Nobody involved is at ND anymore. Neither Ballard, Cogburn, Balestra or the HR rep. I doubt anything will happen.
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Former Naughty Dog Employee Named in Sexual Harassment Claim
- Thread starter Jawbreaker
- Start date
It takes balls to name people like that. I hope it helps him recover from the event.
The way Sony and ND has handled this is absolutely disgusting. It's also sad that so many here would automatically dismiss someone who has nothing to gain by lying.
This right here. Some of the posts here are shocking.
All that case tells me is a proper investigation was never done. Kind of like with this incident.
One party has nothing to gain by lying and actually stands to severely damage their career while the other party has everything to gain and nothing to lose by denying it. It's pretty easy to see who would be taking a bigger risk by lying and is less likely to do it.
The way Sony and ND has handled this is absolutely disgusting. It's also sad that so many here would automatically dismiss someone who has nothing to gain by lying.
This right here. Some of the posts here are shocking.
All that case tells me is a proper investigation was never done. Kind of like with this incident.
One party has nothing to gain by lying and actually stands to severely damage their career while the other party has everything to gain and nothing to lose by denying it. It's pretty easy to see who would be taking a bigger risk by lying and is less likely to do it.
I know this type of topic is new to gaming side, but it's not about getting pitchforks it's about believing the victim.
On the flip side of this argument we're supposed to believe that Sony was so protective of this one accused employee that they dismissed the accusers claim and then promptly fired the accuser because of it.
Is that really that unbelievable? Look at all the stories from #MeToo and the amount of people who tried to speak up or feared for their jobs if they would speak up. It's not exactly new that some companies do this
Or they saw the victim as someone who was rocking the boat too much and could potentially be a PR issue, so they fired him and tried to sweep it under the rug.
It is though, it's already proven on a lot of MeToo stories and it's also possible that Sony doesn't any hassle. How they handle it is absolutely disgusting and they should do proper steps to help the victim.
#metoo was initially about raising awareness of the scale of the problem that is sexual harassment. It evolved into a lot of people being named in accusations on social media, but that wasn't the original aim.
You're missing the point. I've got no beef with the guy telling his story, but random Twitter peeps pushing him into naming names isn't cool with me, especially the HR person just doing her job that didn't assault anyone.
It's not that simple. Unless I know the person or are my family, I don't by default believe anyone for anything without proof when you have two parties saying completely different things. And I say this as someone who has been a victim in the past.
It'll be the second time for ND. For Sony, it's the third time what with Quantic Dream.
Sony has to stop dragging their feet and do something about this because it's appalling that already 3 outcries in a span of a year.
This is a continuation of what was reported back in late 2017. Their first PR statement was lackluster at best. That's what I meant about this will be ND responding a second time towards this because they kind of have to now.
If you're a victim yourself, you should know damn well that the "proof" that would satisfy public opinion doesn't exist. There's no video or audio recording. There's no signed confession. There's no smoking gun. All we'll get is witness testimony.
The person (HR) he says he reported it to (at the end of a procedure where he was being disciplined for lackluster work performance and attitude) has left Sony more than a year ago, and worked there for only 1 year actually (April 2016-April 2017).
If she didn't believe him then (as he seemed to imply back in October when he said him reporting it at that point just accelerated him being shut down and not being communicated with) and she did not report or document his complaint, what then?
And that is why court of public opinion is dangerous and I just don't just be default believe accused or accuser without proof or reasonable doubt unless it's someone I personally know like friend and family. I take a neutral stance with a news story and absorb all the information provided and sometimes I do make up my mind of what I feel the truth may be, and sometimes I've been wrong, sometimes I've been right, but I don't go into the court of public opinion.
Except actual legal action taken against Quantic Dream ended up having results in favor of QD.
It is probably important to note for those that are waiting for "the case to be settled" that I don't think there is any case pending.
This is basically an alleged victim having the guts to name their attacker and face potential legal fallout.
By saying you are "waiting" for a court to come to a decision you are basically abstaining from the wider societal problem forever.
The precedence of believing the victim is based on the concept that false claims are incredibly small in number. The constant referral to them is a smoke screen used by people who don't want to admit that sexual harassment is still a big problem. By buying into it you're adding into the problem.
No one is asking you to boycott or email or anything, just be aware of the ramifications of your stance.
The likelihood is in most of these cases, no court is ever going to be involved to settle the matter for you.
