Talk:Mark Kern

Clarification on Wikipedia Policy

@Cdjp1 Hi there! Appreciate the revision. I don't have any criticism on the edit as I knew the source was shaky but my hope was to either have it as a stand in for finding better sources or prompt inclusion of a greater source for that key piece of information.

However, I do have a question in regards to consideration of policy. I saw the edit was removed due to GUNREL and I looked at the list of reliable sources but I'm admittedly new and been intermittent in Wikipedia so I wanted to ask what that was referring to and the overall structure? Thanks. Wordy (talk)21:34, 29 January 2026 (UTC)

As a note for a ping to flag an editor the markup is {{ping|Username}}.

WP:METRO will take you to the exact entry where the community has determined this outlet to be Generally UNRELiable (GUNREL). While GUNREL does not mean that such an outlet can never be used, for a BLP (Biography of Living Persons) article, they are unlikely to ever be acceptable due to the nature of the reporting style of tabloids, and the fact that BLPs are contentious areas (especially so with someone such as Kern who is an internet personality). -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:55, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

Ah I've just checked my edit summary, the GUNREL comment was actually in relation to the WP:FOXNEWS source specifically that I removed, but the same applies to Metro. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:58, 30 January 2026 (UTC)

We need to build consensus

This article's edit history is crazy given Kern's relative insignificance, and there is a revolving door of edits oscillating between the words "right-wing", "conservative", "propaganda", "activism", "argued against", "railed", and others.

In the last year, the revolving door has looked something like this (and I am excluding names intentionally; I don't think that calling specific editors out is useful, nor do I think that every edit is wrong or that any particular edit was made in bad faith):

1335326735: Re-added "right-wing activist causes" in the body and added a paragraph about Kern connecting "trans bullets" in Call of Duty with mass shootings by transgender persons.

1335366806: Deleted the "trans bullets" material and removed Fox News support for the anti-diversity passage.

1335367586, 1335368808, and 1335368881: Reintroduced and adjusted the Fox quotation. 1335646563: Deleted the Fox quotation and citation again.

1350772456: Changed the heading from "Online activism" to "Online propaganda" and changed "right-wing activist causes" to "right-wing propaganda movements."

1350772748: Added to the lead that Kern participated in "online right-wing movements against SOPA."

1351102550: Replaced "right-wing propaganda movements" with "conservative social movements" and changed "railed against efforts to increase awareness of diversity" to "argued against an over-emphasis on diversity."

1354419608: Restored the heading "Online activism." (This was me)

1354420381: Deleted "right-wing" from the lead and returned it to a neutral statement that Kern opposed SOPA (This was also me)

1356916878: Removed "unsubstantiated" from the Sweet Baby allegations.

1359523949: Restored "right-wing activist causes," restored "unsubstantiated," and returned "argued against an over-emphasis" to "railed against efforts to increase awareness of diversity and related progressive causes."

With respect to the revolving door, I don't think that the right solution is attempting to find an adjective that threads the needle that everyone can tolerate but instead shifting to descriptions of concrete events that are verifiable instead of trying to be the arbiters of the correct opinion.

There are sourcing issues, too, for example, a citation to a polemic that describes him as a "sack of shit" and a "grifter" and calls his supporters "losers". There are discrepancies about the in the sources, a YouTube video that is the sole source for a specific funding amount, and what appears to be an editable organizational directory with controls that I don't understand. One source implies a broad organizational sentiment using testimony of a single anonymous employee whose account was later corroborated by a second anonymous employee. Ostip (talk) 03:43, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Political Activity

Blanket description of Kern's activism as "right-wing"

The article currently reads that Kern has been involved in right-wing activist causes. This is too broad, and is a contentious ideological characterization without any citation directly supporting it. The Kotaku article does not mention Kern, and the MobileSyrup article is a polemic narrowly focused on the Sweet Baby Inc. controversy.

Ideological labels need to be supported by a high-quality source that directly applies the label to the subject, and it isn't our job to infer a label by combining separate activities. Ostip (talk) 05:13, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Sweet Baby Inc.

The article currently reads During the online backlash and criticism against the Canadian narrative development studio Sweet Baby Inc. around unsubstantiated claims of "forcing" diversity, Kern railed against efforts to increase awareness of diversity and related progressive causes in March 2024.

I have more to say about this sentence than I think is reasonable, but I have a lot of problems wiht it.

The phrase "forcing diversity" has an interpretive meaning that I think is unclear. Does it mean that Sweet Baby, Inc...

1. possessed final contractual or creative authority over client studios?
2. advocated for or recommended diversity-related changes to their clients?
3. employees used or advocated for using coercion to introduce diversity-related themes?
4. caused a specific disputed change in a particular game?

