Discussion If you post a developer's name and LinkedIn in your videos, don't?

[oldpuck]

Hello friends. I need your help. Sorry this is long.

Since I joined Nintendo fandom around 2019, I've really gotten into the fun of being a detective. Hunting down little nuggets of public information to see what famously secretive Nintendo is up to. It's a blast. If you hang around the tech spec thread, you've probably seen me post ad-nausem about stuff.

Some of you may also know that I deleted my old account and vanished from Fami (and some other places) for a time. Part of (though not the only) reason I left is because of some harassment I got In The Real World around stuff posted here. Some folks tracked me down elsewhere to try and pull some info out of me (that I didn't have) or argue with me about stuff I've said (which they're free to do, but here, where I said it).

It was all very minor, but it wigged me out enough that I didn't want my name on my old posts, and needed to get out of fandom for a bit. I bring this up to offer some personal perspective on how, for a male presenting anonymous hobgoblin posting on a niche forum can still get harassment. I can't imagine what it's like if I were femme, or more publicly queer, or racial/ethnic/religious minority. Actually, I can imagine it, all I have to do is take a peek at my partner's phone and read her private messages to see how awful it gets.

I promise, I'm going somewhere with this.

Recently, a YouTuber posted some content related to Metroid Prime 4 that was found on LinkedIn. Cool, nothing new. This YouTuber however, showed the name and complete LinkedIn profile of the person they found - a junior Q&A staffer, fresh out of school. Later, this person effectively shut down their LinkedIn.

I have no idea why they changed their LinkedIn presence. Perhaps they just got in trouble at work. Perhaps they simply thought it was prudent. Or perhaps they were targeted by folks messaging them, as folks did me - or as I happen to know at least one Fami member has done - trying to get proprietary info out of them.

This YouTuber (who I will not name for reasons I make clear in a sec) has made subsequent videos saying "Retro" took the information down. But that's not true, at least not directly. Retro doesn't maintain the LinkedIn pages of its employees. The employee did it, possibly under corporate pressure.

Look, social media has blurred the line between "public figure" and "private person." Worse, LinkedIn has blurred the line between "social media" and "work" even for people who aren't public personalities in anyway. Anyone who works in tech in the US can tell you that LinkedIn is basically a requirement, in some cases literally. Until recently I had a job that required I maintain my LinkedIn to a certain standard so potential clients of my firm would see the sort of staff they were hiring.

A junior staffer shouldn't be subject to harassment because of their job. But even if no harassment occurred, their ability to look for new work at the critical beginning of their career shouldn't be ruined by folks who are (statistically speaking) men older than them looking for info on a sequel to an experience from their teenage years. It's unhinged.

Which is why I'm asking for help. We should set a standard, as a fan community, that we think that's uncool. Not just harassment, not just corporate pressure, but fan media putting a target (however innocently) on their back. I recognize there is ambiguity here. There are executives who are obviously the public faces of their company, and senior devs who are doing press and podcasts and have some form of brand within fandom, and their LinkedIn posts and resume updates are obviously news, and they should expect it. But if you've never heard of the person, then maybe keep their name out of your mouth?

That's why I'm not mentioning the name of the YouTuber in question either. Anyone who knows me knows I've had some... unkind words for game YT and TikTok in the past, and specific folks within it. In this case, it's a person I've not spoken about or even heard of till recently, but if this turns into some kinda Thing where it becomes about what I think about certain content creators, I think it muddies the message. There are plenty of decent content creators out there, and some of them are likely to accidentally put their foot in something, especially if this is just their hobby. And there are plenty of creators whose work I don't personally like who are still willing to color inside the lines of decency, especially if we're unified on what decency is.

(This paragraph is the tl;dr)
So I'm not here to call anyone out. I'm just here to ask that this stops. It's something that the tech thread has become more careful of as the thread itself gets more attention, and I love that it has sort of organically emerged as the right thing to do, putting stuff in hide tags and being oblique where necessary. I'm just asking we not stick otherwise junior staffer's full-ass government names in videos, or forum posts. That we don't link to videos that do the same. And we - very gently, and politely - inform content creators who do so that it isn't cool.

I think we can set a standard here without having to yell at each other. And once the standard is set, then I think we'll be well within our rights to lambaste folks who don't follow it.

edit: My original thread title was maaaybe a little more rage-induced than was productive, and broke the very tone I was trying to set. Corrected

 

[BingBong43]

It's interesting you bring this up because I was actually kind of worried about your privacy when you posted a link to your YouTube channel not long ago. You didn't seem to think much of it at the time and I don't know you so I didn't know how comfortable you were being public online.

I'm not sure if this is how people found you the first time but it is something to keep in mind if you're trying to protect your anonymity.

And yeah, if you're going to do amateur sleuthing, protect your sources or don't go sleuthing!

 

[oldpuck]

It's interesting you bring this up because I was actually kind of worried about your privacy when you posted a link to your YouTube channel not long ago. You didn't seem to think much of it at the time and I don't know you so I didn't know how comfortable you were being public online.

I'm not sure if this is how people found you the first time but it is something to keep in mind if you're trying to protect your anonymity.

And yeah, if you're going to do amateur sleuthing, protect your sources or don't go sleuthing!

