Character
Rules
Events
Map
RP Points
Proplimits
Statistics
Steam Group
Members
Hall of Fame
Team
Bans
Blacklists
Warnings
Changelog
Content
11-05-2015, 01:04 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-01-2022, 01:04 AM by Fearless Community.
Edit Reason: Fixed Encoding
)
Your name: Mike
Your SteamID: STEAM_0:1:16671491
Your ban ID: 66911
Banned by: [FL:M] Suarez
Reason: Threatening to DDoS a staff member - Last chance, any ban after this will be a permanent ban
Involved: [FL:M] Hitman [FL:M] Falcao [FL:M] Suarez [FL:M] Audacter
Why we should unban you: Fearless is a community I've played for over 250 hours and invested a substantial amount of money. At times, the game can be quite frustrating and staff occasionally make poor judgement with both in-game and OOC decisions. For example, the root of this ban was the result of something I said after Suarez used his ability as a moderator to remove a police roadblock so himself and other moderators could pass, after questioning this, Suarez then quoted rule 1.5 and left.
I was on team-speak at the time, and as you do when you're slightly annoyed you say things as a joke for e.g. "I'm going to kill him" or "I'm going to throw your dog off a cliff" or something of the sort.
In this particular case my exact words in this situation were "I'm going to DDoS his family" and I said this in a channel containing Hitman, Falcao, Audacter and some others I cannot remember.
The ToS for Fearless state you must not:
� use the Services to harm, threaten, or harass another person, organization, or Fearless;
Which is the reason for this ban.
I must bring attention to statement in common law regarding the intent of a threat:
Intent is among the more significant factors in determining a true threat. Courts have shown that there must be a willful intent to carry out the alleged threat. this tends to be a cautionary measure intended to protect individuals who mistakenly make a threat in a moment of desperation and frustration. In such instances, intent and context directly contradict. While in the context of the situation a threat could easily be interpreted as unlawful, it is often found that there is no intent to carry out the threat. This is why when determining context, the behavior of the individuals and their relationship to one another is an important factor.
May I also highlight the context of a 'threat':
Numerous rulings have considered context to be one of the crucial elements in determining the legality of a threat. In determining whether the context in which a threat was made makes the threat unprotected speech, investigations tend to examine the relationship between the involved parties, the circumstances leading up to the communication, the behavior of the person making the threat, and the setting of the actual communication.
In this particular case, the parties surrounding me were aware of the stressful situation, and after saying numerous other un-questionable jokes I also mentioned this. Given it's context I do not believe this to have been a 'threat' but merely a joke expressed in a state of upset.
I apologized to Suarez prefusely if he had taken it the wrong way but the majority of witnesses surrounding me, I'm sure, will have understood this was a joke.
As much as I appreciate this not being a permanent ban and the staff reducing this to a week, I believe a punishment at all is un-just given the context and scenario in which this was used, so I do not consider it to be a breach of ToS.
I must also highlight that the staff mentioned they must uphold a level of professionalism, which I do agree with given my IRL occupation. However that also includes discretion, of which can be applied in certain circumstances and I believe in this instance a punishment was not necessary as it was quite blatantly taken out of context.
Once again I must re-iterate, every situation is different, I was told by Hitman that it would be unfair not to punish me if every other person gets banned for 'threats'. However as per my points above, I do not consider my statement to have been a threat, but instead a joke taken out of context, the situations need to be handled case by case.
Thank you for your time,
Mike.
Your SteamID: STEAM_0:1:16671491
Your ban ID: 66911
Banned by: [FL:M] Suarez
Reason: Threatening to DDoS a staff member - Last chance, any ban after this will be a permanent ban
Involved: [FL:M] Hitman [FL:M] Falcao [FL:M] Suarez [FL:M] Audacter
Why we should unban you: Fearless is a community I've played for over 250 hours and invested a substantial amount of money. At times, the game can be quite frustrating and staff occasionally make poor judgement with both in-game and OOC decisions. For example, the root of this ban was the result of something I said after Suarez used his ability as a moderator to remove a police roadblock so himself and other moderators could pass, after questioning this, Suarez then quoted rule 1.5 and left.
I was on team-speak at the time, and as you do when you're slightly annoyed you say things as a joke for e.g. "I'm going to kill him" or "I'm going to throw your dog off a cliff" or something of the sort.
In this particular case my exact words in this situation were "I'm going to DDoS his family" and I said this in a channel containing Hitman, Falcao, Audacter and some others I cannot remember.
The ToS for Fearless state you must not:
� use the Services to harm, threaten, or harass another person, organization, or Fearless;
Which is the reason for this ban.
I must bring attention to statement in common law regarding the intent of a threat:
Intent is among the more significant factors in determining a true threat. Courts have shown that there must be a willful intent to carry out the alleged threat. this tends to be a cautionary measure intended to protect individuals who mistakenly make a threat in a moment of desperation and frustration. In such instances, intent and context directly contradict. While in the context of the situation a threat could easily be interpreted as unlawful, it is often found that there is no intent to carry out the threat. This is why when determining context, the behavior of the individuals and their relationship to one another is an important factor.
May I also highlight the context of a 'threat':
Numerous rulings have considered context to be one of the crucial elements in determining the legality of a threat. In determining whether the context in which a threat was made makes the threat unprotected speech, investigations tend to examine the relationship between the involved parties, the circumstances leading up to the communication, the behavior of the person making the threat, and the setting of the actual communication.
In this particular case, the parties surrounding me were aware of the stressful situation, and after saying numerous other un-questionable jokes I also mentioned this. Given it's context I do not believe this to have been a 'threat' but merely a joke expressed in a state of upset.
I apologized to Suarez prefusely if he had taken it the wrong way but the majority of witnesses surrounding me, I'm sure, will have understood this was a joke.
As much as I appreciate this not being a permanent ban and the staff reducing this to a week, I believe a punishment at all is un-just given the context and scenario in which this was used, so I do not consider it to be a breach of ToS.
I must also highlight that the staff mentioned they must uphold a level of professionalism, which I do agree with given my IRL occupation. However that also includes discretion, of which can be applied in certain circumstances and I believe in this instance a punishment was not necessary as it was quite blatantly taken out of context.
Once again I must re-iterate, every situation is different, I was told by Hitman that it would be unfair not to punish me if every other person gets banned for 'threats'. However as per my points above, I do not consider my statement to have been a threat, but instead a joke taken out of context, the situations need to be handled case by case.
Thank you for your time,
Mike.
![[Image: tgRQtsH.png]](https://i.imgur.com/tgRQtsH.png)
