Super Smash Brothers Anti-Harassment Campaign

Overview

Super Smash Brothers Anti-Harassment Campaign refers to an initiative by several Super Smash Brothers tournament organizers to implement a set of rules for tournaments to curtail sexual harassment and offenses in the game's community, including the banning of players who have been found in violation of the rules. The initiative has been met with pushback and threatened legal action from players in the Smash Brothers community, which has led to the campaign being stalled.

Background

On April 12th, 2018, Super Smash Brothers tournament organizer Josh “Roboticphish” Kassel posted a lengthy notice to Smash Boards^[1] stating that while it is wonderful to him that the Smash community has grown popular, ugly parts have also come to light, including harassment of women and other players. To combat this, he and other organizers would be attempting to create a "Harassment Task Force" which would implement a set of rules at major tournaments to curtail harassment and bullying in the Smash community, including the creation of bans and suspensions of players who violate the rules (excerpt shown below).

It is our aim with this code of conduct that local tournaments can look once again to the behavior of their national tournament leaders as a positive example. Our goal is to retain the spirit of that original Smash community: we want our local regions to feel like families, and our major events to feel like family reunions. However, it is also time for us to acknowledge that a dysfunctional family can end up causing more damage than good, and when a family is dysfunctional something must be done to attempt to heal the wounds and bring us together. We understand that families don’t always get along perfectly, however there is a certain baseline level of respect that we must demand from anyone who chooses to take part in it. This code of conduct will not be designed without teeth: behavior both in person and online will be considered, and a player’s behavior in their local scene, if egregious enough, will impact their ability to attend national and international tournaments (and vice versa).

Prior to this announcement, there have been some high-profile cases of sexual harassment and bullying in the Smash community. Competitive player Christian "Hyuga" Medina was dropped from VGBootCamp and banned from a tournament in 2016 for sexual harassment allegations against him.^[2] Women have reported harassment at tournaments as well,^[3] and in 2016, community member Neha Chherti create a guide about sexual assault and consent for the Smash community, which received polarized feedback from the community.^[4][5] Top player Gonzalo “Zero” Barrios has also reported bullying and harassment in the community.^[6]

Developments

On July 12th, 2018, Kassel posted an update saying that 18 out of 38 major tournament organizers had signed on to the rules, but some were reluctant due to the potential legal ramifications if a banned player sued for defamation of character.^[7] In the post, Kassel mentioned that a top player was being sued for sexual assault, but the threat of litigation from this individual made tournament organizers reluctant to enact the banning rules.

A prominent member of the community (who will remain unnamed) is currently accused of the grooming of a minor and sexual assault, however this person has hired a lawyer on retainer who has threatened to litigate against any tournament who tries to bar him entry into their event. While the victim has opened a criminal case against this person, and while it is obvious that the community should want to bar him from all events, the very real and serious threat of litigation is far too much for any tournament to afford. Tournaments already strain and struggle just to break even; defending against a $20k defamation lawsuit would bankrupt every TO in the world.

The prominent member may Kassel referred to may have been Vik "Nightmare" Singh,^[8] who posted a legal notice to his Twitter saying that he had been involved in a court case earlier in 2018, where it had been found he had “engaged with the subject individual with a romantic relationship which was mutual.” A thread about the notice was posted to /r/smashbros,^[9] gaining over 1,100 points. The controversy was covered by Polygon.^[10]

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External References