Some of these are true, some of these are false, all of them could be described as "forcing diversity", none of them are interchangable and all have been alleged.

The Kotaku article is reasonable and has good material, particularly of the confirmation from a (major?) game's director that Sweet Baby did not have final creative control and that the portrayal of a specific character was not a product of Sweet Baby's involvement. But much of the account of the company's purpose and practices come from a co-founder of the studio and the opinions of the author, we should not use this to categorically resolve the broader allegations concerning advocacy, persuasion or influence.

I think that the term "railed against" is too loaded, and while it arguably captures the intensity of Kern's words, it is a characterization made by the article and not by a neutral source. Again, I think that we should just be specific and say something like During the 2024 controversy over Sweet Baby Inc., Kern publicly criticized developers who defended the company. A MobileSyrup editorial quoted him referring to those developers as "woke cancel pig devs" on X..

I'm also concerned that about giving undue weight to this specific controversy given Kern's tangential involvement, but given that this controversy generated press and a flurry of edit activity on this article, I think that we need to do our best to straighten it out.

I do not think that the phrase "...against efforts to increase awareness of diversity" is an accurate description of the dispute. The articles cited discuss various DEI initiatives, issues of representation, the effect of narrative consulting and allegations of creative control being stripped from the company. The phrase recasts all of these as an educational awareness campaign to which Kern is hostile. I think that we should either be tonally neutral a la criticized diversity and inclusion initiatives in video games or reflect his own claim with attribution alleged that consulting firms were coordinating the inclusion of diversity-related content in video games.

I also think that we should drop the phrase "unsubstantiated claims" (because whether or not the claim is unsubstantiated or not depends on what is meant by "forcing diversity") and state what Kotaku reported in a straightforward manner: Kotaku reported that Sweet Baby Inc. did not have authority to force developers to adopt its recommendations and described contrary allegations as misinformed.

My best effort to resolve these issues would be rewriting it as something like During a 2024 controversy over narrative consultancy firm Sweet Baby Inc., Kern publicly criticized developers who defended the company. A MobileSyrup editorial quoted him referring to those developers as "woke cancel pig devs." Kotaku, which did not discuss Kern specifically, reported that Sweet Baby Inc. advised developers but did not have authority to require them to include particular content. but I am not happy with this. Ostip (talk) 05:30, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Inaccuracies

Hong Kong Protests

The article currently refers to the events surrounding Blitzchung as the Hong Kong anti-national security law protests, but the 2019 protests began in opposition to a proposed extradition bill. The Hong Kong national security law came the following year, in 2020. Ostip (talk) 05:50, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Journal of Science and Technology Law

The article says that Kern specialized in intellectual property and was a co-founder of the university's Journal of Science and Technology Law. The attached editorial-board page indicates Kern was an article editor, but does not identify him as a co-founder. It also does not indicate any formal specialization in intellectual property. Ostip (talk) 05:56, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Inconsistent Dates

The article lists 2005–2013 as his tenure at Red 5, but Polygon says that Kern co-founded Red 5 in 2006. Ostip (talk) 06:03, 27 June 2026 (UTC)

Revert

I see that most of my rewrite was reverted citing only WP:SYNTH and WP:FRINGE, restoring many inaccuracies. I don't really like litigating policies, but I guess that's what is necessary here.

1. At the time of Blitzchung's sanction, the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests were explicitly about the extradition bill. It could not have been about the national security bill, because no such bill yet existed.
2. Removal of precision on dates is warranted, because the sources all have different dates.
3. WP:FRINGE explicitly says that when discussing living persons, WP:BLP must be complied with. That section is almost specifically about a person like Kern. He holds fringe beliefs, but no source describes his beliefs as "right-wing", so per WP:BLP, this should be immediately removed because it is contentious, uncited, vague, and a broad ideological characterization.
4. WP:FRINGE states that However, the WP:BLP policy does not provide an excuse to remove all criticism from a biography or to obscure the nature of a person's fringe advocacy outside of their field of expertise. No criticism was removed, only blanket descriptions of his activity. Arguably, part of Kern's notability stems from his advocacy of views that are WP:FRINGE.
5. Regarding the sourcing issues, the Fox article is used extremely narrowly for a direct quote provided to them by Kern himself. Were any other source available, it would have been used instead. But, Kern gave an interview only to Fox, so no other source exists. Using Fox to attribute Kern's own words is different from using Fox to establish the truth of his allegation. Noting that Kern told Fox News Digital that he believed there was a coordinated effort does not require accepting the conclusions of Fox or of Kern. Kern is only just notable enough to warrant having an article, so the number of sources that will be willing to cover him are limited.
6. Regarding WP:SYNTH, no conclusions are drawn that depend on multiple sources. In fact, the change was made explicitly to address WP:SYNTH. As it is currently written, the article is essentially saying that "Kern’s allegation was disproved because Sweet Baby lacked final creative control." However, the article that states that Sweet Baby lacked final creative control never mentions Kern, and establishing a lack of creative control does not address Kern's allegation, so the Wikipedia article making a conclusion about the allegation is inappropriate. Moreover, I knew that the Sweet Baby paragraph was going to be the biggest topic of contention, which is why I said so much about it, hoping that we could build consensus before any changes were made to the article.