Deferring to justice that will never come just hurts the victims.
This is basically an alleged victim having the guts to name their attacker and face potential legal fallout.
By saying you are "waiting" for a court to come to a decision you are basically abstaining from the wider societal problem forever.
The precedence of believing the victim is based on the concept that false claims are incredibly small in number. The constant referral to them is a smoke screen used by people who don't want to admit that sexual harassment is still a big problem. By buying into it you're adding into the problem.
No one is asking you to boycott or email or anything, just be aware of the ramifications of your stance.
The likelihood is in most of these cases, no court is ever going to be involved to settle the matter for you.
Deferring to justice that will never come just hurts the victims.
That is if you have enough trust in the justice system in the first place. Cases like this even if new are often hard to settle since there's rarely enough evidence beyond statements.
He was already considering naming names, and unfortunately nothing really can change unless you do name names since companies are just looking for ways to sweep this under the rug. The HR person did not harass or assault anyone, you're right, but she did drop the ball on reporting this properly since Naughty Dog says they were never made aware of any complaints at all. He's trying to show people the paper trail that he left so that Naughty Dog can't just continuously call him a liar.
If it's really the case, how can the public decide who's guilty of what ?
What you should really do is look at the statistics behind cases like this, and any motivations you can think of. With a 2 - 8% false accusation rate, the odds of this being false aren't very high, yet the default stance that everyone goes to is that they can't just believe the victim because they're scared of false accusations happening to themselves.
You also need to look at the stories that have come from #MeToo. Take a look at just how widespread actions like this are, and the ways that victims have been unable to come forward due to public perceptions, court perceptions, and the way that their livelihoods have been at stake if they tried to come forward. I've had people tell me that they require video evidence or the accused admitting to it for them to believe the victim, and that's just not realistic.
It's not your job to decide if someone is guilty or not, but defaulting to an attitude that the victim could be lying is just harmful and one of the largest contributors for why #MeToo was necessary in the first place. There's no reason to come into a thread about someone talking about sexual harassment that they went through and without any reason to think otherwise immediately jumping to a false accusation. It's okay to be skeptical when you don't have all the information, but at least consider it from the point of view of the victims before immediately thinking that there's a decent chance that they're a liar.
Serious question for you.
You are Sony, or the head of Naughty Dog. You get a single employee coming forward that another employee made sexually harassing statements to them. You round up a couple dozen other employees that work with the accused and asking them if they've ever heard anything like this from the accused employee. They say they haven't, and they're shocked to hear such things being said about that person.
What do you do with the accuser and the accused?
Yes, exactly. This is why expecting someone to present a bunch of evidence of assault is usually futile. It nearly always comes down to he said, she said. This will only change if victims feel confident enough to come out and make accusations without fear of it ruining their career or lives.
If accusations can be made right after the fact in an open and fair environment, these cases could have more weight to them. When they are historic, they become even harder to prove and often the only recourse is to out the aggressor so others can watch out for them in future.
The only reason the Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby cases have been publically accepted is the sheer weight of testimony. Those of you asking for evidence, ask yourselves why these women didn't come out until sometimes decades after the fact? Public perception of these cases is important.
User Banned (1 week): Inappropriate comments in a serious thread. History of such behaviour.
If Sony knew all along and kept quiet, are people here keeping their PS4s and siding with Satan or selling them? F God of War, Spider-Man, Last of Us 2, etc now right? Let's go. Nintendo Switch awaits thee...
That's not what happened in this case. In this case, HR didn't even file it properly and Naughty Dog has no records of it.
But, trust me. I know that not every accusation can be proven. I've been through some stuff myself, and if I tried to come forward now I would have absolutely no evidence of it at all. That doesn't mean that I would want to be called a liar for it, or not have it taken seriously. In a case like that, you take it seriously. You report it, and you document that an employee has said these things so that it can be referred to in the future in case it happens again. You could even have the person who was accused be reminded of the policies regarding sexual harassment so that there's less chance of this happening again. I really think that's what they should have done at minimum with an accusation like this, and not just completely dismiss his concerns and not even file a report on it.
What is this shit?
There's a serious sexual harassment accusation situation unfolding and this is the best thing you can think of to post? Really?
Wow I didn't expect my tweet and conversation with David Ballard end up in RE
Anyway, I am happy he responded.
You can understand from his previous tweets that he was in such a pain.
Anyway, I am happy he responded.
You can understand from his previous tweets that he was in such a pain.
