Roberto Rosario

Roberto Rosario is a Software, Videogames developer and Chairman of IGDA Puerto Rico. Involved with computers since 1983 and has been active since then, helping Puerto Rico as the director of Software Develoment for the government of puerto and creating tools and aplications recognized around the world. Due to the bad design of the GGautoblocker he was included in this blocklist despite not being involved in #GamerGate and by consequence, just like the majority of people in that list, unjustly labelled as an harasser by IGDA.

Denouncement of Geordie Tait's hateful comments
On November 12, Roberto Rosario tweeted to Geordie Tait saying that despite not having a public opinion regarding #GamerGate he as a chairman of IGDA PuertoRico has to denounce his statement saying that any "pro-#Gamergate" should be sent to Nazi gas chambers.

""@Geordie_Tait, I just heard you say in the @Kingofpol interview that everybody who are pro #GamerGate should be sent to Nazi gas chambers. I don't take a public stance regarding #GamerGate, but as chairman @IGDA_PuertoRico I have to denouce what you just said.""

- Roberto Rosario

Those were the only tweets Roberto wrote including the hashtag #Gamergate. In which he made clear that he is against harassment.

Inclusion in the GGautoblocker
On November 21, 2014. Roberto discovered he was also included in a blocklist IGDA promoted as a twitter tool useful to "block some of the worst offenders in the recent wave of harassment", this blocklist was the GGautoblocker created by Randi Harper.

He was added to it despite him being neutral regarding #GamerGate and not being involved in any harassing activity. This led him to make a statement on twitter in which he demanded IGDA to fix this or he would be presenting his resignation on the next day.

Due to the obvious imperfections of the tool, Kate Edwards, Executive Director of IGDA, had to remove the GGAutoblocker's link from IGDA's page.

Criticism of the Blocklist
On November 22, 2014. Roberto Rosario criticized heavily not only IGDA for using an untested tool which had a flawed algorithm but also the blocklist coding itself which he described as the most idiotic algorithm he had seen on his 29 years of software development. He later apologized about the way he worded his tweet, but clarified that his position about the blocklist is still the same and refused to go throught any appellation process to be removed from a list he was unjustly included.

His full statement copilled from Twitter is as it follows:

""Blocked by follow list? I've been in software development for 29 years and that is the most idiotic algorithm I've seen!. Is not about who is relevant or not, being tagged as a harasser by this method is harassment itself. But relevancy you want? I was reverse engineering and doing emus before you could pick up a controller. I don't care I'm blocked, it is not a popularity contest, I care about being named a harasser publicly without harassment proof.

I'm censoring, sabotaging?! I built a SOPA killer p2p network to protect your freedom of speech! A misogynist?! I'm a primary sponsor of @IncludeGirls group that seeks to increase women roles in tech!

Applying criminal or anti ethical labels to people on the court of public opinion without evidence in principle is wrong. Accusing people preemptively of a crime in principle is also wrong, there is no such thing as pre-crime.

Labeling people as harassers, "pro harassers" or "pre harassers" based only on the follow list is nonsense and lead to more problems.

I don't need to go through any appellation process to be removed from a hate list. I see "Retweets are not endorsements" a lot in Twitter profiles, I propose "Follows are not endorsements"."

- Roberto Rosario