Riot Games reportedly asking an employee to take down her swimsuit picture continue the company's turbulent history of sexism

A dev working at Riot Games recently shared on her Twitter channel that she has had to take down pictures of herself in a swimsuit after getting in trouble with HR. The post continues to point out the hypocrisy at play in the company's workplace when men can wear shirts depicting swimsuit models. It further revealed that a policy is in place to stop others from complaining about the latter's conduct.

Riot Games has had a troubled past with allegations of "bro-culture," gender discrimination and harassment rampant in its work environment. The company has dealt with a number of lawsuits along the same lines with erstwhile employees complaining about Riot's norms.

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Recent allegations against Riot Games further showcase the company's issues with sexism

@SNazerine, who is a software engineer at Riot Games, shared her ordeal on her personal Twitter account where she claimed that the involvement of HR regarding her swimsuit picture had forced her to delete it.

She further alleged that there was a policy active in Riot which forbade others from complaining about guys "walking around in t-shirts emblazoned with bikini models."

Another Riot dev, @swampyhag who is an associate producer of gameplay, simply replied with "sad but true," before explaining that this happens when another coworker reports the picture or the person to HR, bringing the matter to their attention.

She also narrated another serious issue at play in the company, one that possibly runs contrary to their celebration of Pride that happened last month:

"to add to this, you can be trans and ask people kindly to call you a woman but you will get in more trouble with HR than the people refusing to do so :)"

@swampyhag further mentioned in the thread that tweeting regarding such matters had earlier gotten her into trouble, likely with the company itself. In June, a former Riot Games employee stated that they were fired by the company because they tweeted that they were tired of fake trans allies, after an ally claimed it was fine to "consider [their] pronouns optional."

A Riot Games dev separately tweeted, in the context of the swimsuit picture, that the employees are paid for the time they are working there and whatever they post on their social media in their free time shouldn't be the company's concern unless that is harming others.

A Riot Dev (Image via @nicholestrano/Twitter)

Riot Games has had a number of skirmishes with the law regarding their gender discriminatory practices in the recent past. Late last year, the company agreed to pay $100m to settle one such lawsuit with California state agencies and "more than 2,000 current and former female employees," according to The Guardian.

This was the result of a class action suit beginning in 2018. The payment will give $80m to the members of the class action suit and $20m to cover the legal expenses. According to an Axios report, the settlement has also been finally approved by a California judge.

Many pointed out that, ironically, although Riot Games has these sexist policies in place of policing its employees and their social media accounts, they themselves promote and profit from skimpily clad female characters in their games like League of Legends.

The 2021 settlement was considered a historic agreement as one which will force companies to take note and introduce workplace reform. But recent reports and allegations by current employees at the company show that Riot Games still have a long way to go if they are to truly mend their ways.