I'm not understanding the position businesses are taking of terminating employees based on unproven allegations.
Or in this case, kicking a player from the tournament based on unproven allegations.
If he did it, blacklist him from all HS events for life.
Right now we have an allegation. It should be taken seriously, it should be investigated, and the truth should be determined. Hearthstone chose to jump ahead of that and go straight to the punishment phase based on just the allegation.
Think about this for a moment, and personalize it. You've worked hard at something your entire professional career. Now, you are about to get your big shot. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend, ex wife/husband, whatever, suddenly comes out with an allegation of wrongdoing on your part. You are then, with no proof and no chance to defend yourself, completely shut out from the job/career/opportunity that you have pursued for so long and dedicated yourself to. Does that sound fair? Does that sound right?
To me, it absolutely does not.
Give the man his day in court. If he is found guilty, bar him from all events. Strip him of titles if needed. Do not condemn him based on allegations, though. I'm disappointed in Blizzard, and society at large, as we are seeing more and more of these types of things happening.
So are there any reasons to belive that story? Anyone who ever went through crazy break up will know that other side can come up with a lot of nasty bullshit just to make your life difficult.
Honestly.. I never liked the guy. Im sure they didn't a little investigation but nonetheless, pretty happy to see him gone. He is such A toxic guy, just based on the way he treated his viewers
Wait what ? What does eSports even had to do with this ? Whats next ? Getting kicked out from from any where even if you have a car crash ?
Now that is a definite slippery slope fallacy argument right there. Domestic abuse and car crashes are drastically different things and making a comparison of those two is belittling domestic abuse.
As far as what Esports has to do with this, they're very much so connected. Zalae is a member of Hearthstone Esports, thus he is working underneath Hearthstone, acting as a face, a representation of Hearthstone, even if he isn't directly employed by Hearthstone. It's the same thing that the NFL has done, suspending players after child abuse or domestic violence cases. I could add several other cases but don't want to due to political charges that they can build as of right now. Anyway, it comes down to the fact that they (Zalae, in this case) is a public figure representing a privately owned company (Hearthstone, in this case) and so, thanks to laws (at least in the US) it is within every right for Activision-Blizzard to suspend Zalae, even just over allegations, as they are a private company and he is currently representing something that they do not want to represent. They're putting him on a temporary leave effectively right now due to the allegations, and should he go to court and prove true, I believe they should permanently ban him from their Esports. For now, though, he is on leave due to an allegation, and will likely be either unsuspended or banned upon trial. It's the same thing that happens through just about every other organization or business and it's well within their legal rights to do so.
I'm not understanding the position businesses are taking of terminating employees based on unproven allegations.
Or in this case, kicking a player from the tournament based on unproven allegations.
If he did it, blacklist him from all HS events for life.
Right now we have an allegation. It should be taken seriously, it should be investigated, and the truth should be determined. Hearthstone chose to jump ahead of that and go straight to the punishment phase based on just the allegation.
Think about this for a moment, and personalize it. You've worked hard at something your entire professional career. Now, you are about to get your big shot. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend, ex wife/husband, whatever, suddenly comes out with an allegation of wrongdoing on your part. You are then, with no proof and no chance to defend yourself, completely shut out from the job/career/opportunity that you have pursued for so long and dedicated yourself to. Does that sound fair? Does that sound right?
To me, it absolutely does not.
Give the man his day in court. If he is found guilty, bar him from all events. Strip him of titles if needed. Do not condemn him based on allegations, though. I'm disappointed in Blizzard, and society at large, as we are seeing more and more of these types of things happening.
Yes it’s common for business to suspend people who have not been proven to do a crime. Even beyond businesses, it happens with cops and teachers who are accused of wrongdoing, which are government positions.
I think it’s rather easy to understand actually. Sure it could seem unfair for the accused, but if that person is actually guilty, it would be very bad for the reputation of the organization because it is as if they were supporting a criminal. Organizations would rather take the safe approach, since in most cases, there is more backlash from NOT suspending the accused than there is from suspending them.
