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sledgehammer

sledgehammer

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Maryland, USA
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Sledge Hammer
Kim,

If a player receives threats against himself and his family from another avatar, who claims to have the ability to find them in real life, and the threatened avatar provides screen shots from multiple occasions to prove the threats are real, do you think the following is an appropriate response from the support team?

13/10/2011 9:58 Support Department Entropia Universe: Hello, Thanks for your report. As I mentioned earlier, we will take appropriate steps and actions that are against our ToU § 8d. If it happens again, please refresh this case and send us the screenshots, as you did this time. Thank you for your report and for helping to improve Entropia Universe! Sincerely, Tezla | Planet Calypso Support.

This sort of response leads one to believe that such behavior will be treated with a slap on the wrist. Sure makes me feel warm and fuzzy about playing this game...

**I was neither the avatar threatened, nor the avatar who did the threatening. Emphasis added was mine.
 
sledgehammer said:
Should it have to happen again, or even have the opportunity to?
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How will support know it is serious? And not someone trolling or flaming? How will they judgge whether the threats are genuine if they have been provoked using ingame or out-of-game chat? The accused threatener must be given a chance to rescind their position.
 
There comes a certain level of threatening where saying "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it. Wherever you choose to put that mark, I would say threatening a person and their family's well being exceeds that level by a notch or two.
 
sledgehammer said:
There comes a certain level of threatening where saying "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it. Wherever you choose to put that mark, I would say threatening a person and their family's well being exceeds that level by a notch or two.
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Keyboard warriorism is rife amongst the intarwebz
 
Immortal said:
How will support know it is serious? And not someone trolling or flaming? How will they judgge whether the threats are genuine if they have been provoked using ingame or out-of-game chat? The accused threatener must be given a chance to rescind their position.
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Many states and countries are starting to crack down more on 'cyber bullying.' This sort of stuff, even if it is flaming or trolling should be considered 'cyber bullying' and the appropriate actions take as such, including but not limited to getting real world authorities involved since MA has the IP numbers of where the threats came from if it was done in game, and I'd assume that forum owners would cooperate in giving that sort of info to MA and/or law authorities if it happens in the forums.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying
 
mastermesh said:
Many states and countries are starting to crack down more on 'cyber bullying.' This sort of stuff, even if it is flaming or trolling should be considered 'cyber bullying' and the appropriate actions take as such, including but not limited to getting real world authorities involved since MA has the IP numbers of where the threats came from if it was done in game, and I'd assume that forum owners would cooperate in giving that sort of info to MA and/or law authorities if it happens in the forums.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber-bullying
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This isnt exactly the case. As you are no doubt aware I personally filed numerous support requests due to threats from players that overtly endangered my financial well being. Ultimately due to the nature of the personal conflict I was forced to spend my own money, hire an intellectual property attorney who had a clear understanding of web technologies (harder than you think to find), and have an individual within EU served with a cease and desist order.

Support was unable to respond due to the polar nature of personal disputes. Basically for support they were put between a rock and a hard place: believe a players word that they are the victim without full situational knowledge, and perhaps wrongly punish another individual, or allow the conflict to escalate to the point where the TOU were in obvious violation for another matter which was unrelated to any pre-existing dispute, and then mete out punishment based on that offense. Support often chooses the latter, because in a real cash situation real justice can be obtained for wrongful seizure of property.

As you are also aware of through first hand experience, Support has a history of not punishing those who publish a persons personal data, or falsehoods about that person on a website or otherwise, as long as it isnt in-game. Why should they? They have no control over the internet or the actions of those people on it.

The last major episode of drama within EU took 2 years to unfold, and ultimately was only resolved when one of the key participants finally made his move and attempted to steal $10,000 USD from his society mates. Up until that point death threats were common, as was cyber bullying in game, the posting of photographs for ridicule, and something you personally did: post personal information online of someone whom you wrongly suspected was the real life identity of an accused scammer.

Im not sure support can do much about these types of situations though, to be honest. Believe me, I tried to get a response and ultimately it was my legal counsel who helped me to understand why I had not.
 
If it has happend in the game they can see it in their logs i dont think you have to sent any screenshots, it will only be a lot of extra work for MA to find it.

I'm sure that if you had threatened them so there would no need for any screenshots they had just picked up the log as evidence.

To be threaten the game is one thing we have pvp and so on but to get --> receive threats against himself and his family from another avatar, who claims to have the ability to find them in real life this is quite another thing.

Probably it was just a childish thing but it is lifted up to a whole new level because MA has written so carefully in their rules if their staff had received threats like that.

What support can do is is to produce when it happened, what was said and who have done it then it's up to you to Report it to the police, if you do this, it is their duty to transmit this information to the police.
 
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Contact the Rl authorities, if this person is serious about their threats MA can not do anything to stop them in RL.
 
Corey 'Greyfox' said:
Contact the Rl authorities, if this person is serious about their threats MA can not do anything to stop them in RL.
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Yep. This is the answer to what must be done if the threats are real and the person is indeed worried. The victim needs to draw the distinction though. Are they indeed worried? Many of the threats that I received used my personal information, but they were physical threats. I'm really not worried about those, and usually laughed them off, sometimes in front of the offending avatar.

Some threats though are real. For those, real life justice can be obtained. Your local police department is not the place to make this happen though. Most cops wont understand or even know where to file such a case. Theyll create a report and nothing will happen.