To help you grasp this, doing harm in private then hiding behind social credibility is primarily how predators work. The most important element of this is that even when the organization can't be sure, it's their obligation to document and maintain a paper-trail so the person can't easily do it again without repurcussions. In the situation here, the studio claimed they didn't even have a record of the accusation. That's what has people's eyebrows raised. Since the person bringing the accusation is opening themselves up to legal liability by naming the specific parties in the meeting, that's not a flippant accusation.
They don't obviously. You don't have to judge anyone to be supportive of victims. That's not a requirement.
What I'm saying is that the "wait for evidence" refrain is hollow and is barely more of a stance than "I don't care." When someone tells you their story, they're not asking you to pick up a gavel. They're asking you to show basic human empathy.
Yes, I am aware of the lack of records, and I do find it very peculiar. If I know one thing about most modern companies it's that they don't often have issues like this come up, involve HR, and then document absolutely none of it. That is a very strange circumstance to be sure, so yeah, that's where what we're left with.
I still can´t believe they dropped his clear name in this statement.
Thats so unprofessional.
Yeah, I don't really know how common that is, but I'm pretty sure that's why he named the HR person that he went to. Because she just didn't make a report on it, which just gives off the vibe that they felt he was lying right off the bat and weren't even going to look into it. It would be pretty disappointing and insulting to go through that, so I don't blame him for naming them at this point.
Well, you've lept to your own conclusions there, but I am very happy he finally named people. Because that means Sony can now get involved further and go directly to those people to ask more questions.
At this point I suspect nothing Sony says will be believed by some people though. You have to keep in mind that in 2018 phone records, emails, and instant messages are easily traceable. If Sony felt people inside their company were covering something up I think they'd certainly want to get to the bottom of it all. They have absolutely no reason to want to hide something like this, as it would only open them up for a much bigger embarrassment and/or lawsuit later on. If Ballard's claims are true, he's got a RIPE case for a lawsuit here.
And that brings me back to my original point.
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Regarding this, you should treat this as the first case, even if nobody has ever heard of it. You don't pretend it didn't happen or think it can't happen because it hadn't before.
Do you find the accuser's story to be credible and supportable on its own merit? If so, you fire the accused. Secondary "character" witnesses are not only unnecessary, but carry little probative value in these types of situations.
How awful. Good on him for naming his assaulted. That takes a lot of courage. Hopefully this can be a part of his healing process.
Another reminder that in sexual harassment cases, accusers usually leave the company when they make a claim (and we're talking firing, employee leaving, etc).
Popular wisdom is really that if you value your job and want to stay, you shouldn't accuse anyone of harassment.
I do not need to say this is absolutely unacceptable.
Popular wisdom is really that if you value your job and want to stay, you shouldn't accuse anyone of harassment.
I do not need to say this is absolutely unacceptable.
If that HR person was present when such allegations were conveyed and apparently there is no record of the allegations, then indeed she has some explaining to do.
You do realize that the mere act of not trusting the victim and declaring as much on a public forum is stepping into the court of public opinion right? Whether you like it or not, that attitude is indeed what makes it so hard for victims to come forward in the first place.
People sure like sitting on their one sided fences.
It's not about trust. I apply that to everything, not just sexual harassment. Unless I know the person, I don't just believe the accuser by default. Same with the accused as well. I leave that between investigation or the authorities or any means. It's not about sitting on the fence. I can form my own ideas in my head, and maybe I will share them with someone close to me, but I leave it at that. I believe in victims coming forward but I also believe in innocent until proven guilty. I am against courts of public opinion because it's never a good thing. I can form an opinion if I see enough evidence or if the other person does nothing to dispute it. I usually leave it at that. Look, I was a victim when I was a boy, so I understand the importance of coming forward.
But I also had an experience around 8 or so years ago. There was someone at my workplace that I dated casually. We got along great and it was toxic on our ends. It finally ended when she decided she did want to be with me anymore because she developed feelings for one of my friends. Yeah, it sucked, and I was hurt, but my friend is a woman and I thought, well, she is gay now. That is who she is. Thing is, even after we were done seeing each other, she still flirted with me. She would get upset when I flirted with other people. One time we were at our mutual friend's graduation party and I kissed someone I was hanging out with half the night and she got pissed and texted me asking me how I could dare to kiss someone in front of her. Which left me confused, because not only did she stop seeing me to see one of my friends, since we had mutual friends they would be out together in front of me. She would make snide comments about my female friends, she would openly compliment my dick in front of people. Then one day I am at work and I standing there helping someone and she stands next to me puts her hand on mine. I push it away and she puts her hand back. At that point I let her do it because I still had some leftover feelings because I am idiot. Later on she goes to me while I am in the back room and kisses me.
