Kyle Rittenhouse, who was forced to defend himself during a Black Lives Matter riot in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August 2020, recently revealed that Electronic Arts (EA) targeted his account for using his own name as his username.
Rittenhouse shared an email he received from Electronic Arts to his Instagram Stories that claims his username breaks their Positive Play Charter.
The email begins, “We received a report about your account or profile name. It may be the name you created on another platform.”
“This name breaks our Positive Play Charter because you may have used words or phrases that harm others or negatively disrupt the game,” EA added.
Finally, they listed his violations of the Positive Play Charter, “Here’s the violations we see: Steam PC, Inappropriate Reference – Violence, Terror, and Tragic Events, ‘Username- Kyle Rittenhouse.'”
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EA describes their Positive Play Charter as “an updated set of community guidelines with clear consequences for players who engage in racist, sexist, homophobic, and abusive acts in our games and channels.”
“If we see someone being offensive or abusive, we’re going to hold them responsible for their actions,” the video game company added.
“We believe that our communities should be safe, fun, inclusive environments free of threats, harassment and other toxic or unlawful behavior,” they went on to state. “In an effort to do better and to enforce our Positive Play Charter, we are applying additional resources and tools to our moderation and abuse reporting programs.”
“We have a disciplinary policy that is in place, and is being applied consistently across all our games and services,” they added.
EA went on to reveal they removed over 3,500 player-generated assets from their games, “In recent weeks, we have removed more than 3,500 player-generated assets from our games – inappropriate and hurtful names and language — and took action with the players that had posted the content. We will continue to consistently do this.”
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The company then stated, “The last few weeks have been a stark reminder that we have a responsibility to stay vigilant in this effort. We won’t tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, harassment or any form of abuse.”
“We can build better, healthier communities inside – and outside – our games, and that’s what we are here to do,” EA asserted.
Ironically, the company admitted to including racist messaging in their games disguised as anti-racist.
“Last week we included important anti-racism messaging in many of our games, reaching millions of players. Every step towards a healthier community is a positive one,” they wrote.
“This isn’t a quick fix, but it is a long-term commitment that we intend to continue to act on,” stated EA. “We will constantly question and evaluate how we’re doing – and what more we can do.”
“Meaningful change in our industry means a step towards meaningful change in the world we all share. We all have a role to play. Let’s make it positive,” the company concluded.
As part of their Positive Play Charter they have four main bullet points: Treat others as you would like to be treated, Keep Things Fair, Share Clean Content, and Follow Local Laws.
As part of their ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ point they state, “Don’t harass, threaten, bully, spam or do anything else to another player or EA employee that is unwanted.”
It could definitely be argued by targeting Kyle Rittenhouse, who used his own name as his username, that EA is violating their own policy.
It definitely appears that they are bullying him by claiming the use of his name is an inappropriate reference in regards to violence, terror, and tragic events.
What do you make of EA going after Kyle Rittenhouse for simply using his own name as his username?