Yea. Of all the absurd things being said in this thread, blasting ND for using his name is just blowing my mind. This guy put out the allegation on his public personal twitter account. #2017FauxOutrage
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An important statement from Naughty Dog
- Thread starter Kenzodielocke
- Start date
Yea. Of all the absurd things being said in this thread, blasting ND for using his name is just blowing my mind. This guy put out the allegation on his public personal twitter account. #2017FauxOutrage
MrCaliaztec
Member
Hope we get to the bottom of this, I don't have a side in it but I'd like the truth to at least come out.
With that said... Man do I never wish to be accused of something and have like 99% of you on my jury... people wanting blood when we don't even have close to the whole story.
There is a reason why the golden rule of US courts is Innocent till Proven Guity.
With that said... Man do I never wish to be accused of something and have like 99% of you on my jury... people wanting blood when we don't even have close to the whole story.
There is a reason why the golden rule of US courts is Innocent till Proven Guity.
"clean" if he isn't lying..
We should just wait until there is more evidence.
Right now it's their word against his.
privitsan02
Member
Well to be fair, he called them out on Twitter.
I hope he has information and emails to back his claims up. I do believe him, but as I mentioned before, not a great way to come out with his claims.
FYI, I don't think it matters if he was unemployed for 17 or 14 months on surface level. It's likely he was on probation and things didn't work out at the other development studio so he hasn't had a stable living condition in a place like LA for over a year now.
On a critical level its a bad look however. You said one thing but it wasn't exactly that.
Best wishes.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
We have ONE accusation (A Tweet) and ONE statement from ND saying they know nothing of any evidence of having received allegations, and that's it. How ANYONE is forming a narrative at the moment is beyond me.
Chronospherics
Member
Not to say he did lie, but there are plenty of motives an ex-employee would have to discredit their previous employer, especially if they felt that they were unfairly dismissed.
It happens all the time.
I don't think it tends to make sense to simply trust the victim, by that standard, people can easily be victimised by those making false accusations. In general, the burden of proof should always be on the person making the accusation - without that, it's simply a witch hunt.
ScientificPizza
Banned
Mostly just not pass casual judgement in a press release that only serves to paint the guy as a liar
They could have just said this has/is being investigated
excelsiorlef
Member
He did it by phone
Crimson_Gold
Member
Eesh. He needs a recording or hope there is a recording.
ScientificPizza
Banned
There are a number of ways to discredit a former employer than making up a sexual abuse allegation. You know there is still a stigma that exists with victims
of abuse that thats not a very pleasant thing to want to make up about yourself
Immediately dismissing someone for coming forward about their experience with sexual abuse because it didnt come with a neatly put together press packet is gross as hell
It sounds like they already did..
ScientificPizza
Banned
Im not saying they didnt. Im saying thats all they had to say at the moment. They didnt need to come out and basically call this dude a liar 24 hours after he made the allegations
Clinton514
Member
Holy smokes, I feel the same way. Some of these comments are pretty disturbing.
adversarial
Member
Definitely terrifying.
Phreakuency
Banned
ronaldthump
Member
Outrage and indigination for the sake of it. Not even off any sort of palpable fact.
The court of public opinion.
ShemhazaiX
Member
Literally all that Naughty Dog can do in response to the allegations is see what they have in record. They don't even know who he's actually accusing. If there's nothing in their records (which takes an hour at most to check on the system) then there's literally nothing else they can investigate because they have nothing to go on besides his tweets.
There would be no difference in their response if they waited a few days. People were asking them to comment and they commented with the only stuff they could say without it resulting in legal action.
ScientificPizza
Banned
Them not knowing who the allegations are against is exactly why they should not be coming out with a definitive answer like this
So you want them to investigate for x amount of time THEN call him a liar?
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
There are people building narratives on BOTH sides and drawing conclusions from 'speculation'. The sickening thing to me is someone from one side or the other will be right and they'll then post 'told you so'. It's like tossing a coin, calling heads or tails and then proclaiming yourself a 'mystic' if you get it right.
There is nothing definitive about their answer. Literally all they've said is they don't have any complaint on record.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
To be fair, In the other thread, people were pretty much demanding a response within that same 24 hour period, and they provided one. Are we now mad at the timing? Like what was they supposed to say? I'm confused about the anger being levied here rather than the actual situation at hand.
Random Human
They were trying to grab your prize. They work for the mercenary. The masked man.
