{"id":22351,"date":"2023-10-18T12:18:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T03:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=22351"},"modified":"2023-10-18T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T03:18:07","slug":"20231018-22351","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20231018-22351\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese man arrested for stalking woman through Final Fantasy XIV and social media\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A Japanese man was arrested on October 17 by Hyogo Prefectural Police under the suspicion of violating the Anti-stalking act by continuously stalking and messaging a woman through the MMORPG <strong>Final Fantasy XIV<\/strong> and social media. Online users and players of the game were relieved to see an example of the law on stalking being applied to virtual space.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a report by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kobe-np.co.jp\/news\/jiken\/202310\/0016928347.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kobe News<\/a> the suspect, a 38-year-old office worker from Tokyo, allegedly developed romantic feelings for a woman (28) he met through the game and proceeded to send unwanted messages to her through the game\u2019s chat as well as X\/Twitter and messaging apps from the period between March 20 to May 16. The man allegedly sent 22 messages, with some of them included threatening content such as \u201cI\u2019ll tell your family about everything up until now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The police reports that the two had first become acquainted in 2019 through FFXIV, exchanging messages through the game\u2019s chat and on social media, but that, when the woman decided to end contact and block the man, he started stalking her character in-game and sending messages such as \u201cDon\u2019t leave me.\u201d The man is reportedly partially denying charges, claiming not to have romantic feelings for the victim, which is an <a href=\"https:\/\/telljp.com\/resources\/stalking\/#:~:text=%E2%80%9Cagainst%20a%20person%2C%20his%2F,the%20said%20affection%20is%20unrequited.%E2%80%9D\">important factor<\/a> for stalking cases in Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"ja\" dir=\"ltr\">\u30b2\u30fc\u30e0\u5185\u306e\u30b9\u30c8\u30fc\u30ab\u30fc\u3067\u8b66\u5bdf\u304c\u52d5\u304f\u5b9f\u7e3e\u304c\u51fa\u6765\u305f\u306e\u306f\u7d20\u6674\u3089\u3057\u3044\u3002\u4ed8\u304d\u307e\u3068\u3044\u3067\u56f0\u3063\u3066\u308b\u4eba\u306f\u662f\u975e\u8b66\u5bdf\u306b\u76f8\u8ac7\u3057\u3066\u6b32\u3057\u3044\u3057\u3001\u9006\u306b\u3057\u3066\u308b\u5974\u306b\u306f\u30ea\u30a2\u30eb\u902e\u6355\u3082\u6709\u308a\u5f97\u308b\u4e8b\u3092\u5468\u77e5\u3057\u3066\u6b32\u3057\u3044\u3002 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iYd40DcAW8\">https:\/\/t.co\/iYd40DcAW8<\/a><\/p>&mdash; \u3079\u308b\/\u30e2\u30b9\u30b3 (@moscow_ff14) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/moscow_ff14\/status\/1714260432289210632?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 17, 2023<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><font size=\"2\"><strong>Post translation: <\/strong>Police taking action for stalking within a game is a great development. I want everyone struggling with being stalked to be encouraged to report it, and everyone doing the stalking to be aware they can be arrested for it in real life.<\/font><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>News of the arrest has caused many surprised reactions from the public, and as the game&#8217;s title was revealed, the incident had been gaining significant attention among the FF community as well. Stalking arrests made based on a person\u2019s actions within a game are quite uncommon, and some people are happy that a precedent has been set with the actions taken this time around.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Users are expressing their frustration with players who engage in the game with ulterior motives and negatively affect the game\u2019s environment and reputation through stalking and similar acts, and many expressed hopes that the fear of real-life legal consequences will help deter such people in the future.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"881\" height=\"577\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 881px) 100vw, 881px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22353\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002.jpg 881w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-600x393.jpg 600w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-380x249.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-768x503.jpg 768w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-150x98.jpg 150w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-696x456.jpg 696w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-641x420.jpg 641w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/20231018-22351-002-741x486.jpg 741w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Square Enix has <a href=\"https:\/\/support.na.square-enix.com\/faqarticle.php?id=5382&amp;la=1&amp;kid=68216#:~:text=It%20is%20prohibited%20to%20stalk,asked%20to%20stop%20the%20behavior\">regulations<\/a> and penalties in place against stalking activity in FFXIV, which includes physically following someone in-game, repeatedly sending unwanted messages and party\/friend requests and similar. Committing such acts can result in in-game penalties such as a restraining order.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most likely, the arrest this time around was a result of the stalking activity and unwanted contact persisting in-game while also extending into other spaces such as X\/Twitter and LINE (messaging app), which are much more closely associated with one\u2019s real-life identity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In response to news of this case, a portion of users expressed fear of FFXIV being negatively impacted by the incident, i.e. potential players being scared away, and the game\u2019s reputation being damaged going forward. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, while every online space is bound to have the occasional creep, FFXIV generally has a rather favorable reputation in this sense. There have even been multiple stories of FFXIV partners who met naturally through the game ending up marrying in real life. It\u2019s frequent enough for official <a href=\"https:\/\/ffxiv-wedding.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">FFXIV collaboration wedding celebrations<\/a> to be a thing. That said, FFXIV is no doubt a community in which sincere use can lead to valuable encounters.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a rare, video game-related arrest, a Japanese man (38) was arrested for stalking and persistently messaging a woman (28) through Final Fantasy XIV and social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":22357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[36,17],"class_list":["post-22351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-final-fantasy","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Japanese man arrested for stalking woman through Final Fantasy XIV and social media\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In a rare, video game-related arrest, a Japanese man (38) was arrested for stalking and persistently messaging a woman (28) through Final Fantasy XIV and social media.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/20231018-22351\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Japanese man arrested for stalking woman through Final Fantasy XIV and social media\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22351"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22358,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22351\/revisions\/22358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}