Overwatch Pro Steps Down After Online Harassment and Doxxing Threats

Overwatch Pro

In a latest case of online harassment, an Overwatch Pro Player, Ellie, has stepped down from her team after online harassment and Doxxing threats. Ellie who played for Overwatch Contenders, a Overwatch’s minor league, has stepped down officially after she was accused of someone else playing her game instead of her own self.

Ellie had just recently joined ‘Second Wind’ on December 21 and after just a few days, she stepped down after releasing the screenshots on her official Twitter account which showed a group chat in Discord where a member was accusing her and planning on doxing her. If you do not know what doxing is, it is basically trying to find someone’s personal address, phone number and other private information.

The actual message in the chat stated

It’s doxxing time, Not for malicious intent, just to figure s— out

If this was coming from any other random member then it would have been fine but the poster was actually Haunt who is a high-ranker and now banned player. It is not a rule for players to use their legal names while playing online with Second Wind. All players other than Ellie had their legal names but Ellie chose not to and it totally complies with the rules.

Mostly in ESports, players use their screen names and some of the most famous streamers or YouTubers worldwide are also known by their stream names such as Ninja, Pewdiepie or Jacksepticeye. People do not even use their real names so it is totally a safe bet for Ellie as well for not showing her real name to the world while playing for Second Wind.

As suspicions arose around Ellie about her recently joining an ESports team and suddenly climbing the ranks, people started saying that Ellie simply commentates over someone else playing Overwatch. There is no evidence of this and these accusations are clearly false. The accusers had nothing on Ellie except for the fact that she did not use or show her real name whereas everyone else on the team is using their legal names.

To prove these suspicions wrong, Ellie did a stream of Overwatch with some other professional players including Punisher. People were accusing Ellie of commentating over Punisher’s gameplay but the stream proved otherwise. However, it did not work out for her either and ultimately she announced that she is stepping down from the team.

Ellie is just one of the many other players who experience online harassment just because they do not show their real identity to the world. To be honest, if someone wants to hide their identity from the world and is just joining a team for the sake of playing a game professionally, we should be encouraging them instead of simply bashing them on without any solid arguments or evidence.

Ellie simply left a message ‘Sorry’ on her official Twitter account and her devoted fans have been showing her support as they were glad with her being on the ESports team and watched her streams. Second Wind owner issued his own statement on this matter as saying stating that Ellie had stepped down because of threats and the different useless direction she was being pulled it.

What do you think on this serious issue haunting ESports players around the world? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

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About the Author: Umair Khalid

Founder of GamesHedge, Umair enjoys a wide variety of video games ranging from RPGs to racing games. Currently busy with The Crew Motorfest and Kingdom Rush 5: Alliance.

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