fishfosh - Tumblr blog

fishfosh · 1 year ago

Text

Project Moon (Limbus Company, Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina) fucked up so bad they might get the government to investigate the Korean gaming industry for misogyny

So, uh, for those just tuning in, the South Korean gaming industry has been going through their equivalent of gamergate since 2016. Women who work in the games industry--especially collaborating artists--routinely have their social media handles trawled by misogynists looking for feminist posts (just so we're on the same page here, when I say feminist posts, I'm referring to posts protesting stuff like rape culture or hiding cameras in public women's restrooms. I am not talking about thinly veiled transphobia). If these posts get found, they swarm the company's socials calling for the woman in question to be fired, and the company in question almost always complies.

This has happened a couple dozen times since 2016. Around late July this year, after Limbus Company's summer event was revealed to have one of its characters in a latex wetsuit and not a bikini, these same misogynists targeted the company's CG artist and found deleted feminist retweets from 6 years ago via a web scraper. They physically got into the company's headquarters to demand she be fired, and as a result her employment contract was terminated later that day, with an announcement that heavily implied she was unlawfully terminated (it would only be revealed over a month later, when Project Moon sent a cease and desist to a protest group and two labor unions, that she was not unlawfully terminated).

Because Limbus Company's developer, Project Moon, responded extremely aggressively to fans and unions protesting the decision, the issue has escalated a lot on the Korean side of things. Specifically, one of the two unions involved in protesting Project Moon's decision--the Gyoneggi Youth Union--has recently held a hearing with several members of the Ministry of Labor and a bigshot senator asking for a full-scale special labor investigation of the Korean games industry, focusing on misogyny.

anyways i had no idea what the fuck a labor investigation is so i spent an hour peppering one of the guys involved in it annoying questions about it on a discord call until i understood what was happening. without further ado, this is a summary of what's going on in that regard.

Labor investigations generally fill the same niche OSHA investigations do in America. Obviously, there's a fair number of differences, but the broad idea of it is generally the same: government investigators barge into a company and start asking questions about labor practices to make sure the company isn't breaking labor law.

These investigations are divided into two types: special labor investigations and labor investigations. The only difference between a normal and special investigation is how the ball gets rolling; a normal labor investigation is prompted by either whistleblowers inside the company, or ex-employees who raise concerns about working conditions. In comparison, a special labor investigation only needs the Minister of Employment and Labor to greenlight it. However, special labor investigations like this normally only happen when there's a lot of public interest (as the guy I was talking to put it, "you get a special labor investigation if your company is trending on Twitter"). Once the investigation actually begins, there's functionally no difference between a normal and special labor investigation. The union is requesting a special labor investigation of the gaming industry, with a focus on misogyny and misogynistic practices.

However, because special labor investigations tend to be dependent on public pressure to start, there's no formal process for calling for them. For that purpose, the union held a survey of working conditions in the game industry and circulated a petition in order to demonstrate public support for the measure.

The survey was an online survey targeting game industry workers regarding online harassment and misogyny. The survey got almost 70 responses, with about 90% of the respondents being women. They found that a massive majority of responses (over 80%) rated the issue of anti-feminist witch hunts and online harassment as a serious or very serious concern. The survey also asked about the company's responses to online harassment, and found that 43% of the time, the company, rather than protect its employees, took punitive measures against the employee in question. In comparison, protective measures were only taken 9% of the time.

Additionally, the survey uncovered widespread issues with misogyny. For example, when harassment occurred against a feminist employee, the company manager referred to her with an insult that best translates to "feminazi bitch" during a meeting. Another respondent noted that certain people continuously seek out female developers and send messages containing images of women being stabbed. Additionally, more mundane acts of misogyny, such as such as screening out feminists during interviews, penalizing employees who are pregnant or who took maternity leave, questioning employees about their plans to get pregnant, were also brought up.

Due to these results, it was clear that the issue of online harassment and misogyny was endemic to the gaming industry, and the union started a petition in response, in order to show that there was significant public interest in getting a special labor investigation done of the gaming industry with a focus on these issues. This petition gathered nearly 13,000 signatures from Korean citizens, and got endorsement from Woo Won-shik, a prominent lawmaker.

Once the petition finished, the Gyeonggi Youth Union held a press conference, and then a hearing later in the day with officials from the Ministry of Labor.

The press conference has parts of it transcribed in Korean here if you want to use machine translation; I'm heavily abridging it. The press conference largely talked about the seriousness and prevalence of misogyny and harassment against women in the gaming industry. The first speaker noted that artists, managers, and other non-public-facing roles have all been subject to harassment, cyberstalking, and demands for them to be fired. The speaker then cited the statistics from the survey I gave earlier in this post.

Another speaker brought up that companies themselves will police their workers, monitor their social media accounts for feminist posts, and will fire female employees for even a brief discussion about feminism while leaving her male conservation partner untouched. She notes that as a working writer, speaking up like this will probably have negative repercussions on her career.

