Sega takes legal action against social media user for harassment

Trash talk while gaming is commonplace, but the prevalence of harassment in gaming spaces has become a problem. Sega is taking legal action against an individual for targeting one of its employees and warns against further action for others doing the same.

According to a post on the company’s Japanese website, Sega announced that it has been dealing with an individual who continued to target one of its employees.

“We have been dealing with a person (hereinafter referred to as the “subject”) who has made excessive slanderous and insulting comments on social media against one of our employees for a long time, but as there has been no improvement, we have been forced to take legal action, and our request for disclosure of the sender’s information has now been granted by the court,” Sega said in the statement translated from Japanese. “After identifying the subject and negotiating, we have reached a settlement in which the subject will pay damages to our employee, delete the slanderous and insulting comments, and refrain from such actions in the future.”

The statement also points out that Sega sees such actions against its employees as a “serious human rights issues that damages the dignity of employees and deteriorates the work environment.”

Several organizations have standard policies in place for such action, but it is still rare to see one use it and do so in such a public manner. This is coming at a time in which harassment in the gaming industry is a serious talking point. In May, Statista released a report on online harassment in gaming. According to the results from the 2023 questionnaire, 60 percent reported being “severely harassed,” 67 percent reported being called “offensive names,” and 57 percent reported being “targeted by trolling/griefing” The report also investigated those that faced discrimination and sexual threats while gaming. According to the report 76 percent responded, “not harassed at all,” which continues to decline compared to responses from 2020 through 2022.

Other companies have openly talked about gamer behavior as well. Riot Games promised to ban offenders for toxic behavior in a public statement back in June.

Criticism and expressing customer dissatisfaction are understandable parts of an industry with enthusiastic consumers. However, the anonymity that social media creates has allowed for some within this fanbase to vehemently attack developers, personalities, media members, and anyone else for any reason they see fit. Sega taking a public stance and legal action against such behavior is a move in the right direction.