Just yesterday, a fan-run Final Fantasy 14 news blog was taken down as Square Enix took action over allegedly harmful content aimed toward the MMO's developers – now, another similar website has been closed, too.
On March 2, Square Enix announced it was taking action in an open letter to the community, explaining that its priority is maintaining a safe workplace environment where developers don't fear harassment from the public.
As such, it filed a request for disclosure of the Netoge Sokuho (formerly "FF14 Sokuho") blog's administrator, alleging that they hosted harmful content that undermined the social reputation of the devs.
In turn, the company hosting Netoge Sokuho provided the admin's identity – the admin who then agreed to take the new site down and pay an unspecified amount, posting an apology to Square Enix.
Although it seems like that would be the end of the situation, another blog, Umadori Sokuho, has now similarly gone down… albeit apparently as a result of its admin's own decision rather than any interference on the MMO devs' part.
"Having reconsidered the weight of responsibility involved in disseminating information online, I have decided to draw a line under this matter in my own way," they explain in a post (as translated by Automaton). "To all the FF14 development and operations staff whom I have inconvenienced, I sincerely apologize."
Although they don't specify anything further, it's easy to assume they were understandably concerned following the Netoge Sokuho situation.
No word on Umadori Sokuho has actually come from Square Enix itself, but it operated much like Netoge Sokuho – a fan-led news site of sorts, hosting content related to Final Fantasy 14. It did adopt more of a forum-esque vibe, comments and all, potentially leading to what devs could see as worrying topics or motives from folks participating in discussions.
It's all purely speculation, admittedly, although I do wonder if any other blogs will go down.