There are some exceptions to this case, if the accused is in an iconic or very popular position for example, such as with Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse, when it is likely he was actually the victim, but Disney suspended him regardless and faced MAJOR backlash because people couldn’t imagine pirates of the Caribbean without him. Hearthstone on the other hand is well fit to survive without Zalae so it not nearly as impactful losing him as it would be if they supported a domestic abuser.
I'm not understanding the position businesses are taking of terminating employees based on unproven allegations.
Or in this case, kicking a player from the tournament based on unproven allegations.
If he did it, blacklist him from all HS events for life.
Right now we have an allegation. It should be taken seriously, it should be investigated, and the truth should be determined. Hearthstone chose to jump ahead of that and go straight to the punishment phase based on just the allegation.
Think about this for a moment, and personalize it. You've worked hard at something your entire professional career. Now, you are about to get your big shot. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend, ex wife/husband, whatever, suddenly comes out with an allegation of wrongdoing on your part. You are then, with no proof and no chance to defend yourself, completely shut out from the job/career/opportunity that you have pursued for so long and dedicated yourself to. Does that sound fair? Does that sound right?
To me, it absolutely does not.
Give the man his day in court. If he is found guilty, bar him from all events. Strip him of titles if needed. Do not condemn him based on allegations, though. I'm disappointed in Blizzard, and society at large, as we are seeing more and more of these types of things happening.
Yes it’s common for business to suspend people who have not been proven to do a crime. Even beyond businesses, it happens with cops and teachers who are accused of wrongdoing, which are government positions.
I think it’s rather easy to understand actually. Sure it could seem unfair for the accused, but if that person is actually guilty, it would be very bad for the reputation of the organization because it is as if they were supporting a criminal. Organizations would rather take the safe approach, since in most cases, there is more backlash from NOT suspending the accused than there is from suspending them.
There are some exceptions to this case, if the accused is in an iconic or very popular position for example, such as with Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse, when it is likely he was actually the victim, but Disney suspended him regardless and faced MAJOR backlash because people couldn’t imagine pirates of the Caribbean without him. Hearthstone on the other hand is well fit to survive without Zalae so it not nearly as impactful losing him as it would be if they supported a domestic abuser.
That opens the door to corporations being judge jury and executioner of peoples careers, though, based on if they can financially get away with it or not.
That is vile.
Yes, Hearthstone will be just fine without Zalae. Yes, being a private company they can boot him with zero fear of repercussions. But... a resounding "NO!" when asking ourselves if this is right, or just.
"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damage’s Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms."
It's also worth recognizing that no one has a "right to participate in a computer game tournament" - you get the invite from Blizzard if you meet their eligibility requirements, and you lose the invite when you don't.
I'm not understanding the position businesses are taking of terminating employees based on unproven allegations.
Or in this case, kicking a player from the tournament based on unproven allegations.
If he did it, blacklist him from all HS events for life.
Right now we have an allegation. It should be taken seriously, it should be investigated, and the truth should be determined. Hearthstone chose to jump ahead of that and go straight to the punishment phase based on just the allegation.
Think about this for a moment, and personalize it. You've worked hard at something your entire professional career. Now, you are about to get your big shot. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend, ex wife/husband, whatever, suddenly comes out with an allegation of wrongdoing on your part. You are then, with no proof and no chance to defend yourself, completely shut out from the job/career/opportunity that you have pursued for so long and dedicated yourself to. Does that sound fair? Does that sound right?
To me, it absolutely does not.
Give the man his day in court. If he is found guilty, bar him from all events. Strip him of titles if needed. Do not condemn him based on allegations, though. I'm disappointed in Blizzard, and society at large, as we are seeing more and more of these types of things happening.
