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GrinkFR

ESA Safeguarding Team

GrinkFR
Jun 7th, 2024 (edited)
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  1. Hello everyone,
  2.  
  3. I will be talking about my recent experience with the ESA Safeguarding Team.
  4.  
  5. First of all, I must say that Lovare had an immense courage to speak up about what happened to her, and she has helped open a discussion about a serious problem, for which a lot of people are greatful I'm sure.
  6. I also want to thank the anonymous person who gave their experience in a pastebin, links will be at the bottom of this message.
  7.  
  8. To give you more context on who I am, I have been organising the restream of ESA events (ESAs and various BreakTheRecordLive) from 2019 until Winter 2023 on SpeedgamingFrancais, and then Summer 2023 and Winter 2024 on Nitro Speedrun.
  9. During my time at SpeedgamingFrancais, I would organise the restream mostly alone, from creating schedules, recruiting commentators, ensuring the stream stays on 24/7, yaddi yadda. And then with Nitro Speedrun I had the chance to be helped by various amazing people to tackle this humongous task that is organizing a 2-stream 7 days long restream. That allowed me to finally free some time to finally attend ESA Winter 2024, spending quite a bit of money and energy as I was a fundraising volunteer there.
  10. All of this to say that I love the ESA community, I have had the chance to meet amazing people, and it has been a big part of my life for the last 5 years.
  11.  
  12. Unfortunately, in light of what Lovare and other people have pointed out, there is a safety issue concerning ESA.
  13.  
  14. In March of 2024, I and other admins of 7 different major speedrun organizations have had the difficult decision to ban someone that we will call Z who was accused of cheating in speedruns, conning a charity event (other than ESA), and of very problematic behaviour with women (sexual harassment, abuse of weakness, gaslighting etc.).
  15. We had screenshots and reports proving beyond doubt the cheating and conning, but we learnt about the sexual harrassment directly from the victims that wished to remain anonymous, and had specifically asked not to give too many details around in case Z were to retaliate. All of their misdeeds spanned over years, and enough was enough.
  16. We were on a quest to have Z banned from every speedrun community we could think of, because we did not want any more women to fall prey to them.
  17.  
  18. Z happens to be a well-known ESA volunteer, and since I am the "restream guy" of ESA, I volunteered to go and inform ESA of what had happened.
  19.  
  20. I reached out to Metako on March 12th, and we promptly arranged a meeting with the Safeguarding Team at ESA consisting of Metako, Edenal, and Ida on March 14th.
  21. I explained lengthly what had happened, showed them the proofs, and explained that victims wanted to remain anonymous so I could not give too many details other than a list of general things in order to protect them.
  22. They told me they had listened to what I had said and will analyze it privately, and would not communicate publically if actions were to be taken. I said "fine, but can you give me a heads-up or something". They said no, and were very adamant that they would never communicate about that.
  23.  
  24. I thought fine, that would be it, I'm a well established member of the ESA community, I didn't act on my own but on behalf of several speedrun organizations, and provided proofs of the allegations. Surely ESA wouldn't want to keep Z among them despite everything what I've explained. And yeah they want to keep it private, they're afraid of drama and try to avoid it at all costs, sure.
  25.  
  26. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, I look up Z, they're still in the discord, still has their volunteer role, and recently sent a message wondering when they would buy their plane tickets for ESA Summer 2024. So, on April 8th, I sent a message to Metako saying "I understand if you're handling this discreetly, but from what I can see, no action has been taken yet. I hope it's just a matter of time or priorities, but it's crucial for us that you take action, whether it's to ban them or not" [sic].
  27.  
  28. On April 10th, Edenal sends me a DM saying "The ESA team will not externally communicate actions we have, or have not taken, in regards to any individual" [sic], and is inquiring about my DM to Metako.
  29.  
  30. I sent him this: "I am no longer "alone" to organize the restream, as we have 5 staff with equal power at Nitro Speedrun, but if Z was to attend and participate at ESA, we would have to have internal discussions about this situation and the restream. I, and the Nitro staff, would be surprised if that were the case, given the severity of the allegations, the reaction of various communities to ban them, and that we trust you as our collaboration has been fruitful so far. We ourselves are event organizers, and we give you the benefit of the doubt that you maybe haven't had the time and since we don't really know your process as you want to keep it private (which is totally fair), this was more of a friendly "hey, we noticed that, it's important to us, don't forget about that"". [anonymized to not give too many details]
  31.  
  32. Edenal answered: "What you are describing above, is literally coercion." / "There's no doubt regarding the first two parts of the report" / "There's not a single piece of testimony regarding the other allegations." / "First hand testimonials are paramount to making any assessment." [sic]
  33. Yeah right, it is coercion, I don't want to help an organization that doesn't believe me when I come and tell them all of this. This response gives you a better insight of how things are done at ESA. Even if the allegations made by multiple women and backed up by various speedrun organizations that Z is a piece of shit with women, they wouldn't care if one of their volunteers is a conman and cheated at speedruns.
  34.  
  35. We had an argument, and I went into more details about the victims' testimonies, and finally sent him this:
  36. "Our word as staff of various speedrun communities not being enough, even though we have met these victims, I have met some of them, talked to them, and seen how badly it has gone for them, that hurts. I understand not believing hearsay, but this does not come from just one random person to another, it is a coordinated effort from different communities to keep people safe from guys like them. I hope this finds you well" [anonymized to not give too many details]
  37.  
  38. This is the last I have heard of Edenal. Since then, while Z is still in the ESA discord, they no longer have any volunteer roles. I was satisfied with the situation, because it brought closure to weeks and weeks of drama, talking about the same horrible person and their misdeeds, it was harsh on my mental health. And the point was that Z would not go anymore to ESA and continue hurting people, so I called it a day.
  39.  
  40. And then Lovare came with her strong, courageous message. I shared a bit of my experience with the Safeguarding Team in the general channel of the ESA discord.
  41.  
  42. This afternoon (June 7th), the staff of Nitro Speedrun has taken the decision not to restream ESA Summer 2024. We will officially announce it on Monday, after our weekly meeting, and I sent this message in the restream channel of ESA:
  43.  
  44. "Hello,
  45. with what has come to light, my recent personal experience with the safeguarding team, and your response to all of this, I speak on behalf of Nitro Speedrun and announce that we will not restream ESA Summer 2024.
  46. Personnally, I have spent the last 5 years organising the restream of ESA events, completely alone from 2019 til Winter 2023, and I cannot put my time and energy towards an organization that is failing this hard at providing a safe space for its members.
  47. I hope things will change for the better, and hope you will handle these issues correctly in the future.
  48. Grink"
  49.  
  50. I was immediately stripped of my restream role, disallowing me to see any response, and after 5 f*cking years, thousands of euros spent, and a humongous amount of energy spent on ESA, I didn't get a single f*cking thank you. I just got Thanos snapped by a random admin.
  51.  
  52. And now I don't want people to make the same mistake I did. I do not trust ESA with ensuring safety at their events. Because you can come to their Safeguarding Team, explain to them one of their volunteers is one of the most abject people you've ever met, and you still have to argue and beg so that they ban them to ensure the safety of women at their event.
  53.  
  54. I hope things can change and get better. Stay safe, and enjoy speedrunning, whoever you are.
  55.  
  56. Grink
  57.  
  58.  
  59. Lovare's tweet: https://x.com/Lovare101/status/1798731192860287011
  60. Anonymous pastebin: https://pastebin.com/LUt3Xexn
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