Over the weekend Riot Games came under fire for its sexist policy against men for the afternoon PAX West sessions. The sessions were restricted to “women” and “non-binary folk” only, and Riot staff confirmed that men were not allowed in for the afternoon sessions Riot was hosting during PAX West discussing game design, art, and general game development. This did not sit well with the actual gaming community, and they pointed out that Riot was violating the law and exercising discrimination against men. In a private Slack chat, Riot’s employees expressed disgust with their own audience and supported the illegal act of discrimination against men. The leaked images of ended up on Reddit, where the community could see that Riot Games openly and actively supported sexism and discrimination. Well, Reddit’s administrators stepped in to censor the thread.

The comment thread containing the leaked Slack messages that was on Reddit is now removed.

The reason for the removal? “Witch Hunting”.

According to one of the moderators for the League of Legends sub-reddit where the comment thread was removed, the administrators of Reddit claimed it was “witch hunting” even though all the personal identifying information within the images were censored out. The administrators also had the entire thread censored, according to the moderator.

If you attempt to visit the comment thread it’s just filled with deleted comments. The original top-level discussion thread is still available, however.

The Slack images featured in the thread basically consisted of comments from Riot Games employees agreeing with the stance that Riot Games was right to discriminate against men for the PAX West sessions.

Riot hasn’t actually tried to reverse the situation or quell the complaints. Instead, the employees have been badgering the community and claiming that the Riot Games fanbase is “toxic”.

The community pointed out that discrimination is actually illegal on a state and federal level. Others decided to file complaints with the Washington State Humans Rights Commission for being barred from attending a public assemblage for being male.

The situation doesn’t seem to be getting better with the added level of censorship on top of the public endorsements of sexism and discrimination by Riot Games employees.

(Thanks for the news tip Lyle)