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Rockstar had a mole in the union worker discord server
- robtherobber 2mo agoThere is always that one person who ruins the game for everyone, metaphorically speaking. Despicable behaviour.
- tacomagick 2mo agoOr Rockstar is simply lying to get rid of the union, most things here seem to be alleged only.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> Rockstar is simply lying to get rid of the union How would Rockstar being shown to have had a mole in the union advance Rockstar's interests?
- tacomagick 2mo agoSame reason why most companies don't want their workers to unionize?
- JumpCrisscross 2mo agoIn response to a comment about "that one person who ruins the game for everyone," a reference to the mole, you said "or Rockstar is simply lying to get rid of the union." That implies there wasn't a mole, Rockstar made it up. I asked how making up a Rockstar mole in the union would advance any of Rockstar's goals at this junction.
- limagnolia 2mo agoIts not clear whether the OP was referring to the mole, or to the person(s) who were allegedly sharing confidential company information on an external, non-company Discord server. Rockstar claims that is why they fired them, though the fired employees allege it was to disrupt union organizing. Depending on ones point of view, either or both actors could be considered despicable.
- robtherobber 2mo agoI was indeed referring to the mole. I find that behaviour reprehensible.
- tacomagick 2mo agoLetting them dissolve or oppose the union?
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> Letting them dissolve or oppose the union? You're saying Rockstar would make up a mole that didn't exist, now, and that would somehow help it keep the union dissolved? What?
- tacomagick 2mo agoYeah pretty much?
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> Yeah pretty much? Your hypothesis is Rockstar made up a fake mole, buried it, let the opposition find it and put it in a legal filing, and this somehow helps them. Got it. If this isn't a troll account I'm worried.
- tacomagick 2mo ago
- abirch 2mo agoSince this is from court filings, that would be perjury if they can't back it up.
- tacomagick 2mo agoWould not be the first time a company lied.
- gruez 2mo agoYou'd have to reference rockstar's exact filings, since it's possible to paint a narrative that suggests something, without outright lying.
- abirch 2mo agoThat's classic game theory. It'd be better if everyone refuses to defect.
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago> classic game theory I'm not sure it is in unionisation fights, particularly in an industry as tightly knit as gaming. You're trading a short-term kiss from management for being hated across the industry. That forecloses all kinds of career opportunities outside the majors. In game theory, this sort of repeated interaction is exactly what incentivises cooperation.
- Daishiman 2mo agoAs long as someone knows that they're going away from the industry good it's enough for a single defection.
- speedstyle 2mo agoHumans have the ability to consider things beyond their immediate incentives. Most find it difficult not to. We don't know what benefits they received from defecting anyhow
- JumpCrisscross 2mo ago"At some point in this period, they go on, Rockstar management got hold of logins for the server, with Rockstar's vice president of information security Abid Ansari eventually signing in to download 'the contents of the Announcements and General channels'. Rockstar began firing members of the Discord at the end of the month." Is this legal in the UK?
- roosterIllusi0n 2mo agoSounds like a crime. They took credentials that was not theirs and used them to gain unauthorized access and then stole all the content.
- limagnolia 2mo agoThe article isn't clear on if the credentials were theirs or not, or how Rockstar management obtained them. It is possible that Rockstar management simply signed up for a Discord account and went through the process to request access, which was then granted to them by the Discord server admins. Since the server admins used the company Slack to verify that folks requesting to join were employees, it seems quite plausible that is what happened. But the details aren't really there in the article.
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoI hope the union admins weren't foolish enough to let in management that way. My best faith assumption is that the mole got in, grabbed the content, and shared their account with management. That still feels like a form of entrapment, though. Unless this story is fuzzy and the mole themselves simply shared the chat logs hemselves. But the story makes it sound like the Abid Ansari himself got in.
- limagnolia 2mo agoEntrapment is usually defined as when the investigator encourages the accused to commit the crime, in such a way that they were not already predispositioned to do so. If the management employee encouraged others on the forum to share company secrets, that might be entrapment, but simply being there and catching them in the act is not. I suppose more information will come out in court, if the matter is settled beforehand.
- HelloUsername 2mo agoPosted couple days ago but no activity https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49670569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49670569
- lightedman 2mo agoSounds like Discord also has a case against RockStar because their ToS expressly forbids sharing login credentials. You wanted your IPO money, Discord? Suing the shit out of RockStar and winning is the way to go here.
- somenameforme 2mo agoTerms of service, and more generally - contractual, violations without 'material loss' tend to have no remedies available unless otherwise agreed to. Fun lesson I learned in a project with a dubious partner.
- lightedman 2mo agoThe ToS lines up with specific laws that will very quickly make your point moot. the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 (since the place in question is in the UK) works alongside that ToS - accessing computer systems, networks, or data without permission is not only A breach of the ToS Discord has set forth but also a breach of that law. The mole shared access credentials - forbidden by Discord's ToS and by UK's law. This is very plain and simple to anyone with half a rasher of logic about them.
- somenameforme 2mo agoThis seems quite improbable. Something I looked up was whether it was illegal to share e.g. Netflix passwords in the UK since your take on the law would make this quite clearly so. And indeed the government claimed it is, but exclusively under appeals to the implications of copyright law, but with no intents to prosecute [the millions doing so] for such. Were account sharing criminally illegal, then I think that would be the obvious first target.
- gruez 2mo ago>The mole shared access credentials - forbidden by Discord's ToS and by UK's law. This is very plain and simple to anyone with half a rasher of logic about them. So we're suddenly for abusing hacking legislation to prosecute people, just because in this case the target isn't sympathetic?
- expedition32 2mo agoHe was more than a hero he was a Union man.
- VCFundedGenYer 2mo agoThis fall, buy Ocarina of Time and not GTA 6. Rockstar deserves no sales.
- gruez 2mo agohttps://www.eurogamer.net/doug-bowser-nintendo-doesnt-have-unions-because-of-high-degree-of-job-satisfaction-and-engagement https://www.eurogamer.net/doug-bowser-nintendo-doesnt-have-u... >However, while workers at Nintendo have yet to unionise, the company has previously been accused of interfering with unionisation efforts. A QA contractor made the allegations in 2022, saying they had been fired after asking about unionisation - although Nintendo insisted the firing happened because the worker had disclosed "confidential information". Sounds a lot like this case.
- expedition32 2mo agoJapanese politicians make Reagan look like a card carrying communist.
- api 2mo agoSo do some current US Republicans.
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoI don't disagree, but this was Nintendo of America. Nintendo's main branch has some of the best worker retention and satifaction in the industry (thanks to actual Japanese labor laws). NoA meanwhile, is identical to any other American company in how it operates. It's honestly a great example on why we need proper labor laws; it's the only way to truly keep companies "honest".
- saintfire 2mo agoOr... Just buy indie games. They're usually better and not a law firm with a small games company attached.
- 9865322689965 2mo ago[dead]
- VeejayRampay 2mo agoit's always terrible companies fighting tooth and nail against unions
- johnnyanmac 2mo agoYou have it backwards. A big part of why the terrible companies are terrible to begin with are because they do stuff like this.