hey hey hey Extra Credits how about them NDAs you're forcing everyone to sign? Silencing everyone who has something to say about you doesn't make employees safer, but DOES make it safe for your abuser-in-chief to find more victims. #BecauseJamesMatters
If you didn't know: EC now forces everyone to sign a non-disparagement agreement AND a non-disclosure agreement which prohibits them from admitting that they signed a non-disparagement at all. So: they can't say what they can say, unless they say nice things.
This is a one-way street to hiding and shielding abuse. Were there witnesses to what happened to me? Yeah, sure. They can't talk. Were there other people who became victims in their own right? Absolutely. They can't talk either: not now, not ever.
Their contract is a nasty little piece of work: it never expires, and it goes all the way back, on every platform. If you put a step out of line and EC decides to take you to court for it, YOU are responsible for their fees as well as your own.
Imagine you're fucking poor (because you are: you work for them) and have something to say. Do you have the money to say it in court? No? Because they'll make you pay for that. Your fees, and theirs. You can see how concerned they are about creating a culture of care at EC.
Now you would hope that when someone gets outed as an abuser, they would learn and you'd never hear about their abuse again because they got better and no one had anything else to say. But what if they literally fucking can't?
That's what these new contracts do. They don't protect employees: they seal the record. And they're thorough: they specify that you can't talk about the company OR its leadership, and the company has exactly one leader: James Portnow. #BecauseJamesMatters
Here's the thing, chums. You don't have to make an NDA all-encompassing. You can target specific things you don't want people to talk about: your finances, your strategy, etc. That's not what EC has done. Their NDA covers EVERYTHING. Including harassment. Especially harassment.
Denying harassment is not facing it. Hiding harassment is not helping it. And again: this is a man who built his reputation on advocating against harassment in games. You'd think he would know better. But real morality rules don't apply when it comes to him: #BecauseJamesMatters
