PlayStation exec fired following allegations they solicited a minor
A top level PlayStation executive has been fired after it was alleged they solicited a minor.
Senior Vice President at PlayStation Network, George Cacioppo, was caught by online vigilante group “People vs Preds” attempting to meet a 15-year-old boy for sex.
The organization, which runs Chris Hansen style stings against child predators, posed as a 15-year-old boy on popular gay dating app Grindr. The group alleges that Cacioppo engaged in sexually explicit conversations with the teen, going as far as to send nude photos of himself. They’ve made the chat logs available on their Google Drive, which have since been posted to Twitter by @BanishedJourno from TipsterLIVE.
The logs show that Cacioppo was aware that the decoy was underage. However, he continues to proposition the teen, going as far as to suggest a meet up for sex and asking for the boy’s address. In a followup video, People vs Preds confronted a man wearing a PS5 t-shirt, who appeared to be Cacioppo, at a suburban home. The cameraman asks several questions about the conversation before the man walks back into the house.
People vs Preds says they have sent the information to the local District Attorney’s office. However, no charges have been filed at the time of writing. Nor has anything been proven in a court of law.
In a statement to CNET, Sony confirmed that Cacioppo is no longer employed with the company.
“We are aware of the situation and the employee in question has been terminated from employment,” the company said in an email. According to his LinkedIn profile, the 64-year-old had served as Senior Vice President of Engineering for PSN since 2013.
Aside from being downright creepy, this incident has also sparked further debate about selective reporting within the games media. The story was picked up by numerous tech sites like CNET, Polygon, and even Kotaku. However, IGN refused to cover it, saying it wasn’t newsworthy.
“Never heard of him. I bet that’s why you aren’t seeing anyone cover it – it’s a guy no one knows being implicated for crimes unrelated to his job. If Sony turned out to have known and protected him, or if he’d used his position to do it, that would be game industry news,” IGN Executive Editor Dan Stapleton said in a Tweet posted on Dec 6th, which has since been deleted.
Gamers were quick to point out the irony of this statement, since the games media, including IGN, has dog piled and cancelled several industry “nobodies” over far less serious matters. Such as Scott Cawthon and Troy Leavitt. Or Alec Holowka, who committed suicide over abuse allegations that were never proven.
Others on social media have noted the irony in Sony’s recent comments over harassment at Activision, along with their censorship of scandalous, but not illegal, content in games. Especially those from Japan. For their part, there’s no proof that Sony knew about what Cacioppo is accused of. They also moved quickly to terminate their relationship. However, there have been broader accusations of coverups going on at large corporations. It’s a bit of an open secret now that sexual abuse and pedophilia are rampant problem within the entertainment industry, with games being no exception.
Some commenters have joked that virtue signalling from corporations is a sure sign that they have skeletons in their closet, and we’re inclined to agree seeing how frequently stories like this pop up. Suddenly those hot dogs and pizzas don’t look so much like a baseless conspiracy theory.