Yes it’s common for business to suspend people who have not been proven to do a crime. Even beyond businesses, it happens with cops and teachers who are accused of wrongdoing, which are government positions.
I think it’s rather easy to understand actually. Sure it could seem unfair for the accused, but if that person is actually guilty, it would be very bad for the reputation of the organization because it is as if they were supporting a criminal. Organizations would rather take the safe approach, since in most cases, there is more backlash from NOT suspending the accused than there is from suspending them.
There are some exceptions to this case, if the accused is in an iconic or very popular position for example, such as with Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse, when it is likely he was actually the victim, but Disney suspended him regardless and faced MAJOR backlash because people couldn’t imagine pirates of the Caribbean without him. Hearthstone on the other hand is well fit to survive without Zalae so it not nearly as impactful losing him as it would be if they supported a domestic abuser.
"other companies do it so..."
Employing someone in spite of ALLEGATIONS made against them is not support of the behaviour being alleged (even if reactionaries and online mobs tell you otherwise). Blizzard made the cowards choice. It may be their right to, but we have a right to disagree with it.
Call me an awful person i don't like the direction where it leads - ultimately it's a case for police and court, Blizzard is none of these two and penalizing players for out of game/event rules/tos reasons is not what they should be doing. It's a case for police and court - if he's guilty he will end in jail. If he's innocent then this suspension will be very shitty.
Game companies are not morality guardians and should not be given power to be them. It's not their job.
Call me an awful person i don't like the direction where it leads - ultimately it's a case for police and court, Blizzard is none of these two and penalizing players for out of game/event rules/tos reasons is not what they should be doing. It's a case for police and court - if he's guilty he will end in jail. If he's innocent then this suspension will be very shitty.
Game companies are not morality guardians and should not be given power to be them. It's not their job.
Wait what ? What does eSports even had to do with this ? Whats next ? Getting kicked out from from any where even if you have a car crash ?
Now that is a definite slippery slope fallacy argument right there. Domestic abuse and car crashes are drastically different things and making a comparison of those two is belittling domestic abuse.
As far as what Esports has to do with this, they're very much so connected. Zalae is a member of Hearthstone Esports, thus he is working underneath Hearthstone, acting as a face, a representation of Hearthstone, even if he isn't directly employed by Hearthstone. It's the same thing that the NFL has done, suspending players after child abuse or domestic violence cases. I could add several other cases but don't want to due to political charges that they can build as of right now. Anyway, it comes down to the fact that they (Zalae, in this case) is a public figure representing a privately owned company (Hearthstone, in this case) and so, thanks to laws (at least in the US) it is within every right for Activision-Blizzard to suspend Zalae, even just over allegations, as they are a private company and he is currently representing something that they do not want to represent. They're putting him on a temporary leave effectively right now due to the allegations, and should he go to court and prove true, I believe they should permanently ban him from their Esports. For now, though, he is on leave due to an allegation, and will likely be either unsuspended or banned upon trial. It's the same thing that happens through just about every other organization or business and it's well within their legal rights to do so.
I just had to log in to say: oh my God! In democratic country everyone is innocent until proven guilty. With their move, they just cut him. im not saying that he is innocent, but to do something like this, until it is proven.... just shows whats wrong with society , and this whole "cancel" culture. and i cant agree more with the dude you are quoting.
Good to know that you can become unemployable over allegations.
Theoretically, what will happen if these allegations are dropped, or remain unproven? Will Blizzard reverse their decision, or will they keep it to save face? Would that be acceptable (since apparently companies existing to maintain their reputation is a reasonable excuse to do whatever they want)?
It's fairly predictable whenever this happens that you see a lot of folks saying that a corporation has the right to do something as if that's the end of the argument.
Lots of folks sit secure in the knowledge this will never happen to them because not only do they not engage in such abhorrent behavior, they would never be stupid enough to put themselves in a position where they could even be accused of such.
