to adults calling out teenagers by name on the internet for bad behavior. Not physical assault, not theft, not cheating, but name-calling, and it was not because of another incident in the store but because he was being stupid in a video online. Now that we have decided to take this step against this one kid, will this policy be continued? 

- If I'm a tournament player I would be interested in seeing an online  "ban list" of people who have been caught cheating in local tournaments. This seems at least as reasonable as the above as it's a threat to the integrity of the tournament in particular and the competitive play scene in general.

- If I'm part of a network of store owners I'd like to have a group list online of people caught shoplifting in other local stores, with pictures to make it easier to identify them when they walk into my shop. These are threats to my business and to other businesses and seem at least as justifiable as what happened here.

Additionally, a local store tournament might pull in anywhere from 10-50 players, plus some friends, plus some family. A number of those people will be currently accused of or will have been convicted of, criminal behavior from assault to far worse things than anything that was done here. Should tournament organizers and/or tournament players be screened with some kind of background or criminal history check? Should those with certain criminal histories be posted up on the store website and banned? Clearly we have decided that this kind of thing is not restricted to just in-store behavior so is anything fair game now?

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.

2) These 3 guys get out on bail, walk into your store, and enter your Magic tournament. Do they get thrown out and called out by name in an open letter on the internet?


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## billd91

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> Finally, we have news from Oklahoma about 3 teenagers who killed a college baseball player because they were bored.
> 
> [/COLOR]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.
> 
> 2) These 3 guys get out on bail, walk into your store, and enter your Magic tournament. Do they get thrown out and called out by name in an open letter on the internet?




Their names and faces are already out there on CNN with them called out as alleged murderers and that will have a much wider effect than banning them from certain stores and posting that news on a variety of niche hobby sites. Booting them from a Magic tournament is small potatoes by comparison.


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## Janx

Nytmare said:


> 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.


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## ThirdWizard

Janx said:


> 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.


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## Morrus

Lord_Blacksteel said:


> 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.


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## Morrus

ThirdWizard said:


> 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.


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## ThirdWizard

Morrus said:


> 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. 



Morrus said:


> 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.


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## Janx

ThirdWizard said:


> 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.


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## Salamandyr

Morrus said:


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




Thank you.


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## Lord_Blacksteel

Morrus said:


> 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.


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## Janx

ThirdWizard said:


> 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.


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## 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.


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## Vyvyan Basterd

Who needs Big Brother when new generations are being trained to document their own indiscretions?


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## EYEforanEYE

Totally disgusting.  There is a very small minority in the gamer community that just stink...   This is no exception...


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## Dice4Hire

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> Who needs Big Brother when new generations are being trained to document their own indiscretions?




If it were that, more power to them, but the intent is to document and preserve other's humiliations.


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## Slyfoxgamer

Get that guys out of the game stores, thats purely unacceptable! What a horrible person! Way to go UK!


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## Tanstaafl_au

Funny to see his name blanked out while his video in same post has his full name.

Not sure if six months is too long, I'm guessing past history must be playing into it. 

I am very glad to see a stand by gaming stores about this.


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## raexgames

absolutely fantastic that the community is working together, but isn't banning and attacking a bully also bullying?


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## Morrus

raexgames said:


> absolutely fantastic that the community is working together, but isn't banning and attacking a bully also bullying?




Semantically so, I suppose, in the same way that intolerance of intolerance is intolerant.


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## raexgames

Morrus said:


> Semantically so, I suppose, in the same way that intolerance of intolerance is intolerant.




It's all just one big cyclical circle if you break it down enough i suppose.


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