Bully Hunters

A recent fiasco in the gaming scene was the formation, and sudden end, of Bully Hunters. The group was formed by a female Twitch streamer and was created in order to stop bullying of women online. A demonstration by the group of how it would work was streamed on Twitch. The demo featured the one and only game that they currently supported, Counter-Strike, and showed a staged example of what their vision was. The demo featured a male gamer verbally harassing a female gamer using foul language, so the female gamer went to the bully hunter website, gave them the name of the harasser and joined the game to kill the harasser in-game, thus humiliating him into ending his harassment. However, this dream of their's is quickly defeated if you have ever played Counter-Strike. Firstly, the community of Counter-Strike wouldn't tolerate harassment and if someone was harassing another player, they can be kicked from the game by the other players. Second, one of the most prominent options in Counter-Strike is the ability to mute anyone in the game, so no voice or text can get to you, and furthermore, you can block people on Steam, the gaming platform on which you play Counter-Strike. Personally, I have played over 1,000 hours of Counter-Strike and through that time I have played with a lot of female players. I have rarely seen a female player harassed through voice or chat and if they were they would always quickly mute the often lone player. The Bully Hunter's idea was a fairly noble one, but was poorly executed and not thought out, which resulted in the website going offline for good less than a day after it was announced.

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