It seems everyday we see a story where artists, companies, and players come under fire for behavior that a small group of people don’t agree with. Today, the Collar6 webcomic has fallen victim to a DDoS attack. A DDoS attack is a type of Denial of Service attack where multiple compromised systems are used to target a single system which in turn can crash servers.
To provide some context, Collar6 is an Animesque webcomic created by Latex-Acolyte best described as Dragon Ball Z meets BDSM T(in case you don’t know, BDSM is an umbrella term used for certain types of erotic behavior between consenting adults). The basic story is about a woman, her wife, and their relationship. It previously updated on Tuesdays and Fridays. It’s definitely Not Safe For Work.
It would seem the catalyst for the attack was a tweet that occurred on November 11th of last year. The tweet in question shows Manveer Heir a developer for Bioware, who has worked on games such as Mass Effect, drinking out of a black mug that says “White Tears” after Former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s loss last October. In which Latex-Acolyte responded “@manveerheir I guess my ‘white dollars’ will be better spent on other titles. Thanks for making your bigotry public”. There was no real reaction to his tweet to Heir until it was retweeted a few days ago.
@manveerheir I guess my 'white dollars' will be better spent on other titles. Thanks for making your bigotry public.
— Collar6 Webcomic (@collar6) November 11, 2015
@guy_clown @manveerheir @AarynFlynn Stand by that too. I don't do business with bigots. Particularly ones proud of their bigotry.
— Collar6 Webcomic (@collar6) January 12, 2016
At this moment Latex-Acolyte’s web hosting account has been suspended because of the DDoS attacks that have been happening over the last few days. It’s unknown when Collar6 will be up again to be viewed by fans. Although Latex-Acolyte has responded to the current situation on his deviantart page:
It does seem that shortly after the retweet this began. But they’re mistaken if they thin[k] cutting my site will lead to some regret or apology from me. It is strange that they went straight for the DDoS with such aggression instead of the usual false reporting, but I guess it’s not unheard of to go right for the jugular. Thanks again for pointing this out to me. I don’t have a reddit account, but I’ll be following the thread now to see if anything turns out. And thanks to everyone there for the support. Much appreciated.
The thread Latex-Acolyte is referring to can be found on the popular gamer gate subreddit, Kotaku in Action.
This isn’t the first time an artist has made politically incorrect statements, and it won’t be the last time. I wish Latex-Acolyte the best of luck in his future work, and I also hope Collar6 will be up soon. Only time will tell what the outcome of this situation will be.