Banned Network gamer claims Mute button excuses racism

We said we hadn’t heard the last of this…

Erik Estavillo, the gamer who tried to sue Sony after he was banned from the PlayStation Network for persistently using racist and homophobic language, has decided to mount an appeal against a federal court’s outright dismissal of his case. In addition, he’s filed a further suit against Sony, this time claiming a whopping $180,000 in damages.

It’s unclear what makes Estavillo, who chooses not to be represented by a lawyer, think that his new case is any less likely to be dismissed or why the amount his claiming for has more than trebled, but he has announced plans to cite the Mute feature included in most Network games as evidence that his ban was unlawful.

His argument is that if anyone doesn’t want to hear him spouting racial and homophobic abuse then they can simply mute him. It’s an incredibly weak argument in two respects. First, by the time someone’s muted him, they’ve already been subjected to his crap. Second, it completely disregards the reason his first case was thrown out – that the PSN is a privately owned platform where the constitutional right to freedom of speech does not apply. We know some of the things he was banned for saying. We’re not going to repeat them but trust us when we say that Sony was absolutely right.

If Estavillo’s cases do go to court, which we’re pretty confident they won’t, he plans to wear a bright purple suit in honour of his favourite character from Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe, The Joker. We’ll keep you posted as and when this story gets even sillier…