A Destiny 2 player who doxxed and harassed a Bungie community manager has been found liable for nearly $US500,000 in damages and fees, in a lovely example of fucking around and finding out.
According to the official Washington State court order, shared on Twitter by paralegal Kathryn Tewson, Jesse James Comer (who Tewson calls a “racist shitstain of a human being” and girl, preach) went on a doxxing and harassment campaign of a Bungie community manager not long after that CM (who we will not name here) highlighted the work of a Black Destiny 2 creator.
The court documents state that Comer, who lives in West Virginia, added a new number to an anonymous texting and calling service before leaving a “hideous, bigoted voicemail” on what appears to be the Bungie employee’s personal phone. Comer “repeatedly asked that the [employee] convince Bungie to create options in its game in which only persons of colour would be killed.” Comer then started leaving similarly aggressive and racist voicemails for the Bungie employee’s wife.
But since men with fragile egos and too much time to spend on the internet know no bounds, Comer didn’t stop there. He escalated his harassment campaign by showing the Bungie employee that he knew where they lived. He ordered a “virtually inedible, odiferous pizza” from Domino’s, set it to cash on delivery, and put in the notes that the delivery driver “knock at least five times” because the person receiving the delivery would be wearing headphones.
Comer then bragged about his behaviour in a Steam group called “terr0rgang,” which “maintains a set of sound files and noises labelled as ‘ear rape’ and permits its users to utilize these files as a part of their terror campaigns.” Comer used those audio files in voicemails just two hours after sending the Bungie employee and their wife the pizza.
According to the court order, “Bungie was forced to take expensive measures to protect the Does from the threat posed by Comer (who, at that point, remained unknown and anonymous).” The company sent out “executive protection” within an hour of the “pizza attack” and hired investigators and outside counsel to try and identify Comer.
Everything Bungie did to protect its employee was expensive, and now Comer has to pay the price according to this court order. This isn’t just an important case for Bungie and its employee but also for victims of online harassment at large. As Tewson wrote on Twitter: “The law moves slowly, frankly; much more slowly than either technology or culture. With this win, we helped to close that gap in some significant ways.”
May this be a warning to all the racist fuckboys in video games: Be prepared to pay up.
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