.
exmachina64
Banned
Dont be naïve.
ScientificPizza
Banned
Its good that they responded, its just when it comes to victims of this kind of abuse a lot of peoples natural reaction is to downplay or dismiss or accuse them of lying, which has happened in this instance. I understand them wanting to protect their image, but there should be more consideration for the victim and more though put into what has gone into their statement. This statement can easily be used as evidence by people that this dude is just making this all up which means its probably actually bad.
We need to protect victims, not give people ammunition to discredit them
MrCaliaztec
Member
There's nothing Naive about it... he posted tweets with no physical evidence and look at people foaming at the mouth.
I don't see why someone would lie about being harassed and if he really was hope he has some way to prove it.
But let's be real adults who can think clearly and critically about the situation based on what we have... we have absolutely nothing to logically take one side over the other especially when the accusers time table has been disputed with clear facts that shows he's worked at an indie company after being let go... and either forgot about this period, or just negated to mention it.
We need more details from both sides and we can in no logical way say either side is being truthful.
I mean, they can't really say what they've discovered without somehow contradicting Ballard, if their findings don't agree with him. If they legitimately have no record of a report of harassment, what can they say?
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
Because that's the facts. They looked and found nothing. What else can they say? They said they take it seriously which based on the timing, definitely seems like they didn't want this situation to be misconstrued by Monday and they also wanted people to understand that they did their investigation and have no record. Companies don't like to put themselves in situations that puts them at fault if they don't have the information needed to implicate that something did happen.
What's sad is that this puts the situation in the hands of the victim who now has to prove that there was an issue. Again, all of this stuff could of happened off the books and off the record, but they can't make up documentation if it doesn't exist so they have to put out this message to explain that. This is exactly why sexual harassment cases are just horrible because it always comes down to proof and doubt.
semiconscious
Member
seriously! many of the gut reactions up here have indeed been scary. what we've gotten so far are unsubstantiated accusations, & nothing more. much too early to begin whipping out the torches & pitchforks (if that's the type of thing you're into)...
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
I agree, we need to protect the victim but I feel it's more disingenuous to make a claim and not name the lead or exec or whomever did this and that's why Sony and ND is giving such a response.
Like I appreciate David coming out and feeling empowered to do this because what's happening in Hollywood but like, you are doing a disservice to other victims by not calling out the person and now dragging innocent parties into it to take the fall for one person's doing. On the other hand, I can't really say this because doing this does put the victim more at risk and it becomes all problematic.
Sony can only speak for itself based on. The guidelines that they set for these situations if they happen in the workplace, so they are answering for that....but the predator who did this needs to be fished out because THEY are the one that is damaging the victim moreso than the company.
It's one thing to be mad at Sony, but we need to be more mad at the person who had the power to do this and who may still be with the company or is not with the company....and if that person has done that to more people.
Weird, proof? After all, that seems to be what everybody had been asking for. They didn't seem to have posted this on any Sony site, just ND's site
CrimsonSquall
Member
GAFs users can be such a joke sometimes.
People are ready to pull out the pitchforks before even establishing credibility on the side of the accuser yet.
People are ready to pull out the pitchforks before even establishing credibility on the side of the accuser yet.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
I must say, the general sentiment trending right now is seemingly heading towards the notion that the one that can be trusted more is ND instead of David.
Stark difference between this and say, for example, the happenings of Ben Affleck where most if not all were so readily believe the tweet made by the lady saying she's being groped. Usually people tend to believe the victim more in cases of sexual harassment (I mean, it's not like people carry a readily available recorder active all the time during their person just in case they're being sexually harassed, you know), but not this time.
I guess being a beloved video game company does have its perks.
Stark difference between this and say, for example, the happenings of Ben Affleck where most if not all were so readily believe the tweet made by the lady saying she's being groped. Usually people tend to believe the victim more in cases of sexual harassment (I mean, it's not like people carry a readily available recorder active all the time during their person just in case they're being sexually harassed, you know), but not this time.
I guess being a beloved video game company does have its perks.
Pretty sure Ben admitted it.
I encourage you to go ahead and read through this entire thread.
Also Ben admitted it. You kinda forgot that vital piece of information.
semiconscious
Member
you just sorta know this? who most people believe most of the time? irregardless of mitigating factors? how?
...
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Right, but even before that people gave a huge benefit of the doubt to the lady making the tweet.
