Tokyo resident arrested after using FF14 to allegedly stalk a woman in grim reminder of how a blacklist overhaul is long overdue

pcgamer.com:

In Tokyo, a man has been arrested for stalking a woman using social media sites like LINE (a popular app in Japan) and Twitter—as well as the MMORPG Final Fantasy 14. As reported by Kobe News (and translated by Siliconera), the man reportedly sent over 22 messages via those apps trying to re-establish contact, while also threatening to tell her family about their past conversations.

In Final Fantasy 14, however, he was able to just follow her around. That's down to an issue the MMO has had with its friends list system since its launch—if you blacklist someone, you're not removed from their friends list. 

This allows someone you've blocked to see when you're online, as well as what zone you're in. Bizarrely, they can also still leave messages in a message book—a player housing feature that lets visitors leave notes. 

For some players, this is a huge problem. Even a quick temperature check on the game's subreddit reveals—with posts like this one that got 6,000 upvotes a while back—a variety of complaints. Dig deep enough and you'll find that frustration goes back years. 

Harassment and stalking are still against the rules. It's possible to notify the GMs with enough evidence. That is, however, putting a huge amount of work on a player who would, I'd imagine, just like to enjoy their game.

Until recently, that's all been on purpose. In 2021, PCGamesN asked the game's director, Naoki Yoshida (also known as Yoshi-P), whether they would consider redesigning the blacklist function.

«We’ve seen in other games that there are cases where [blocking someone] eventually develops into stalking because of the way that those friend lists are designed … we decided we would structure our friend list the way that it is—so that it’s more