The Joshua World Corporation discrimination scandal is a controversy involving Joshua World Corporation's owner Chipperoo over multiple discriminatory comments directed at various people in the industy, as well as the LGBT community, followers of Buddhism, atheists and numerous other groups.
History
Initial comments
On May 3, 2017, it was reported that Joshua World Corporation had denied Lava Lamp Entertainment's channels carriage on the Joshua World TV service due to LLE owner WeepinnWillow's status as a transgender woman, calling her "sinful" and claiming she was "pushing an agenda", stating she was "spiritually sick", calling being gay/transgender a "mental illness", and private messaging Willow claiming that her status of a transgender woman was caused by drinking alcoholic beverages.
On May 7, 2017, Chipperoo made several homophobic and islamophobic comments due to the locking of the JWC and JWR Network pages on the Robloxian TV Wiki; also once again attacking Willow for being transgender. Following this, the RTNG confirmed a few hours later that they no longer had any affiliation with Joshua World; the Robloxian Broadcasting Exchange officially announced they had severed ties with the company around the same time. Bloxia announced that they had taken away Joshua World's operational control of JWR on May 8, 2017, leaving the future of the network unknown (a settlement was reached on May 13, 2017, with Joshua World reacquiring the network and Bloxia entering an operational agreement with Joshua World where both companies would operate the network). Chipperoo would later attack Hexahedron Television Networks owner Overwxtched, claiming that the existence of Hexahedron Horizons, a channel focused on LGBT content, was causing him to make the comments; Chipp has called for the channel to be shut down on numerous occassions due to its conflict with his beliefs.
Continued comments
However, despite the controversies beforehand, Chipperoo continued to fight with Willow, as well as several other members of the RTNG Discord group about the issue, which in turn has led to many controversial comments made by both sides. Eventually, on May 30, 2017, Willow tweeted about the controversy. This resulted in a massive uproar from Chipp, who then proceeded to once again fight with other members of the RTNG on their Discord server. Chipp also threatened to sue and hack Willow over the incident. As a result, Chipp was demoted again and stripped of his "TV company owners" role in the RTNG Discord server for the last four days of his original demotion. The next day, Chipp had gotten the -1 role after more controversial comments about JTV and it's owner, calling JTV's owner a communist due to his belief in Buddhism. Chipp also threatened to "sell" Willow and made false claims of her suing and assaulting "a manager" (presumably buddbudd222) of the Robloxian Broadcasting Exchange, and made multiple comments against females in general, saying men were "better at being president than women". Chipp also went as far to claim that the RTNG were apparently terrorist sympathizers, calling them "evil losers of the Ma[n]chester terrorists". On June 1, 2017, Chipp declared that the RTNG was on Joshua World's "ban list" due to their supposed refusal to respect his beliefs. He also proceeded to ban everyone involved in the industry from the official Joshua World Discord server and later said in a private message with Buddbudd222 that "the Christians win! The gays lose!". He also restated that he "hated" Muslims "because they kill people", leading to another RTNG demotion for the company.
Reactions
Joshua World Corporation
After initially trying to cover the controversy up, Joshua World Corporation filed a lawsuit against Bloxia and Buddbudd Corporation on May 8, 2017, claiming that they were guilty of defamation for reporting the company's controversial comments about Islam and LGBT people. Buddbudd Corporation filed a countersuit, claiming Joshua World was attempting to "censor the press". Lava Lamp Entertainment also announced they were filing a lawsuit on charges of slander and discrimination.
The Lava Lamp case went to trial on May 9, 2017, with judge DonValuta stating that Chipp's comments constituted "harassment/cyberbullying" towards Lava Lamp Entertainment. He proposed that the two companies could hold private peace talks or refrain from contact for at least 30 days; Lava Lamp exercised the former option, but the relationship remained somewhat rocky as Lava Lamp had expressed support for Bloxia in the JWR Network ownership dispute.
Joshua World Corporation would later begin to claim that the proof possessed by the RTNG was fake, called the controversy "fake news", and continued to attempt to cover up their comments.
Other companies
Several companies, including Bloxia, DogeTV, and rTV Networks spoke out against Joshua World's treatment of Willow, with rTVN calling it "shocking, disgusting, and shameful" and DogeTV calling Joshua "homophobic". Bloxia, on the other hand, has called for Joshua World to be shunned from the industry due to the controversy. Hexahedron Television Networks tweeted "We shall stand united, [Willow] is a trans wom[a]n, and trans women are real women!". The company was at first removed from its secondary member status in the Roblox Television Networks Group for 30 days before the suspension was extended on June 1, 2017. JWR Network's ratings were severely damaged by the loss of carriage on Amicable, DigiBLOCKS, BBS Player and roTV that Joshua World's comments caused. In the Robloxian film industry, Meister Media owner BugaMeister declared that Joshua World "got f**king zonked" due to their RTNG demotion, while The Mafia Films severed all ties with the company just a day before TMF CEO DonValuta offered them a co-producing spot for a future project; Don said that Joshua World's comments constituted "harassment [and] cyberbullying" towards Willow.
Documentary
- Main article: Joshua World: The Scandal
JTV Networks, Bloxia and Buddbudd Studios are currently producing a documentary about the controversy titled Joshua World: The Scandal, set to premiere on BBMN at an unknown date.