Tencent suspends global community manager after multiple sexual harassment claims

Tencent global community manager Nick Zasowski has been suspended from his job pending a full investigation into multiple claims of sexual harassment.

The allegations first came to light yesterday in a Twitter thread from John Sylvester, partnership lead at HP Omen, who shared screenshots of two messaging conversations between Zasowski and two unnamed women. In these conversations, Zasowski appears to have sent the women unsolicited, unwelcome inappropriate images.

In the replies that followed, two other women also reported being harassed by Zasowski, including chief marketing officer for Doghead Simulations Amber Osborne, who posted a screenshot of similar messages and said, "Yuuuuup. Same here. All of you are not alone," and Twitch partner Julia, a.k.a. "Khaljiit," who said, "He did the same to me yesterday through snapchat. Thank you so much for posting this, it's sadly common for men in the industry to treat women this way."

Since then, Zasowski has closed his various social media accounts, though his handle on Twitter was picked up by an unknown party that has used the account to share Sylvester's original tweet.

In a Reddit thread from /r/arenaofvalor discussing the issue, an official Arena of Valor staff account replied stating, "We're aware of the situation, and the individual has been suspended pending a full investigation." A separate reply to Sylvester's Twitter thread from True Communications (which represents Tencent) senior account director Will Powers simply stated that "It's being handled. No need to alert anyone else."

GamesIndustry.biz reached out for a comment from Tencent and received the following statement:

"We take accusations of this type of unprofessional behavior extremely seriously, and are currently investigating the matter. The individual has immediately been suspended pending the outcome of this investigation."