What was was restored includes a number of factual mistakes, has WP:BLP issues, uses a source that does not mention Kern to describe Kern's views, an editorial that describes him as a "piece of shit", characterizes his views without citation, and is vague in stating what Kern has alleged. Ostip (talk) 07:26, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

For future reference, this is regarding this partial revert.

Conspiracy theories around Sweet Baby fall under WP:FRINGE, as does "Gamergate 2.0" as a few sources put it.

The Fox News quote would need context from a reliable, independent source to be included at all. The quote is vague and conspiratorial, but lacking in any falsifiable claims or real substance. This is an encyclopedia, and not a platform for Kern to spread his ideas. The two quotes from Belair have no direct connection to Kern, so presenting them after an unreliable one from Kern, in an article about Kern, is WP:SYNTH which also functions as false balance. Presenting these two quotes in this way reads as 'two sides', but these sides are not equivalent, and Kern is not reliable for factual claims about Sweet Baby at all anyway.

As for being right wing, is this actually contentious? Is it contested? It looks like sources have no problem with this connection,[etc.] and Kern himself has no problem voicing support for Musk, Trump, etc., so to dispute it by invoking extremely broad policies seems like wikilawering, or WP:CRYBLP. Grayfell (talk) 20:28, 2 July 2026 (UTC)

Since you didn't comment on the national security law or any of the other changes that were reverted, is it fair to assume that they were not the intended targets and can be restored?

If there is coverage of Kern having publicly supported Musk, Trump, etc., then the line should be changed to "Kern has endorsed right-wing politicians such as Musk, Trump, etc."

At the risk of repeating myself, I think that the article as currently written has more egregious WP:SYNTH issues than what I tried to replace it with.

For posterity, what is currently written is this:

Kern has been involved in right-wing activist causes. During the online backlash and criticism against the Canadian narrative development studio Sweet Baby Inc. around unsubstantiated claims of "forcing" diversity, Kern opposed efforts to increase awareness of diversity and related progressive causes in March 2024.

As it reads right now, the statement that he is involved in right-wing activist causes needs an inline citation or should be removed, listing the causes explicitly. The Kotaku article in the Sweet Baby sentence does not mention Kern. That it establishes Sweet Baby not having creative control and not having been responsible for a specific change in Alan Wake 2 isn't relevant here because the word "forcing" is too vague. If it means that Sweet Baby did have final creative control, or that Sweet Baby was responsible for a specific change, then it is unsubstantiated. It could also mean that Sweet Baby "consults on video game narratives during development to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within game narratives" (this is the lead of the Sweet Baby article), which is substantiated. Since the source does not mention Kern by name, we need to infer that Kern is included in the subset of people that believe one of the unsubstantiated claims. That isn't our job.

The article also currently characterizes Kern's objection principally as opposition to "awareness of diversity", but I don't see this implication in the source. That source also says that he is "full of shit" (I mistakenly said earlier that it describes him as a "piece of shit") and a "grifter." These are judgement of value that might be true, but I don't think it's a good source or appropriate to include.

I'm not attached to my current formulation and even say in my original message that it is questionable under WP:UNDUE grounds alone, and part of me wants to remove the Sweet Baby section altogether because of Kern's tangential involvement. I think that the only reason that it is so contentious is because it was somewhat recent. With the new sources you provide, we could replace the entire section with

In 2025, Kotaku described Kern a participant in a right-wing pressure campaign initiated by a game developer's social-media post. Game Developer separately reported that he circulated leaked Activision messages, singled out an employee, and criticized the company's DEI policies..

All that being said, saying that I am wikilawyering by discussing the policies when you are the one who reverted on the grounds of those policies is uncalled for and trying to invoke WP:CRYBLP to dismiss BLP concerns is unhelpful. I think that you summarized my position best on your talk page:

Being factually correct is only part of the issue. We need information to be verifiable, and for it to provide context that is useful to readers.

Ostip (talk) 00:39, 3 July 2026 (UTC)