Models for text-to-image synthesis, such as DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion, have recently drawn a lot of interest from academia and the general public. These models are capable of producing high-quality images that depict a variety of concepts and styles when conditioned on textual descriptions. However, these models adopt cultural characteristics associated with specific Unicode scripts from their vast amount of training data, which may not be immediately apparent. We show that by simply inserting single non-Latin characters in the textual description, common models reflect cultural biases in their generated images. We analyze this behavior both qualitatively and quantitatively and identify a model's text encoder as the root cause of the phenomenon. Such behavior can be interpreted as a model feature, offering users a simple way to customize the image generation and reflect their own cultural background. Yet, malicious users or service providers may also try to intentionally bias the image generation. One goal might be to create racist stereotypes by replacing Latin characters with similarly-looking characters from non-Latin scripts, so-called homoglyphs. To mitigate such unnoticed script attacks, we propose a novel homoglyph unlearning method to fine-tune a text encoder, making it robust against homoglyph manipulations.

When California's fair employment agency sued Activision Blizzard, one of the largest video game studios in the world, on July 20th, it wasn't surprising to hear the allegations of systemic gender discrimination and sexual harassment at the company. It wasn't a shock to read about male executives groping their female colleagues, or loudly joking about rape in the office, or completely ignoring women for promotions. What was surprising was that California wanted to investigate Activision Blizzard at all, considering these issues have seemingly been present since its founding in 1979. Activision Blizzard is a multibillion-dollar publisher with 9,500 employees and a roster of legendary franchises, including Call of Duty, Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft. On July 20th, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging executives had fostered an environment of misogyny and frat-boy rule for years, violating equal pay laws and labor codes along the way.

Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack stepped down today following weeks of controversy over the company's alleged culture of sexism. On July 20, California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed an explosive suit alleging rampant gender-based discrimination at Blizzard parent company Activision Blizzard. Employees at Activision Blizzard say Brack's departure is just one step toward addressing systemic issues. "No one person is responsible for the culture of Blizzard; the problems at ABK go beyond Blizzard and require systemic change," tweeted the Activision Blizzard King Workers Alliance, a self-described "organized group of current Activision Blizzard, Inc. employees committed to defending our right to a safe and equitable workplace." Oneal was previously studio head for Vicarious Visions, known for developing the Tony Hawk and Skylanders series.

The head of Blizzard Entertainment is stepping down after video game publisher Activision Blizzard was sued by the state of California over alleged sexual harassment and equal pay violations. In a statement posted Tuesday, Blizzard Entertainment announced J. Allen Brack will step down as head of the studio, replaced by Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra as co-leaders of the studio. Oneal joined Blizzard earlier this year as an executive vice president of development, providing support to franchises Diablo and Overwatch. Ybarra left Xbox to join Blizzard in 2019 as executive vice president and general manager of platform and technology, overseeing the studio's Battle.net "I am confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change," said Brack in a statement.

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard this week over alleged sexual harassment and discrimination against women. In a memo to staff obtained by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack wrote that "the allegations and the hurt of current and former employees are extremely troubling." Brack wrote that everyone should feel safe at Blizzard and that "it is completely unacceptable for anyone in the company to face discrimination or harassment." He noted it requires courage for people to come forward with their stories, and that all claims brought to the company are taken seriously and investigated. "People with different backgrounds, views, and experiences are essential for Blizzard, our teams, and our player community," Brack wrote.

In a normal year, Blizzard's annual fan convention would have involved tens of thousands of cosplayers, esports pros, players and developers meeting and mingling in Anaheim, California. But, thanks to Covid, the video game developer was forced to postpone 2020's convention and instead celebrate its 30th year with a virtual convention last weekend. Given this significant anniversary, it makes sense that many of the announcements were targeted at nostalgic fans. Three of Blizzard's older titles (Lost Vikings, Rock & Roll Racing and Blackthorne) have been bundled together in the Blizzard Arcade Collection. World of Warcraft Classic, which takes players back to the venerable MMO's earliest days, will get a recreation of its first expansion, Burning Crusade.

Blizzard Entertainment, the developer behind Overwatch, has implemented a machine learning system in the game that it says is helping to dismantle the toxicity of chat in Overwatch. Unfortunately, in any game with a chat function, there will be those players who do not regard the feelings of others, have poor sportsmanship, or are downright offensive and not afraid to show it. A game as popular as Overwatch, with over 40 million players, is bound to have problems in the chat as people compete with others from all over the world. Overwatch is competitive by nature, pitting teams of six players against each other in a multiplayer first-person shooter. This year's Overwatch League wrapped up recently, but due to COVID-19 restrictions audiences could only watch from their homes online.

Eric did not imagine this would be how he would spend his first BlizzCon. The 26-year-old World of Warcraft (WoW) player from Glendale, California, was at the annual fan event in Anaheim held by Blizzard, the games company behind global hits such as Warcraft, Overwatch and more. Each year, more than 35,000 people pack into the city's vast convention centre to play games, attend talks and share in their fandom. But at this year's event, held last weekend, there was a different feel. Instead of WoW cosplay, Eric was sporting a mask as worn by Hong Kong protesters to shield their faces from tear gas and facial recognition.

Mike Morhaime has been a part of Blizzard since it was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, Inc., and now he's stepping down from his role as president and CEO. Former executive producer and senior VP for World of Warcraft J. Allen Brack will take over as president, while Ray Gresko (Overwatch, Diablo III) will step in as chief development officer, while co-founder and former WoW lead designer Allen Adham will join the executive leadership team. In a statement, Morhaime said "After many years of working with some of the industry's most talented people to create games and worlds for you to play in, I've decided it's time for someone else to lead Blizzard Entertainment. I will now serve as an advisor to the company I so love and admire...I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard's core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. Mike – thank you for everything: for setting the foundation for the games, worlds and communities that we love, and for being a guiding light and an example for us all. To our community, please read here for messages from Mike Morhaime and J. Allen Brack. Morhaime has overseen incredible growth, as Blizzard has created franchises that dominate online gaming with WoW, Diablo, Starcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone. Now as the company continues to grow and invest in new areas like eSports, it also has other new projects in development. GamesIndustry.biz notes that Adham left in 2004 before returning in 2016 after it had grown from around 400 employees to more than 4,000 as executive producer of incubation, and according to Brack, he will continue to oversee development of "several" new games. Brack said in his own letter to expect a few surprises at Blizzcon in a month and that "Joining the World of Warcraft team and my favorite game company nearly 13 years ago was an unimaginable dream.