So she tells my friend, who she was dating now, that I am the one who would not leave her alone? That I behaved inappropriately with her, that I engaged her without consent? I had her my former friend's FATHER come up to me after he saw me at a pub with some friends to not lay a hand on her (the girl I used to date, not his daughter) or there will be trouble.
Like what the hell? My friend's believed me, which is all that matters. They know how I am, they know how she was. That is all that mattered.
Now you don't know me. I don't expect you to believe me over her. Why? I am just some avatar here. And lets say I was someone you all knew cause I worked somewhere, if I felt I did nothing wrong my response would not be as detailed as this. I would just say, never happened. Or something happened, yes, but that is not exactly how it went down. And I would leave it at that. But I bet you many here would just call me disgusting or a creep.
And this is not about some gatcha moment. If it comes out that the allegations are true, then so be it and I hope the company does right and makes sure something like that happens again. If they are not true, then they are not true and hope all parties involved can move on. So it's not about sitting on the fence, but I treat he/she said he/she said as that.
Congrats to one of the worst posts I have ever read.
I hope ND/Sony has to talk about this at some point and that they aren't allowed to sweep it under the rug once again. It was shameful how quickly this thing died down when it was first brought into discourse. Their statement was essentially "there's nothing to see here! Look away please".
Thank you for sharing your story. It seems to have been a f'ed up situation to have to go through. I really sympathize and It makes me understand better where you're coming from.
Now, that being said and at the risk of sounding dismissive (i assure you it's not my intention), that is one personal story that for all intents and purposes is on the very low end of what usually happens. It's extremely important to you and i don't want to make little of it, but on the grand scheme of things, it should not be used as a baseline to inform basic reactions to these cases on a macro level. Not only because the majority of cases of reported harassment are demonstrably not based on false accusations, but also because the possible damages from ignoring harassment are often on a more broader level and can be much more problematic. One case of a false accusation will often harm the accused and those immediately close to him, most times on a purely social and familiar level, rarely on a criminal level. And that's why these cases should be sussed out and the false accuser brought to light and revealed. On the other hand, harassers and sexual abusers tend to do it repeatedly and systematically, and shutting them down not only brings some sense of justice and closure to those who already suffered at their hands, it can also prevent other people from being their victims in the future. Victims of harassment also are often left scarred to various degrees, from the mild unpleasant recollection to violent trauma that precludes normal social interactions going further, or even self doubt, self harm, suicide in more extreme cases. In short, actual harassment is widely spread while false reports of harassment are not. Usually, the results of harassment are much, much more serious and wide reaching than those of false reports.
For all these practical reasons and many others related to empathy and respect, we should always trust a victim's account and start from there. No one's defending that we should prosecute the dude that is being accused without evidence. At least no one reasonable. People are only saying that these instances should be thoroughly investigated by the parties involved, and that according to the information we have, it's very likely that these accusations were indeed brought to the attention of both ND and Sony, and that they were summarily dismissed and the whole incident swept under the rug. Which is unfortunately nothing new, and i would even argue is standard procedure where companies are concerned.
When you, or anyone else, steps into a public forum and proclaims that we should wait for more information before believing the victim, what you are essentially doing is siding with the accused, whether that is your intention or not. The fact of the matter is that rarely is there any sort of proof in cases like this, and that's why we need to trust the victim to begin with. Otherwise, the status quo where serial harassers and abusers like Weinstein and Cosby spend their entire lives just doing what they please just continues to thrive.
Emails don't exist? Those are considered evidence nowdays, along with other written forms of Internet media like Facebook, etc
You can subpoena emails. Happens all the time in big businesses and companies
No one's asking Heather Zavadil to explain herself on Twitter. People are hoping that ND and Sony actually get off their asses and take this shit seriously. Whether that ends up involving Heather Zavadil or not is inconsequential to what people want. Ballard says she was present and as thus aware of the allegations, yet these companies claim there is no record of the allegations. Well, either Ballard is lying and that conversation never happened, or he's telling the truth and someone 'forgot' to document it, which would make the HR person either responsible or complicit.