A popular and controversial online SWAT simulation game, Ready or Not, community manager, was dismissed for making “no loss of valuables” remarks on the official Discord channel of the game about the recent assassination of American conservative commentator Charlie Kirk.
On 17 September, the community manager of “Charlie Kirk” was asked to add the name of “Charlie Kirk” and several of its variants to the filter word on the server. He then gave his personal opinion on the shooting of Charlie Kirk at a speech in Utah on 10 September, under the Internet name “Kaminsky”. In his post, he wrote, “It’s funny, you mention it. Me and my friend just talked about him getting shot. The only thing I’d like to say is, there’s nothing worth losing.” A screenshot and post on the statement were soon distributed online by supporters of Charlie Kirk and right-wing United States creators, many of whom asked Void Interactive to fire the manager. The developer Void Interactive did then take action.
On Friday, a representative of Void Interfactive confirmed on the official Discord channel ” Wait and see ” that the company had terminated its labour relationship with Kaminsky. Prior to the official release of the news, the players had discovered that Kaminsky was no longer a channel administrator. One user claimed that a sticker emoticon with a “Kaminsky” image had also been removed. The representative of Void Interactive (Gerby) wrote in Discord, “We are aware of the comments made by community managers on a recent tragic incident that do not reflect our values or represent the company. We have terminated our relationship with this individual and have reminded the team of their shared responsibility in the communication of the bulletin platform. Our focus continues to be on building a respectful and professional community around “Found and wait”.
Kaminsky is not the first game worker to lose his job because he made an improper statement about Kirk’s assassination. Last week, one of Sony’s developers involved in the development of Ghost of Yotei was fired for a joke about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The alleged link between the perpetrator and the video game has become a major focus in the coverage of Kirk ‘ s assassination, with reports that some of the killer ‘ s bullets contained messages referring to ” Hellsguard 2 ” . At the same time, Jimmy Kimmel, the late-night ABC TV anchor, was under pressure to apologize for his comments on Kirk, whose programme was suspended “for an indefinite period” on Thursday.