Hire an attorney with experience in emerging technologies. That attorney will take care of everything else.
 
Well like Corey says. since they threatened this persons family AND stated they have access to RL info.. this is obviously NOT in game keyboard tough guy stuff. They need to contact RL authorites and have THEM contact MA for the info from this person so they can assess the actual threat level and react to it should the need arrise.

MA can auto post or run around the bushes all they want in email responces but when RL authorities are involved that all stops and the info WILL get passed immediatly to those authorities.
 
I'm not comfortable with commenting on how members of the support department do their job. I would personally suggest that the person who received the threat contact the proper authorities in his or hers country of residence.
 
Please do not get stressed about it (difficult I know) just follow procedure. the culprits are likley just lifless idiots. I live with a real neighbour from hell. stay calm, fight fire with water. But above all else...stay calm.
 
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If I received a death threat online, then I would definately not chuck it on the plate of support and be done with it. I've been threatened before, and I have taken it to the police. That's pretty much s.o.p. with me.
 
Wollongong said:
If I received a death threat online, then I would definately not chuck it on the plate of support and be done with it. I've been threatened before, and I have taken it to the police. That's pretty much s.o.p. with me.
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Well, tbh most online death threats are complete garbage. I've received plenty. I had one person in EU tell me he was going to send a Portuguese Assassin over to my home and shoot me between the eyes.

My address is public. Its been almost 2 years and I have yet to meet this assassin. You'd think if it were actually going to happen this assassin would want his money. I mean, an assassin has to eat too! :laugh:
 
I would not have considered such a remark a death threat, but a kneejerk response by some nitwit trying to be cool. You develop an antennae to which is a joke, and which is a threat.
 
Death threats are not cool... I have gotten my share of them over the years in EU.

In my case, I didn’t take any of them very seriously because each of them came from people who weren’t a credible threat in my view. In-game pressure was sufficient and caused the individuals go away.

In your case, If both people reside in the same country then there may be some legal recourse. If the threat is credible the best thing to do would be to get some legal advice from an attorney or contact the authorities. In a lot of places, death threats are legally a form of assault, in some cases even considered "terroristic threats" and are against the law.

If you have hard evidence such as screen shots, chat logs, or other documentation then sending that to MA would be a good idea. At the very least, MA would probably send an email to that individual advising them to stop harassing players in game. MA might even be willing to lock that person's avatar temporarily or permanently.
 
HardWrath said:
Death threats are not cool... I have gotten my share of them over the years in EU./QUOTE]

Magyar_Republic said:
Well, tbh most online death threats are complete garbage. I've received plenty.
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And you two of all people keep telling me that i am a pain in the ass... :D :D :D

Priceless.



Anyone cares to throw a death threat my way? Feels like i am still way too nice... :silly2:
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wizzszz said:
Anyone cares to throw a death threat my way? Feels like i am still way too nice... :silly2:
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your wish is granted :laugh:

Seriously though if things see quite serious then contact the police, failing that hire a hitman.. i hear they are very cheap in Mexico and columbia.

There was a guy here that shot his cousin in the knee over some pixie, maybe he would..... nvm ;)
 
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wizzszz said:
And you two of all people keep telling me that i am a pain in the ass... :D :D :D

Priceless.
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What can I say? People hate being wrong. Maybe if you actually showed someone they were wrong once in a while you'd get a reaction like that too! Barring that of course you could just be happier than them. That really seems to get people riled up! :handgun: :inbed: :king:

Norbert said:
Seriously though if things see quite serious then contact the police, failing that hire a hitman.. i hear they are very cheap in Mexico and columbia.
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Barring that hire a Portuguese Hitman to shoot your enemy between the eyes. :trout:
 
Magyar_Republic said:
What can I say? People hate being wrong. Maybe if you actually showed someone they were wrong once in a while you'd get a reaction like that too!
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I think i will just ignore your clumsy attempt at insulting me here - because otherwise i might forget to tell you what might be important for someone being so proud of the death threats he received that he is... odd... enough to post that on a forum: People do not hate someone for that reason, not enough to issue death threats - that's bullshit, but it is somehow very telling that you think so...

People will never hate you as much for telling the truth as they will hate you for spreading lies and weaving manipulations... and i know that's news to you, but truth is not in the eye of the beholder!


Corey 'Greyfox' said:
look at my sig :)
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I think death threats only count when the one threatening is at least 16 years old - clubbing someone to death when mommy said you gotta be home before 10 pm is a bit hard when your "victim" doesn't even life in your country... or town... or next to your school. Next time try being less fuzzy, chicken.

That somehow applies to that guy, too, regardless of age... :D

 
wizzszz said:
I think death threats only count when the one threatening is at least 16 years old - clubbing someone to death when mommy said you gotta be home before 10 pm is a bit hard when your "victim" doesn't even life in your country... or town... or next to your school. Next time try being less fuzzy, chicken.
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Lol, it was a joke man, no need to get all bent out of shape.
 
F MA Go to the cops.

sledgehammer said:
There comes a certain level of threatening where saying "I'm sorry" doesn't cut it. Wherever you choose to put that mark, I would say threatening a person and their family's well being exceeds that level by a notch or two.
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If some asswhipe shows u screenshots that show that he/she has the potential to cause harm to u and/or your family, contact law enforcement.
 
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