Name Changes and Selective Enforcement
Hola,
I'd like to make clear that this post is not about which names are too vulgar and which aren't. I acknowledge that my name was definitely "vulgar," and even though I can't imagine it actually offending anyone (always got some funny/positive reactions in game), it certainly didn't comply with Riot's terms of use. My personal opinion is that names shouldn't be changed unless people report them (or they're obviously racist/sexist/homophobic/etc.), but that's neither here nor there.
This event was prompted by me receiving a 10-game chat restriction. This post is not directly about that chat restriction, although I have to touch on it a little bit to give a clear picture of what happened. This is about selective enforcement, or the appearance thereof, and whether criticizing Riot should result in stricter enforcement of unrelated rules.
A couple days ago, I received a 10-game chat restriction. Looking at my chat logs (which I don't think I still have access to, since the restriction is over) that spanned three games, I only found a couple of instances of me criticizing other players unprompted (one that comes to mind was me asking if my Lux was trolling for throwing out ult on CD at full health targets at max range). Most of what was included was my responses and arguments with teammates who flamed me (e.g., my jungler saying "we have no top," "report Illaoi," "you're inting," etc). I sent in a ticket asking about the ban, not really knowing Riot's policy on these matters (never been chat restricted or banned before). After getting a pretty good response about Riot's policy, I replied:
"Hey this is a good response, and I know that you shouldn't be made to answer for Riot's general philosophy on toxicity. I completely understand where you're coming from, and I would never defend my behavior in these games as productive. I do want to respond to Riot's philosophy in general, however, as I think that it deserves some debate (know that this is not directed towards you, but rather the approach that Riot takes in general)."
I know that this was probably a matter to be discussed on the forums (and it probably already has been), but I wanted to get it out to a Rioter in response to a specific incidence which I felt was unfair. Regardless of how you feel about that debate, this is not directly what I'm concerned about. The honor reset was a little disheartening, but the chat restriction itself wasn't that bad and I think that it's a good punishment system overall, whether or not it's overused.
A day after I posted that response, I received a notice that I had to change my name. To be upfront, my name was "B1gP3nisH4v3r69." I'm quite aware that it's not the cleanest name, and if Riot asked me to change my name after the first interaction I had with them, I would understand (the argument being that they hadn't seen it until then). However, I've had this name for two and a half years. Over those years, I've interacted with Riot staffers on a few occasions, literally submitting a ticket under the name "B1gP3nisH4v3r69" (about low FPS issues), and no name change was required. They did not ask me to change my name alongside the chat restriction—it only occurred after I posted a criticism of Riot's philosophy on toxicity.
I'm aware that it could be a coincidence. After denying that this was in response to my criticism a Riot support staffer said "We do our best to change names as we see them. It might be that the previous agents who saw your name, didn't see them as inappropriate or just plain didn't see them." Now, this plausible deniability doesn't really hold up for me (there were ample opportunities to force a name change in the past), and it's rather convenient that someone just happened to flag my name after I criticized the company. I didn't buy the spiel about Riot being "in the process of changing all appropriate names" either, and I found about 10 vulgar names in a few minutes, responding that, if Riot actually cared about vulgar names, they would have at least picked the low-hanging fruit (pun intended), such as "scrotum" and "p3n1s" which have existed for multiple seasons. It's important to emphasize however, that whether or not this was truly a coincidence, it looks just like selective enforcement.
Riot will always be able to deny that criticism of their company played a role in the decision to punish a player, especially when that player is actually violating the rules. But it's not enough to say "you've violated the rules, therefore you have no grounds for complaint." Whether or not a Rioter consciously decided to retaliate against me for criticizing them, it's not possible that they considered whether to crack down on my name without first having been aware of my criticism, and this is the problem (that I admittedly don't know how to solve). Almost certainly, whoever was the Rioter to decide "his name has to change" did so after seeing my ticket.
Given that Riot does not have the resources to change every vulgar name (though they probably could have found "scrotum" if they were actually trying), and the rule on vulgar names are broad/vague, they have to make some choices about when to enforce the rules, and we should worry if criticism of the company plays any role. It sends the message that, if you had refrained from criticizing the company, you might have gotten away with some violations, but if you do decide to criticize the company, they'll take a harder look at other rules you may have broken. We should remove disincentives to criticism.
To be completely upfront about a couple of things, because I don't want to paint myself as a hero here, I wasn't 100% polite in my response to the name change. E.g., "Lol is this serious? . . . I'm sure it's just a coincidence though that I'm being flagged for a name change after criticizing Riot's stance on toxicity. . . But you completely dodged my point". . . etc). No insults or profanity-laden rants devoid of content, but definitely some aggressive sarcasm. Furthermore, I was angry about the whole situation and decided to not comply with the name change, i.e., I entered another vulgar name. This name, "Qu33fInh4l3r420," resulted in a 7-day suspension, which I probably deserve for not complying. This isn't really what I'm concerned about in this post.
You can call me conspiratorial, and say that I deserve everything I got, and you may or may not be right. But I came out of this scenario feeling like my choice to criticize Riot was met with further scrutiny, and Riot's response that it was just a coincidence will always be a plausible response to any potential instances of selective enforcement, whether true or not. I can't help feeling that, had I not decided to submit a ticket about my chat restriction, I would still have my name. At the very least, I hope this sparks some discussion on how name changes should be enforced, which names are okay and which aren't, and how best to combat the potential problem of selective enforcement (even if you don't think this is plausible case of selective enforcement, we know that it can happen, and probably did in cases like Riot Korea's banning of Cowsep).
TL;DR - was chat restricted and responded with a support ticket in which I criticized Riot's philosophy on toxicity. Riot forced me to change my name a day later, even though Rioters had seen my name many times before and had the opportunity to say/do something then.