I'm not a public figure, exactly, but I am a performer and have gone viral a couple of times, so once my name started floating around in connection to the Switch 2 expose by Digital Foundry, I figured, screw it, rip the bandaid off. Maybe not the most sane move, but it felt less stressful than constantly wondering if people have figured out who I am. I just don't post insider stuff anymore.

 

[rêverie]

"Worse, LinkedIn has blurred the line between "social media" and "work" even for people who aren't public personalities in anyway."

i actually ran into this thought process myself a couple days ago when thinking about my work and its relation to "everything going on at the moment" and it is honestly quite scary. the fact that people's entire livelihoods is so very much on display and so easily connected to their personal life can be very dangerous, as you have outlined in your OP.

i'm a fairly unimportant corporate employee, all things considered, but i've chosen to not share even the molecule of info i do know because, i dunno, i want to keep my job. can't imagine not even choosing to be any sort of "insider" and yet getting advertised in a YT's video without ever asking for it and that possibly getting you fired...

definitely on board with approaching this sort of "LinkedIn research" more cautiously.

 

[boodream]

First of all, I'm sorry to hear about what's happened to you, I had no idea, and I'd never have imagined that an internet forum user could be subjected to this kind of horrible behaviour.

The legitimate concerns you raise naturally make me think of the responsibility of content creators and those who share them on the one hand, as you point out, but also on the other hand of the very responsibility of structures like Linkedin. The fact that we are all, in our professional lives, required or even openly obliged to have Linkedin is one thing. Quite debatable in itself, but it's something that can be discussed. On the other hand, there's no reason, in my opinion, why people's profiles should be completely public unless they pay for them not to be;

It should be possible to restrict access to a person's professional profile to people working in the same sphere as that person in a verified and established manner.

This means that, apart from a recruiter, an executive or an employee who actually belongs to the same industry as someone else, or at the very least is a student in the same field of activity, and all this in a rigorously verified manner, no one should be able to access anyone's information, even professional information, and even less to contact anyone else.

I understand that we can all improve things at our scale, and we must do so. I think it's very important to involve the platforms themselves very closely in this effort, whether they be content distributors, social media, specialised forums, you're right, or even the press who use these channels, without always wanting to cause harm, to obtain information. The structures that distribute the flow of information are the first to have to protect their own users, in my opinion. This should be the subject of clear, structuring regulation, over and above good individual practice, which is obviously necessary.

When I go on Youtube and come across a Linkedin ad with a marketing slogan that literally reads: "even my plumber is on Linkedin", then I'm literally seeing two powerful social networks capitalising on potentially dangerous voyeurism. This is not acceptable. It has to be controlled.

 

[Hailinel]

Generally, I think if you're at the point where you are literally stalking LinkedIn profiles for any hint of a tidbit of speculation fodder for Metroid Prime 4 (or any game), you are no longer engaging in healthy speculation. You need to step the fuck back and stop being a weirdo creeper.

 

[lattjeful]

First off holy shit I can't believe it took me this long to figure out why your name is oldpuck.

Getting to the actual topic at hand, I agree. I think it's good if Fami at large establish these boundaries quickly, especially as the population continues to grow, lest somebody loses their job or goes through what you went through with your previous account. I have my thoughts on LinkedIn, but there isn't much we can do in that regard so it's kinda just on us to not abuse the information that it gives out.

 

[PixelKnight]

Generally, I think if you're at the point where you are literally stalking LinkedIn profiles for any hint of a tidbit of speculation fodder for Metroid Prime 4 (or any game), you are no longer engaging in healthy speculation. You need to step the fuck back and stop being a weirdo creeper.

Agree with this. LinkedIn isn’t digging though corporate stuff, it’s individuals careers, and as such I find it really weird when people stalk it looking for info about their hobby or what projects might be upcoming based on the job title or recent move of an individual worker. That kind of thing can get people fired or disciplined at work, as any discussion that comes to the attention of the company has that individual at the centre of it, and they haven’t done anything wrong or said or started or leaked anything. Leave individuals alone rather than drag them into online recreational drama.

 

[Razgriz]

Yeah, fully agreed with this. LinkedIn as a social media site is... frankly it reminds me of Facebook back in the day where nobody had their privacy settings properly configured and not in a good way. Probably worse because the entire original goal of the site is "your CV but as social media to reach recruiters", which means a ton more of an individuals information is out there.

I don't know if LinkedIn just has that bad privacy controls or what, but using peoples individual careers to speculate about entertainment can have very undesirable consequences for those careers. Especially in sectors like video games where developers tend to be overly paranoid about leaks and it's easier to "shoot first, ask questions later" (particularly considering how little workplace protections the US offers for random firings).

Random testers and QA people aren't public figures, so keep them out of the spotlight for this sort of thing. I've basically never seen "a new tester/QA person got hired" convert into actual news either, it seems like the equivalent of cucumber news; companies can just hire to increase their general workforce, it doesn't necessarily mean any project is coming along - someone else could've quit for example. (Especially with testers and QA people, who tend to have the largest amount of turnover in game studios afaik.)

 

[Aether]

Not much to add, fully agree.
Not sure what to discuss here. I kinda thought those point you raise are already the rules here. (Not doxing, stalking, harassing, obviously) but it seems for some folks the line where that starts it not that clear.

Ps: once again nice to have you back in the comunity