The politician Woo Won-shik then speaks, and talks about the Korean Occupational Health and Safety laws, which require companies to protect employees from abuse from third parties (this part of the law was drafted specifically to protect call center workers). He calls for labor inspection of the gaming industry, and calls for an expansion of the existing OSHA law to protect larger portions of the gaming workforce, such as freelancers.

After the press conference ended, the hearing began. A transcript of that can be found here (in Korean, but machine translation is serviceable). This speakers in attendance were the chairman of the national Youth Union (the Gyeonggi Youth Union, who circulated the petition, is a regional branch of this union), the Seoul and Gyeonggi regional heads of the Ministry of Labor (these regions are where a majority of game companies are headquartered), Woo Won-shik, and the Ministry of Labor's Head of Planning (who sets the schedule for what companies will be investigated).

Woo Won-shik and the Youth Union chairman begin by noting that the law requires companies to protect employees from verbal abuse from customers, and that the Ministry of Labor's role is to ensure companies fulfill this duty; however, the gaming industry routinely flouts these requirements. The Youth chairman then gives a summary of the Limbus incident as an example of harassment workers face and explains the results of the game industry survey, and notes the results as a reason the gaming industry needs labor supervision.

They then ask the Ministry of Labor regional heads if they were aware of this problem, and both of them note that they were previously unaware of it before the hearing. Woo Won-shik presses them both, and they both agree to talk the issue over with headquarters and see what they can do. Woo Won-shik then presses the head of planning, and notes that a very firm special labor inspection is necessary in order to stamp out bad labor practices in the gaming industry.

He finishes by saying that he plans to attempt to amend the Occupational Health and Safety Act so that it protects freelancers as well as full-time employees from abuse from third parties (freelancers in Korea have very very very poor labor law protection compared to full-time employees). Amending the law in that way would be a tough fight to win, but would be a massive win in terms of preventing online harassment since most victims of misogynistic witch hunts are freelance artists, not full-time employees.

Generally, the perception of the hearing is that it went very well. If you've ever worked with engineers, you know that they really don't like to give off the cuff answers, because a misremembered formula can result in a building collapsing. Government officials are sorta the same way, in that they don't want to give a concrete 'yes, we'll do it' answer in a hearing like this without looking into the issue and making sure their schedule can accommodate it.

The hearing also generated a ton of press coverage and a spot on the 8 o' clock news for a major station, which is a good sign. That said, this is a government thing, so it moves at the speed of government (slowly). It might be some time before we hear if the special labor investigation gets greenlit or not.

As to what this investigation is and what it entails, it's a government investigation as to if a company is following labor laws. The way it typically starts is via a phone call from the inspectors, telling them that their company will be investigated. Around this time, the inspectors make plans for how they'll investigate the company; this differs from company to company based on what started the investigation.

Once the plan is drawn up, several inspectors barge in unannounced, take pictures, and begin questioning employees---questions will vary depending on what the company is under fire for. They will also ask the company to submit documents showing there are no problems with the employees getting paid fairly. They may also check if the company's employment contracts are legal, whether the company's employee code of conduct is legal, etc. If there's a lead from an ex-employee, that person may also be interviewed. Additionally, if they discover a major issue that wasn't in the initial scope, the inspectors will dig into that, too (for example, if they find issues with sexual harassment during an inspection about unpaid overtime, they'll broaden the investigation's scope to include the sexual harassment).

Usually, once the in-person investigation concludes, the business owner will be called in for a hearing to answer follow-up questions the inspectors have.

After the inspection, the inspectors write up a report summarizing what happened, and publish it. If there are labor law violations or illegal practices, the report is also submitted to the police. If that happens, the punishment ranges from a verbal warning to jail time, though the most common outcome involves fines. The Ministry of Labor then issues them something like a performance improvement plan, which notes where the company was deficient and what the company should do to get back on track. After this, the Ministry of Labor will follow up several months later to ensure the company is abiding by their suggestions. If the company hasn't changed for the better in that time frame, they'll be taken to court.

Since it's not efficient to look at every game studio, the investigation will likely only look at companies that were highlighted as bad actors in the union's survey or have caved to the demands of misogynists in the past. Also, the investigations will likely be tailored to each company if the investigation gets greenlit.

For example, Devsisters will almost certainly be put under a microscope for its practice of screening out feminists during the interview phase, as one prospective interviewee reported being subject to a pressure interview and personal attacks from the CEO regarding her tweets about feminism. Project Moon, in addition to inquiries regarding misogyny and its employee code of conduct, will likely face questions about creating a hostile work environment, as there are several reviews from previous employees that note that the CEO throws things and screams when angry.

Anyways, that's what's going on. Fans are generally optimistic about this development because a big special labor investigation into a dozen different gaming companies was greenlit in 2017, and absolutely hammered Netmarble, the biggest game publisher in the country. As a result, they had to implement wide-ranging changes to their business practices and cough up over $22 million in fines. The guy who was instrumental in bringing that investigation about was Hwanmin Kim, co-chair of the Korean IT Union......who also was one of the three people that Project Moon sent a cease and desist to.

617 notes · View notes