The Game Changers scene has been busy for the past few days. What started as a private conversation between individuals grew into a full-blown social media feud, and the ensuing posts resulted in two players being temporarily banned from the scene by Riot. On July 25th, Riot Games released a statement announcing the temporary ban of Dawn “Dawn” Park and Vivian “Risorah” Dela Cruz.
The incident was sparked in the GALORANTS -a community set up to elevate women and non-binary Valorant players- discord. The player, whom Riot Games identified as “Player A” in its statement, posted a message saying that teabagging in the game is equivalent to sexual assault in real life. Immediately after the message, the discussion flared up which ended with Dawn and Vivian getting involved.
The moderators of the Discord server were unable to end the discussion and had to shut down the server for a week. However, it was then moved to Twitter, where the discussion continued. “On June 27, the discussion evolved into an argument spanning multiple Twitter posts. Dawn’s responses included a vulgar and targeted remark at Player A,” Riot states.
“On June 27, Risorah created multiple Twitter posts specifically targeted at Player A, in which Risorah pasted GALORANTS Discord conversations between themselves and Player A. Risorah proceeded to post a video they edited, in which they amplified and personally added vulgar commentary around Player A. On June 28, Risorah directly tagged and targeted Player A as the subject of a vulgar post.” the ruling goes.
Riot said it reviewed extensive screenshots and videos during the investigation and interviewed both parties involved, including Dawn and Risorah.
As a result of the investigation, Dawn has been banned from all Riot-sanctioned events for 3 months for making vulgar and targeted comments towards another player and violating Rule 7.3.1 of the VALORANT Champions Tour Global Competition Policy. The player’s ban will expire on September 27, 2022.
On the other hand, Risorah will be banned from all Riot-sanctioned events for 9 months for repeatedly and systematically targeting another player using a personal social media account, in addition to making various vulgar comments. The ban will expire on March 27, 2023.
Following the announcement, Dawn shared some thoughts with a tweetlonger on personal social media. “I have friends that have literally been raped. I have watched SA happen in broad daylight. It is not something you can compare to crouching in a video game. I was visibly upset by this, as were hundreds of thousands of people, and replied under her thread expressing my frustrations and concerns.” Dawn states. The player also added all the evidence that Riot sent into the twitlonger.
“While I’m still having a ton of emotions right now, it’s worth noting that I will be taking this punishment with the responsibility of my actions that led to my situation.” Risorah wrote in the twitlonger.
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