So seeing that Patrick has made two articles and a link on this controversy I felt it should have it's own discussion thread.
First of all no one is supporting sexual harassment. Those who see this as a serious matter are fighting it, and those who don't see it as a joke. The actual harassment comes from the excitement of the crowd and the emphasis on uncontrolled speech. Some of the people make rude and possibly hateful comments in excitement or as jokes. It's common online both on websites, and online gaming. No one believes anyone has any intentional harm, the controversy is on whether we should have this kind of controversial humour in an official setting.
As I'm not part of the community myself, I don't know how often someone makes a sex joke or how many people do it. These official competitions represent the community as a whole though, and if it's a rare thing in the community maybe it shouldn't be taken so lightly. Even if it does define the community it's questionable whether they wants this as their public image or not. The words themselves are offensive and we can't forget that they have meaning. Not everything is a joke, and treating it as such may not be the right decision. After all this is something the world is watching, and consideration for them should be the utmost concern.
Now on the other hand, it's technically censorship. Making rules about speech deeper than intention and focused on wording. Should we really censor people to protect a bigger image? Should we set rules about how we talk to help others feel more comfortable? If the comments WERE serious it would be alienating to huge amounts of people but it's not, and many will see it as the joke that it is including the people who the comments would be harassing if serious. People who get up in arms over every issue won't be watching a game about fighting. They'll probably have had some experience with internet culture and be able to see things as a joke.
Either way we shouldn't take this jokingly. People have already become up in arms over it and those who disregarded it were branded insensitive. This is a delicate topic and we should really think about what's best.
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