The point is, usually people tend to believe persons saying they're being sexually harassed, but apparently not this time, and I do believe the bias of thinking "ND is a good company because they made the best games" is influencing that.
Grumplestiltskin
Member
You mean the accusation for which there was video evidence and to which Ben Affleck admitted and apologized for? The two aren't exactly analogous. Theres very little in the way of evidence to support these claims and even without that there were many people criticizing and lambasting the studio just based off of the claims themselves regardless just as many have done in other similar situations that have arisen recently including those concerning Mr. Affleck.
TLZ
Banned
That's what I've been saying. But people want heads to roll quick. That's not how it works.
AyaisMUsikWhore
Member
This is such a sickening response. Someone accused Ben Affleck, a person who did something to another person. He admitted to it because he was called out on his action. Do you know the name of the person who committed this disgusting act to David or is this person ND and Sony?
Ok, so this is how it would have gone:
Social media team within MarComms are made aware of the tweet.
They escalate to their team senior on duty at the weekend.
They will then have their own reporting tree for a situation like this, and will have contacted the senior management team & legal.
An HR person will have been tasked with reviewing submitted complaints - if theyre using a common HR system across Sony that would take about 5 minutes, as any filed communications would have been held digitally.
They didnt find any filed complaints, convey this to the legal & management team, the PR team roll up a statement, that gets approved by legal & sent out to relevant press contacts.
It very clearly states that there is no evidence of a complaint being made. My assumption would be Sony have a specific process for reporting workplace misconduct, that it was investigated if this process was followed, and the response based on that.
privitsan02
Member
That's not true. There's a lot of people readying their pitchforks or even already going at the corporation directly for making this statement. There are people being level headed, and others being dismissive but I believe you're doing some selective reading here, like many of us in this thread.
At the end of the day, I'm sure a lot of people would rather hear about the actual harasser instead of Naughty Dog or Sony's politics. I believe David and I want to know which scumbag did this and whether or not if he's still at Naughty Dog or the industry. These people need to be weeded out.
Best wishes.
Enjoying NDs games has nothing to do with anything. It has to do with not gathering up the pitchforks and burning Sony to the ground over an accusation that may or may not be true.
Weird that youre seemingly criticizing a reasonable we need more information before our opinions have any meaning approach.
Weird that youre seemingly criticizing a reasonable we need more information before our opinions have any meaning approach.
20cent
Banned
Since we seem to have some new faces in this thread, I feel compelled to write this again.
Many of you in this thread are being absolutely ridiculous and unreasonable.
Here are the only pieces of information we have:
1) David Ballard makes allegation of sexual harassment on his public twitter account
2) ND releases statement that there is no evidence they could find regarding any harassment complaint being made.
Seems a perfect situation for a wait and see approach, to see if more evidence is uncovered.
Instead, this thread is filled with:
-Assumption of guilt for Sony and ND
-Claims of a huge conspiracy and coverup, including documents being destroyed by HR
- Talk about boycotting ND and Sony
- Outrage over ND using Davids name in their statement despite him making the allegation on his public twitter account. Nearly all of us knew who was making the allegation before ND ever released a statement, but suddenly heres an outrage they used his name?
And of course the completely unfair and unreasonable assumption that since the Weinstein issue is prevalent right now, suddenly every accusation made right now is assumed true.
Im not saying it didnt happen. Im not saying it did. Im saying no one here has ANY clue what did or didnt happen, and should probably not be commenting with such strong opinions
Many of you in this thread are being absolutely ridiculous and unreasonable.
Here are the only pieces of information we have:
1) David Ballard makes allegation of sexual harassment on his public twitter account
2) ND releases statement that there is no evidence they could find regarding any harassment complaint being made.
Seems a perfect situation for a wait and see approach, to see if more evidence is uncovered.
Instead, this thread is filled with:
-Assumption of guilt for Sony and ND
-Claims of a huge conspiracy and coverup, including documents being destroyed by HR
- Talk about boycotting ND and Sony
- Outrage over ND using Davids name in their statement despite him making the allegation on his public twitter account. Nearly all of us knew who was making the allegation before ND ever released a statement, but suddenly heres an outrage they used his name?
And of course the completely unfair and unreasonable assumption that since the Weinstein issue is prevalent right now, suddenly every accusation made right now is assumed true.
Im not saying it didnt happen. Im not saying it did. Im saying no one here has ANY clue what did or didnt happen, and should probably not be commenting with such strong opinions