Hopefully, for their sake, they will never be shown how absolutely naive this position is. As a person who has had to fight thru several years of unfounded accusations while in school and very nearly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of work to a university's "right" to toss anyone out who faces an accusation, regardless o the specifics or foundation of said accusation, I have to say that anyone can find themselves in this situation and when you do, get ready to find out that you in fact have no friends, no confidants, and very little influence with which to combat the situation.
To be honest, at this point the only thing to do is to hope and pray that Zalae was guilty of the accusation. I know how that sounds, but given that punishment has already been visited, it's really the only just state of being. We used to embrace the concept "better to let ten guilty men go free than punish an innocent," and no, that concept was never meant to be applied ONLY to government. Now, accusations are assumed true unless you happen to occupy positions of power in one political party (not intending to open a political discussion, it's just that in the past 5 years, there have only been two individuals who I've seen been given the benefit of the doubt by the mob . . . one a former President and one the current President).
Someone brought up the example of Johnny Depp. That's probably the worst of all the public examples we've seen, as nearly every piece of evidence points to the conclusion that Depp was not only innocent as an accused abuser, but in fact a fairly prolific victim of abuse. I prefer to look at the example of Chris Hardwick, a man who spent years ultimately successfully defending himself from these accusations, though in the end his career was all but destroyed and the losses, both socially and financially, were barely countable. Hardwick's story shows exactly the combination of luck, resources, and effort needed to salvage a life once these accusations take off, and it's important to realize that he wasn't half guilty, or a little guilty. By everything we know, he wasn't remotely guilty.
Anyway, hope it never happens to you. You'll be singing a different tune by then, but no one will care.
EDIT: I do find it hilarious in a very sad way that folks who will lay down some of the most horrid insults toward Blizzard when they don't like a card game's meta are suddenly cool with it when the same company plays sole arbiter of punishment with a person's livelihood.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Am I the only one who thinks the wording is strange here?
He definetly doesn't sound like a nice guy to have a close relationship with, bu the described facts don't merit the word 'abuse' right? Even if all of them are true.
Unless you mean emotional abuse in which case you can make a strong case. But I'm not even sure I'd suspend a player for those actions. Curious what you guys think about it!
Good to know that you can become unemployable over allegations.
Theoretically, what will happen if these allegations are dropped, or remain unproven? Will Blizzard reverse their decision, or will they keep it to save face? Would that be acceptable (since apparently companies existing to maintain their reputation is a reasonable excuse to do whatever they want)?
I mean yeah, this has been true for a long time. It sucks, but companies (especially larger ones) have a lot of power over their employees and trying to challenge them legally is often a fools errand unless it's something on the scale of a class action lawsuit.
Hearthstone Esports announced today it was suspending Paul "Zalae" Nemeth from future events due to very serious domestic abuse allegations.
If you wish to read about the allegations, please read them here. The victim explains what happened. It is very disturbing.
I am curious what people think of this... if true, the allegations are awful and he should be arrested and prosecuted.
But of course, he may deny them (not sure if he's responded), and he is being suspended immediately.
Not really sure how Hearthstone can ever solve this problem, unless there were a court proceeding that determined the truth of the allegations.
Where did you find their statement?
I'm pretty sure he responded during a stream where he said he didnt want to talk about it.
Just to get ahead of this early: If you are going to victim blame, you can expect your post to receive moderation attention.
If you see a bad post on the forum use the report function under it, so I or someone else of the moderation team can take care of it!
They tweeted this afternoon they were suspending him. Nothing more offered.
Wait what ? What does eSports even had to do with this ? Whats next ? Getting kicked out from from any where even if you have a car crash ?
I'm not understanding the position businesses are taking of terminating employees based on unproven allegations.
Or in this case, kicking a player from the tournament based on unproven allegations.
If he did it, blacklist him from all HS events for life.
Right now we have an allegation. It should be taken seriously, it should be investigated, and the truth should be determined. Hearthstone chose to jump ahead of that and go straight to the punishment phase based on just the allegation.
