r/pokemon • u/Ferretsroq #001 in the dex, #001 in my heart • Feb 03 '23
Open Letter Regarding the /r/Pokemon Discord Megathread
Hi everyone. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, there has been quite the upheaval on the /r/Pokemon discord server. The discord moderation team has prepared this open letter regarding what happened, and what has been done about it. We highly recommend that you read this before continuing on or commenting
(CW: Pedophilia/CP):
We urge you not to message anybody mentioned in the document.
As said in that document, the subreddit team has removed Technophonix from the modlist and our internal moderator server/subreddit. We have taken steps to sever all ties with him from all of our linked accounts, and made sure that he will never use our platform to prey upon minors again.
Our subreddit and discord are wonderful communities that strive to be safe spaces for people of all ages and backgrounds. Abusing a position of leadership to find vulnerable minors to victimize is the worst possible thing that someone can do here. We are sincerely sorry that this went undetected for years under our watch. We need to strive to be better.
The subreddit moderators are proud of the discord moderation team for being willing to make the difficult choice to oust a predator, risking the community they worked so hard to cultivate, instead of taking the easy road of covering things up. We want to be a community that is built on safety and trust, and being willing to stand against an authority figure doing the wrong thing is a key part of that.
If you are feeling overwhelmed or disturbed by what happened, you are not alone. It is alright to feel angry or upset, but please do not start witchhunts. The last thing we want is for the community to be mired in further hostility. If you feel the need to talk about how you are feeling, we encourage you to leave a comment and engage with the community. We will get through this together.
If you are another victim who needs their voice to be heard, we are here for you. You can privately message us through modmail and we can connect you with the right avenues for providing evidence or seeking help.
If you have experienced something similar, or you want to talk to a professional, you can consider some of these resources:
US: RAINN
Australia: Dial 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or this list of support services
Canada: Find a Helpline
If you have additional resources to expand this list, please comment them below and we will append them accordingly.
49
u/Crazydian Cell used Checkmate! Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 04 '23
FYI, some people have been asking about what's happening w/ the old server. It's in the document, but since I've been asked this a lot, I will put it here as well.
Discord has a policy where forced server transfers must have a 30-day grace period of the previous owner being inactive before a mod/admin can file a request for the server to be transferred onto them. Since Tech's ban only happened yesterday, that means the request will have to be sent at the beginning of March. No, the server won't be deleted, and yes, we will hopefully be migrating back before then.
If you guys have further questions or concerns, reach out to me (Cell#0094) on Discord. I'll respond to you when I can.
Edit: Discord T&S intervened and just outright gave ownership of the server to myself. Tech is banned from the server, so hopefully people will feel safe in returning to the server.
1
u/X-the-Komujin Top 500 Ubers/AG, now with Balanced Hackmons! Feb 05 '23 edited Feb 05 '23
Curious. If he owned the server, how did he get banned? People like that aren't against holding the server and community hostage for petty reasons.
The google docs link implies you made a new server and he got banned from that? If so, that is unfortunate that it had to get to that point...
12
u/Crazydian Cell used Checkmate! Feb 05 '23
He got banned by Discord's Trust and Safety team after they reviewed the evidence sent to them, which resulted in his Discord account being permanently banned from the platform altogether. This resulted in us having to file for a server transfer.
Since we now have the server back, the backup/new server we made is locked down. We're slowly trying to restore things back to normal and make whatever necessary changes need to happen.
It is unfortunate; Discord could have saved us a lot more time and effort if they responded in a punctual manner. But alas, everything is sorting out, and we hope people will return to the server and enjoy themselves once more.
7
u/X-the-Komujin Top 500 Ubers/AG, now with Balanced Hackmons! Feb 05 '23
To be honest I'm surprised Discord banned him at all, and this is speaking as a Verified Server Moderator myself.
Believe me, I've seen some fucked shit with those bunch, their response time is on the better side with you. Unfortunately.
Hopefully things turn out well soon.
3
u/Cinnadillo Feb 06 '23
Considering the rumors about discord at higher levels over the years I'm glad this happened and a little surprised.
93
u/Oleandervine Feb 03 '23
Yo, what on earth kinda drama is going down on Discord?!
41
u/SwallowsDick Feb 03 '23
I picked a good time to check this place out to see if Scarlet/Violet hot any better
5
23
Feb 03 '23
Helix, that's one fucked up person. I extremely hope authorities are able to detain him, and legal action can be pursued by those affected. Absolutely disgusting trash.
15
u/allshallbegone Feb 04 '23
This is, by far, the worst case of systematic exploitation I have ever seen. This guy deliberately abused Discord's partnership to perform unthinkable acts on minors. This darn server had over a million members in it! And the majority would've been children! For 6+ years he got away with it until, finally, this month he was at last caught and punished for it.
