Two developers from Destiny 2 received racist messages and death threats from stalkers. Now the case has gone before a judge in Ontario, and the identities of the stalkers are to be determined.
After Bungie, the studio behind Destiny 2, already takes action against cheaters with a lawyer, further legal steps are now being taken. This time, however, with significantly more serious backgrounds.
A newspaper in New Jersey called “The Record” reported on August 2, 2022, about the court ruling in a case of harassment against two Destiny 2 developers (via therecord.com).
Unidentified individuals reportedly threatened the Destiny 2 developers in response to a tweet. Now, those responsible are to be identified.
Here you can see a trailer for the Solstice in Destiny 2:
“Enjoy your pizza”
What kind of threats were there? In response to a tweet, some Bungie employees received messages threatening them. According to their statements, various threats were made:
- An unknown person sent a tweet to Bungie accounts threatening to kill employees
- Several employees received voice and text messages on personal phone numbers with racist slurs, prominently including the “N-word”
- A person called an employee multiple times demanding a racist DLC
- A person ordered pizza to the address of an employee with the voice message: “Enjoy your pizza”
- A Destiny 2 player published personal data of an employee and wrote that he had moved and lived 30 minutes away from him, adding that the employee was “not safe”
This is how the employees responded to the threats: The employees were concerned that their real addresses could be misused not only for pizza orders but also for much more serious crimes. Some feared “swatting,” that is, deliberately reporting to a special police unit. People have already been sentenced in Germany for swatting and that was not the only case:
Two employees therefore initiated an urgent legal request for TextNow to disclose the caller’s customer data. TextNow is a company that allows anonymous calls through their phone service, and the relevant calls were made through it.
This is what the court decided: Already on June 15, 2022, the court gave the green light to the request. The court waited one month before disclosing the case to the public due to the “serious nature of the threat of violence.”
The judge stated regarding the case, “Regardless of whether they sue in the USA or name the police, I am convinced that the extraordinary remedy should be available to identify individuals who harass others with despicable racism, misuse personal information, and make open threats of physical harm and death.”
A single tweet causes death threats
What sparked the threats? On June 2, 2022, a Bungie employee published two tweets. The posts were advertisements for the game Destiny 2. He shared 2 videos. In the clips, the black gamer with the in-game name “Uhmaayyze” was prominently featured. Here you can see one of the tweets:
Fred Myers, the judge at the Supreme Court said: “He is very well known among the players and viewers of Destiny 2 because he performs freestyle rap on livestreaming platforms while playing the game.”
After the tweet went public, hackers began doxing (also: Doxxing) and hate messages were sent to the developers from the studio Bungie. “Doxing” refers to the publication of personal information on the internet that should remain private.
There are always cases where the police or courts have to clean up in the gaming sector:
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