Think about this for a moment, and personalize it. You've worked hard at something your entire professional career. Now, you are about to get your big shot. An ex girlfriend/boyfriend, ex wife/husband, whatever, suddenly comes out with an allegation of wrongdoing on your part. You are then, with no proof and no chance to defend yourself, completely shut out from the job/career/opportunity that you have pursued for so long and dedicated yourself to. Does that sound fair? Does that sound right?
To me, it absolutely does not.
Give the man his day in court. If he is found guilty, bar him from all events. Strip him of titles if needed. Do not condemn him based on allegations, though. I'm disappointed in Blizzard, and society at large, as we are seeing more and more of these types of things happening.
So are there any reasons to belive that story? Anyone who ever went through crazy break up will know that other side can come up with a lot of nasty bullshit just to make your life difficult.
Honestly.. I never liked the guy. Im sure they didn't a little investigation but nonetheless, pretty happy to see him gone. He is such A toxic guy, just based on the way he treated his viewers
Now that is a definite slippery slope fallacy argument right there. Domestic abuse and car crashes are drastically different things and making a comparison of those two is belittling domestic abuse.
As far as what Esports has to do with this, they're very much so connected. Zalae is a member of Hearthstone Esports, thus he is working underneath Hearthstone, acting as a face, a representation of Hearthstone, even if he isn't directly employed by Hearthstone. It's the same thing that the NFL has done, suspending players after child abuse or domestic violence cases. I could add several other cases but don't want to due to political charges that they can build as of right now. Anyway, it comes down to the fact that they (Zalae, in this case) is a public figure representing a privately owned company (Hearthstone, in this case) and so, thanks to laws (at least in the US) it is within every right for Activision-Blizzard to suspend Zalae, even just over allegations, as they are a private company and he is currently representing something that they do not want to represent. They're putting him on a temporary leave effectively right now due to the allegations, and should he go to court and prove true, I believe they should permanently ban him from their Esports. For now, though, he is on leave due to an allegation, and will likely be either unsuspended or banned upon trial. It's the same thing that happens through just about every other organization or business and it's well within their legal rights to do so.
Yes it’s common for business to suspend people who have not been proven to do a crime. Even beyond businesses, it happens with cops and teachers who are accused of wrongdoing, which are government positions.
I think it’s rather easy to understand actually. Sure it could seem unfair for the accused, but if that person is actually guilty, it would be very bad for the reputation of the organization because it is as if they were supporting a criminal. Organizations would rather take the safe approach, since in most cases, there is more backlash from NOT suspending the accused than there is from suspending them.
There are some exceptions to this case, if the accused is in an iconic or very popular position for example, such as with Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp was accused of domestic abuse, when it is likely he was actually the victim, but Disney suspended him regardless and faced MAJOR backlash because people couldn’t imagine pirates of the Caribbean without him. Hearthstone on the other hand is well fit to survive without Zalae so it not nearly as impactful losing him as it would be if they supported a domestic abuser.
That opens the door to corporations being judge jury and executioner of peoples careers, though, based on if they can financially get away with it or not.
That is vile.
Yes, Hearthstone will be just fine without Zalae. Yes, being a private company they can boot him with zero fear of repercussions. But... a resounding "NO!" when asking ourselves if this is right, or just.
Here's the rule (6.1.15) -
"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damage’s Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms."
It's also worth recognizing that no one has a "right to participate in a computer game tournament" - you get the invite from Blizzard if you meet their eligibility requirements, and you lose the invite when you don't.
"other companies do it so..."
Employing someone in spite of ALLEGATIONS made against them is not support of the behaviour being alleged (even if reactionaries and online mobs tell you otherwise). Blizzard made the cowards choice. It may be their right to, but we have a right to disagree with it.
