Alison Rapp's Harassment Controversy

Overview

Alison Rapp's Harassment Controversy refers to the online backlash directed toward former Nintendo employee Alison Rapp that occurred in response to her public statements regarding social justice,GamerGate and child pornography. While Rapp accused members of GamerGate of targeting her for harassment, many GamerGaters denied involvement and claimed anti-child pornography activists on 8chan's /revolt/ board were responsible for the campaign.

Background

In November 2014, Rapp posted tweets arguing that misandry does not exist (shown below). On February 5th, 2015, Redditor godpiggy submitted screenshots of the tweets to /r/KotakuInAction^[13] in a post titled "Nintendo Marketer Alison Rapp doesn't think Sexism against Men can Exist."

On January 21st, 2016, Rapp posted tweets^[12] saying that "video games are not the most important things in the world" and said those who want to have "intelligent convos about games" must familiarize themselves with "life & intersectional social issues" (shown below). That day, the tweets were posted to the /r/KotakuInAction^[9] subreddit, where they received upwards of 1,800 votes (90% upvoted) and 550 comments.

Notable Developments

Child Pornography Essay

On February 25th, 2016, an article was submitted to the blogging platform Medium^[1] titled "Nintendo's Public Relations Employee Alison Rapp Now Vocal for Pedophiles," which reported that Rapp penned an essay in 2012 titled "Speech We Hate: An Argument for the Cessation of International Pressure on Japan to Strengthen Its Anti-Child Pornography Laws."^[2] In the essay, Rapp argues for "less strict legislation" against the possession of child pornography and that Japan's consent laws were influenced by Western imperialism. Additionally, the article highlighted a tweet by Rapp in which she appears to defend a man who had been arrested for child pornography (shown below).

After the article was published, many began calling for Rapp's termination from Nintendo. On February 29th, "Zoe Post" author Eron Gjoni tweeted^[10] "Attempting to get people fired for holding problematic views is exactly the stort of thing you're supposed to be against" (shown below). That day, the tweet was submitted to /r/KotakuInAction,^[11] where many claimed the campaign against her was being led by members of the /revolt/ board on 8chan rather than GamerGate.

Termination from Nintendo

On March 30th, Rapp posted a tweet announcing her employment with Nintendo had been terminated, along with several tweets speculating that the decision was made due to a harassment campaign led by GamerGate (shown below).

Meanwhile, a post titled "Fuck GamerGate: Rapp terminated by Nintendo" reached the front page of the /r/GamerGhazi^[8] subreddit. Later that same day, Nintendo responded to Rapp’s Twitter comments by issuing an official statement to the press^[16], in which the company flat out denied any alleged connection between the termination of her employment and the Twitter feud she had become embroiled in, while offering an explanation that she was fired because she was “moonlighting” with a second job, a violation of the company’s internal policy.

"Alison Rapp was terminated due to violation of an internal company policy involving holding a second job in conflict with Nintendo’s corporate culture. Though Ms. Rapp’s termination follows her being the subject of criticism from certain groups via social media several weeks ago, the two are absolutely not related. Nintendo is a company committed to fostering inclusion and diversity in both our company and the broader video game industry and we firmly reject the harassment of individuals based on gender, race or personal beliefs. We wish Ms. Rapp well in her future endeavors."

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the firing, including Kotaku, Breitbart,^[4] The Verge,^[5] The Guardian,^[6] IBI Times^[7] and The Mirror.^[14] Also March 31st, Redditor AzraelBane published a "Alison Rapp Megathread" to /r/KotakuInAction.^[15] Meanwhile, YouTuber Its Becky Boop published a video about the incident, providing a timeline of the events that transpired (shown below).

Search Interest

External References