"At some point in this period, they go on, Rockstar management got hold of logins for the server, with Rockstar's vice president of information security Abid Ansari eventually signing in to download 'the contents of the Announcements and General channels'. Rockstar began firing members of the Discord at the end of the month."
The article isn't clear on if the credentials were theirs or not, or how Rockstar management obtained them. It is possible that Rockstar management simply signed up for a Discord account and went through the process to request access, which was then granted to them by the Discord server admins. Since the server admins used the company Slack to verify that folks requesting to join were employees, it seems quite plausible that is what happened. But the details aren't really there in the article.
I hope the union admins weren't foolish enough to let in management that way. My best faith assumption is that the mole got in, grabbed the content, and shared their account with management.
That still feels like a form of entrapment, though. Unless this story is fuzzy and the mole themselves simply shared the chat logs hemselves. But the story makes it sound like the Abid Ansari himself got in.
>However, while workers at Nintendo have yet to unionise, the company has previously been accused of interfering with unionisation efforts. A QA contractor made the allegations in 2022, saying they had been fired after asking about unionisation - although Nintendo insisted the firing happened because the worker had disclosed "confidential information".
I don't disagree, but this was Nintendo of America. Nintendo's main branch has some of the best worker retention and satifaction in the industry (thanks to actual Japanese labor laws). NoA meanwhile, is identical to any other American company in how it operates.
It's honestly a great example on why we need proper labor laws; it's the only way to truly keep companies "honest".
I'm not sure it is in unionisation fights, particularly in an industry as tightly knit as gaming. You're trading a short-term kiss from management for being hated across the industry. That forecloses all kinds of career opportunities outside the majors. In game theory, this sort of repeated interaction is exactly what incentivises cooperation.
In response to a comment about "that one person who ruins the game for everyone," a reference to the mole, you said "or Rockstar is simply lying to get rid of the union." That implies there wasn't a mole, Rockstar made it up.
I asked how making up a Rockstar mole in the union would advance any of Rockstar's goals at this junction.
Its not clear whether the OP was referring to the mole, or to the person(s) who were allegedly sharing confidential company information on an external, non-company Discord server. Rockstar claims that is why they fired them, though the fired employees allege it was to disrupt union organizing. Depending on ones point of view, either or both actors could be considered despicable.
Your hypothesis is Rockstar made up a fake mole, buried it, let the opposition find it and put it in a legal filing, and this somehow helps them. Got it.
If you do not think this is a possibility I guess you must see the world as sunshine and rainbows and corportaions working for our best interest, I don't know what to tell you. Evwrythinf can happen when your employee count is high.
> you must see the world as sunshine and rainbows and corportaions working for our best interest
I'm literally not seeing the throughline from A to B. It's like saying a greedy capitalist nuked himself as a gotcha. Like, how does that help him? I'm not saying he isn't capable of it. I just literally don't see how it helps him.
Terms of service, and more generally - contractual, violations without 'material loss' tend to have no remedies available unless otherwise agreed to. Fun lesson I learned in a project with a dubious partner.
The ToS lines up with specific laws that will very quickly make your point moot. the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 (since the place in question is in the UK) works alongside that ToS - accessing computer systems, networks, or data without permission is not only A breach of the ToS Discord has set forth but also a breach of that law.
The mole shared access credentials - forbidden by Discord's ToS and by UK's law. This is very plain and simple to anyone with half a rasher of logic about them.
This seems quite improbable. Something I looked up was whether it was illegal to share e.g. Netflix passwords in the UK since your take on the law would make this quite clearly so. And indeed the government claimed it is, but exclusively under appeals to the implications of copyright law, but with no intents to prosecute [the millions doing so] for such.
Were account sharing criminally illegal, then I think that would be the obvious first target.
>The mole shared access credentials - forbidden by Discord's ToS and by UK's law. This is very plain and simple to anyone with half a rasher of logic about them.
So we're suddenly for abusing hacking legislation to prosecute people, just because in this case the target isn't sympathetic?
Why not? The best way to repeal bad laws is to sling them against those who otherwise benefit from it. The best case here is that the law is thrown out entirely. The "worst case" is an unsympathetic target getting their just desserts.
Is this legal in the UK?
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