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Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

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141–150 of 328 posts

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#141
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of people want to work in the video game industry, so they'll put up with low pay, long hours, and apparently sexual harassment for a really long time.

What is the nature of the sexual harassment? Everyday it seems the bar gets lower and lower.

[deleted]

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal references are protected, to the extent that liable and slander laws would apply. Any HR person / lawyer will tell you providing a negative review of an employee, let alone with amount of detail, opens you up to liabilities that aren't worth it. As an employer, I've been told that, if called, I should only provide the date a person started with the company, the date a person left, their starting and ending s…

> whether they'd be eligible to be re-hired "Bob isn't eligible for rehire. Wait, I think the line cut out a bit there, I said Bob isn't eligible for rehire. Just wanted to make sure you got that: Bob is not eligible for rehire, no way, no how, nosirree."

Keep in mind: the judges that interpret the law are humans, not computers.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#143
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of companies will also say if the former employee is eligible to be employed there again. A negative on that plus a January separation date won't look good for those folks. I suppose that may mean something if you're playing detective with a former Blizzard employee's resume, but I'd be cautious in reading too much into "if the former employee is eligible to be employed there again" generally. I know of a com…

Why would you be ineligible for rehire after a downsizing?

Maybe because when downsizing you pick the lowest performers that for whatever reason you haven't already fired

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Americans, myself included, would deeply disagree that "freedom of Speech" translates to "can say whatever you want wherever you want." Otherwise we'd all opt for 8-chan style message boards where anyone can say whatever they want. It's not at all unreasonable to want a particular event to remain on-topic to the event, and not allow literally everyone to use it as their own personal soapbox for their cause of th…

Not an American here, in principle i agree. But in reality you can't hide the fact, that limiting freedom of speech is very much in the interest of those who want full control on what we can say. A good example is the Muhammad cartoons, which reminds us that there is a very long way to go before religions can exist peacefully. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_car...

I mean, that's exactly the point.

So when we see it being limited it freaks us out.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they call Blizzard checking references, does Blizzard say “we fired them for sexual harassment.”

The will not. They will confirm start and end dates, ask if the termination was voluntary, and may ask if they would hire them again in the future.

And even some 'voluntary' termination might be a case of somebody being managed out or asked to leave.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard won't say that, too much liability.

What does it mean that there is too much liability? What liability do you have for saying true things? "That person was fired because an investigation conducted by our company suggested they participated in sexual harassment."

That opens Blizzard up to litigation by the fired employee. At least more than not saying anything.

Even if you think something is true, someone else might contest that, and ask a court to decide. Court battles are costly and time consuming.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People exaggerate the amount of risk for this kind of thing, but the benefit to the company giving the bad reference is also essentially zero.

I agree with both your points. To be honest if the same signal is sent by merely confirming employment dates but not literally disparaging the former employee, I fail to see how there’s any additional legal protection. The implication is tortious interferus in both cases.

That's why many companies don't give any details at all, whether positive or negative. This way your line of argument doesn't apply; not from a logical point of view and also not from a legal point of view: no signal is sent at all.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#148
post #26
post #10

How many managers and executives were fired? My fear is that individual perpetrators have been fired but not the leaders who buried complaints or their own inaction dissuaded victims from complaining. A fish rots from the head.

How many of these people WERE managers or executives? I bet not enough.

How many would be enough?

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#149
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably overestimating the degree to which a hiring manager investigates a candidate, or even cares that a candidate was caught up in what appears to be a mostly political event (as far as we know from public information). Do you keep track of the month and year of every corporate scandal, and compare it to the resume of all applicants? Or do you just say "oh, you worked at Blizzard huh, do you play WoW?"

Right, but if there’s an applicant from Activision in the next month or so that didn’t leave voluntarily, then it might warrant further inquiry. Presumably some of these folks will need to try to find work ASAP. But months or years down the road chances are slim it’ll stick out.

> that didn’t leave voluntarily

How would you know this?

I sure as heck have never volunteered information like that.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#150
post #25
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted my Blizzard account when they censored and banned a Taiwanese e-sports competitor for speaking out on Hong Kong. It's a shame because I had been planning to give WoW classic a try. Edit: While the tournament was held in Taiwan, Blitzchung is actually a native of Hong Kong.

while i do understand the plight of HK's fight, it does make sense that a non-affiliated individual should not be able to make political statements on someone else's platform, unless with prior consent. The competitor should be free to make his case in his own platform(s), but not on a platform he doesn't own if the owners of that platform doesn't want to affiliate themselves with the political discourse.

Blizzard will bow to what the customers want; if more customers want people to be able to make pro-HK statements, then they are going to allow it. Otherwise they won't. Also, the platform has little to do with it. Disney dropped someone for statements made primarily on Twitter. They decided they didn't want their brand associated with it.
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