Funhaus host Alanah Pearce has spoken out about the harassment she faced after her private information was leaked by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). It recently came to light that the ESA, the organization in charge of E3, had made the personal information of its media attendees obtainable by the general public. This information included the home addresses and phone numbers of those who had obtained a media badge to cover E3 2019.
Alanah described the fallout of the doxxing in a video on her YouTube channel, explaining how she had been inundated with messages from strangers, including a plan to convince her that her mother had been involved in a car accident.
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Alanah went on to discuss the relationship those reporting on the games industry have with a certain section of consumers who “hate” games media, and how they now have access to the documents that were leaked by the ESA.
“When that happens it’s scary,” she said. “Especially because from what we can tell, the people who found the docs are people who really hate games media, and I think the scariest part of this whole thing now is that a lot of games media probably feel uncomfortable.
“People have this perception that games media will do whatever they want to not make game publishers angry, that you’ll give a game a high score because you want to keep the publisher relationship, or that you give a game a low score because you want to please the other publisher. But it’s all bulls***,” she continued. “The thing that I want to point out to those people who are often very aggressive about that stance is that actually, in my experience with almost a decade in games media, I’ve been more afraid of you than I ever have with publishers.”
Alanah then addressed those who claim to advocate for “ethics in games journalism,” but who do so in order to justify attacking those in the games press.
“And for the people who talk about ethics in games journalism — I always just want them to think about that — you are scarier than publishers are. By a lot. I don’t think about what publishers think at all, frankly. And if you really want ethical games journalism and honest reviews, I probably wouldn’t abuse people when they give a game a review score that you don’t like because you are scary.”
The video can be viewed below:
The ESA leak contained the private information of over 2,000 journalists, analysts, Twitch streamers, and YouTube creators (via VentureBeat). Alanah stated in the video that she has been putting those affected in contact with lawyers, with the ESA potentially facing legal ramifications for the data breach.