Call me an awful person i don't like the direction where it leads - ultimately it's a case for police and court, Blizzard is none of these two and penalizing players for out of game/event rules/tos reasons is not what they should be doing. It's a case for police and court - if he's guilty he will end in jail. If he's innocent then this suspension will be very shitty.
Game companies are not morality guardians and should not be given power to be them. It's not their job.
It's not your job either!
I just had to log in to say: oh my God! In democratic country everyone is innocent until proven guilty. With their move, they just cut him. im not saying that he is innocent, but to do something like this, until it is proven.... just shows whats wrong with society , and this whole "cancel" culture. and i cant agree more with the dude you are quoting.
Good to know that you can become unemployable over allegations.
Theoretically, what will happen if these allegations are dropped, or remain unproven? Will Blizzard reverse their decision, or will they keep it to save face? Would that be acceptable (since apparently companies existing to maintain their reputation is a reasonable excuse to do whatever they want)?
It's fairly predictable whenever this happens that you see a lot of folks saying that a corporation has the right to do something as if that's the end of the argument.
Lots of folks sit secure in the knowledge this will never happen to them because not only do they not engage in such abhorrent behavior, they would never be stupid enough to put themselves in a position where they could even be accused of such.
Hopefully, for their sake, they will never be shown how absolutely naive this position is. As a person who has had to fight thru several years of unfounded accusations while in school and very nearly lost hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of work to a university's "right" to toss anyone out who faces an accusation, regardless o the specifics or foundation of said accusation, I have to say that anyone can find themselves in this situation and when you do, get ready to find out that you in fact have no friends, no confidants, and very little influence with which to combat the situation.
To be honest, at this point the only thing to do is to hope and pray that Zalae was guilty of the accusation. I know how that sounds, but given that punishment has already been visited, it's really the only just state of being. We used to embrace the concept "better to let ten guilty men go free than punish an innocent," and no, that concept was never meant to be applied ONLY to government. Now, accusations are assumed true unless you happen to occupy positions of power in one political party (not intending to open a political discussion, it's just that in the past 5 years, there have only been two individuals who I've seen been given the benefit of the doubt by the mob . . . one a former President and one the current President).
Someone brought up the example of Johnny Depp. That's probably the worst of all the public examples we've seen, as nearly every piece of evidence points to the conclusion that Depp was not only innocent as an accused abuser, but in fact a fairly prolific victim of abuse. I prefer to look at the example of Chris Hardwick, a man who spent years ultimately successfully defending himself from these accusations, though in the end his career was all but destroyed and the losses, both socially and financially, were barely countable. Hardwick's story shows exactly the combination of luck, resources, and effort needed to salvage a life once these accusations take off, and it's important to realize that he wasn't half guilty, or a little guilty. By everything we know, he wasn't remotely guilty.
Anyway, hope it never happens to you. You'll be singing a different tune by then, but no one will care.
EDIT: I do find it hilarious in a very sad way that folks who will lay down some of the most horrid insults toward Blizzard when they don't like a card game's meta are suddenly cool with it when the same company plays sole arbiter of punishment with a person's livelihood.
Helpful Clarification on Forbidden Topics for Hearthstone Forums:
Enjoying Americans winning in the Olympics is forbidden because it is political. A 14 plus page discussion of state-sponsored lawsuits against a multi-national corporation based on harassment, discrimination, and wrongful death allegations is apparently not political enough to raise an issue.
Am I the only one who thinks the wording is strange here?
He definetly doesn't sound like a nice guy to have a close relationship with, bu the described facts don't merit the word 'abuse' right? Even if all of them are true.
Unless you mean emotional abuse in which case you can make a strong case. But I'm not even sure I'd suspend a player for those actions. Curious what you guys think about it!
I mean yeah, this has been true for a long time. It sucks, but companies (especially larger ones) have a lot of power over their employees and trying to challenge them legally is often a fools errand unless it's something on the scale of a class action lawsuit.