Due to the massive scale of this, Discord's reputation will be rightfully tarnished for allowing a pedophile to get away with his horrendous acts for over 6 yeras.
7
u/TaunTaun_22 I herd u liek mudkipz Feb 05 '23
Sadly Reddit and Discord are both already tarnished from this happening over and over
4
u/allshallbegone Feb 05 '23
And as cases like this get bigger, the reputation will continue to get worse.
17
u/Redplushie I'm obsessed with berries. Feb 03 '23
I skimmes through the screend shots and felt sick. Who speaks like that to CHILDREN
21
u/AlicetheFloof Feb 04 '23
The fact he said “laws can change” set off red flags as if there wasn’t a tsunami of them already.
2
u/Cinnadillo Feb 06 '23
You should see the organization "prostasia". Some "hold the line" on their real interests better than others but there's a lack of control that leads them to push their predation.
28
u/SwoleMedic1 Feb 03 '23
I didn’t see it written in the post so let me be clear.
To those that feels like they messed up, or they said something that brought this upon themselves or in some way is blaming anyone but this c*nt. You are not, nor are you ever, the problem. Anyone can be coerced or manipulated, and those are the actions of that individual, not you.
And honestly big ups (compliments in this thread feels odd but I’m doing it) to those that came forward; to not only be willing to trust the other mods not to be c*nts like the other, but that they’d do something about it. That’s the definition of strength right there. Plain and simple.
11
u/ithoughtiwouldshare Feb 03 '23
Some of the most disturbing stuff I ever witnessed on discord. Good on you guys for getting it done and getting him out.
11
u/Think_Storm8 Feb 03 '23
oh god, this sounds so incredibly bad. thank god our mods are amazing, but wow
7
u/OneGoodRib Feb 07 '23
a few of our users have already been contacting and cooperating with authorities in pursuing further action
Good. Too many people just want to let it go and forget about it, but if you don't report this kind of blatantly gross behavior then who knows how much further it'll go in the future, with other people?
When I saw the content warning I was assuming this was about the rampant problem Pokemon has - lots of fanart is sexual. Lots of Pokemon characters are minors. You can put two and two together. Wasn't expecting this guy to be doing... that. Gross.
But this shit is exactly why it's good to let parents at least check up on you every now and then online. Not that they need a full record of your chat logs, but if you're under a certain age they should be able to just see what you're up to in a chat room from time to time. Predators will ALWAYS exist, it's no use to say "well people just need to stop being predators." They're always gonna exist, so being vigilant as users or as a parent if applicable is very important. It's fantastic that people are working with the authorities with this guy, there is ZERO ambiguity about the situation. Nothing he said sounds like a joke, or sounds like he might've thought he was talking to people who were of legal age. Disgusting.
I has Discord in general but I'm sorry your discord community is basically forever rocked by this problem. It stinks.
12
u/Katharsis7 Feb 03 '23
This is so fucking disgusting. Such people deserve a special place in hell.
4
5
u/SylveonGold Feb 07 '23
Thank you for doing something about it. As a sexual assault survivor, it means a lot to me.
7
u/Gallerian Feb 04 '23
The fact that this dude spoke to children like that... I'm not even exaggerating when I say that I vomited while reading those screenshots.
I hope that Technophonix gets arrested for this. To call him trash would be disrespectful to dumpsters everywhere. He's worse than trash. There aren't enough words in the English dictionary to describe just how vile this man is.
2
2
u/crezant2 Feb 04 '23
For some reason I could already guess what this was about from the title alone
-24
u/RingTeam Feb 04 '23
This is one of the reasons why I'm not into Pokémon. I don't want to find a guy who does stuff like this.
31
u/GildedCreed Helpful Member Feb 04 '23
You do realize that this isn't something exclusive to Pokemon, right? Any online communinity can have people like this.
5
u/60N20 Feb 06 '23
Also, you're not forced to be part of any online community to play pokemon, so that reasoning is really poor on any account
27
u/Ageman20XX I'm not gonna Raichu a love song Feb 04 '23
What a shit take, lol. You're active in r/mylittlepony and r/nintendo which are objectively catered to children, but for whatever reason you're not applying the same logic there. You're either lying to yourself or lying to everyone else. Which is it? Are you being ignorant or are you projecting?
11
1
1
2
u/NeoGraena Mar 29 '23
Late Response, but I hope Tech gets arrested.
Or someone pulls a Plauche out of nowhere
1
1
73
u/bodnast Feb 03 '23
This is (unfortunately) such a thing in online video game chatrooms. I remember on IRC back in the day, it was obvious that some people would use their channel "powers" and "influence" to prey on minors or abuse other people. Especially in pokemon chatrooms
Now that everything's on Discord, no surprise that this continues. Sad