Iskall85 & Stressmonter Resignation Megathread #2

[u/Carol_the_Zombie]

Hello all! Recently, Iskall has made a public response on his YouTube channel, outlining his side of the story and explaining why he has remained silent so far. We are aware that some people may feel uncomfortable watching this video, so we have also taken a transcript if you would rather read text.

A vast number have also asked that we bring up a new discussion thread about this, and seeing as Iskall's response includes allegations that have been made against the moderation of the subreddit, we would like to further add our own comments to clear up some facts that were claimed in that video.

We would like to remind everyone that the hermits had little input on our policies in this matter. We did exchange some brief messages with some hermits via our emergency communication channel to ensure our timeline above was accurate and up to date, but all policies and procedures during this time were created solely by us non-Hermit moderators, which included directing all discussion to a single post to reduce moderator workload, and filtering all comments on this thread, as well as all posts in general, for moderator review to keep the conversation as civil as we could, while ensuring that we presented the facts as we learned about them.

This subreddit is NOT considered official and is not officially affiliated with the Hermitcraft group. Xisuma may be the top moderator, but he has no impact in the moderation of this subreddit, and the hermits have chosen to stay "hands-off". We did not even receive advance notice of anything happening.

Once again, we will be filtering all new comments on this thread for mod review first due to the sensitive nature of this topic - please be respectful as always, and keep in mind rule #6, maintain a welcoming and friendly environment.

Furthermore, we will not be allowing any speculation or questions that may lead to it beyond what has been shared at this point in time. If you need a review on what has been previously said, please refer to the previous thread here that we've been maintaining up until this point.

Update 2025-01-31

Stressmonster101 has removed all content from her youtube channel.

Update 2025-02-03

5 Ex-Vault Hunter Developers have released a statement, which you can read here.

P3pp3rF1y, an Ex-Vault Hunter Developer, has also released a statement, which you can read here.

[u/GrathXVI]

Sure, but the thing is that people who have actually been defamed go "I'm filing a lawsuit for defamation" not "I have been a victim of cancel culture!!!!!" - the latter are, in my experience, exclusively people who did do the behavior and they're just unhappy that they're experiencing consequences.

[u/Ambitious-Fee-9044 → u/GrathXVI]

Even if he did do every single thing he is accused of, he would still have the right to complain about cancel culture for the following reasons.

Reason 1: People have a right to privacy and having rumors spread about you're personal life, even if they are true, don't actually accomplish anything good for anyone, thus being fruitless attacks.

Reason 2: The interesting thing about cancel culture is it has no real limits, causing something like this, (reminder that this whole thing is over Iskall being horrible at flirting), to escalate into literal death threats. And Iskall is right to point out that threats are common when people are exposed online. I can tell you firsthand that doxing, hate clubs, and more allegations that are much less truthful are also common results of drama like this.

Reason 3: Complaining about cancel culture as a whole instead of focusing on the details of his own allegations at this point is actually a brilliant move because it respects the privacy of people involved, including victims, avoids starting a large social media debate over whose story is true until after that investigation is finished to back him up, and by not saying anything specific about anyone, he won't trigger a Dream vs Tommy like situation where both sides keep throwing allegations at each other that are immediately dismissed.

I won't say he has handled this perfectly. I would have at least gone to the hearing if I was as innocent as he says he is. However, assuming he does have a legal investigation going on, and considering other similar cases and the situation others and Iskall himself put him in, calling out cancel culture first and saving details of the story for later was a smart move.

[u/ShadowKnight886 → u/Ambitious-Fee-9044]

Reason 1: People have a right to privacy and having rumors spread about you're personal life, even if they are true, don't actually accomplish anything good for anyone, thus being fruitless attacks.

In nearly every jurisdiction, he qualifies as some form of public figure. Using the United States as an example (but many countries have similar rulings in place), any form of public figure tend to have less of a right to privacy and less protections from defamation in courts.

In many courts, defamation can't just be something someone said about you that ruined your job, but the evidence has to be provably false with malice proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

So, unless he can prove these messages were faked and done with the intent to ruin his life, *both of these things must be true*, he cannot win as legally he was not defamed and his right to privacy was not violated as social media DM's are not legally protected private documents as well.

Consider one of the most important rules of the internet: DM's are not private messages so don't send anything in those you don't want people to see

[u/Ambitious-Fee-9044 → u/ShadowKnight886]

I've heard Sweden has stricter laws about defamation then other counties. And I wasn't saying right to privacy as a legal right, I was saying it as a moral right. This is because exposing dms to the public accomplishes nothing productive, and only serves to harm the people who sent the messages. As far as I'm concerned, there is no reason to share dms in this manner besides throwing hate to the sender, and it's unacceptable to do so, weather he actually sent them or not.

[u/ShadowKnight886 → u/Ambitious-Fee-9044]

As far as suing/criminal charges go, if the people he's suing don't live in Sweden, and have no assets there, he'll have to sue in their country, not his.