I'd word it more like "Sorry I don't feel comfortable discussing my personal life at work", that way it takes the onus off of the person and keeps it neutral.

Maybe that's just me though, I haven't worked in an office in 4 years.

Correct, and this sounds like it's crossing state lines which means it's federal jurisdiction.

I'd say skip local PD and go above them, if they're crossing state lines that means it goes into federal jurisdiction. Also more likely for it to be taken seriously.

I think I've probably only ever been blacklisted once in my entire career, and it's because I looked up the reviews of a company I applied to and they had some very concerning stuff so I just ghosted them completely and never answered their calls after we had already begun to play a bit of phone tag prior to that trying to arrange an interview.

In my defense, they took a good while to reply to my application and they never sent any emails just phone calls, which it's like, come on I'm a developer you know I don't want to sit on the phone all day like I'm a sales person or something, send an email to schedule an interview like every other company instead of just spamming phone calls lol

Agreed though, eventually they will forget, it just needs enough time, and maybe you'd not even want to work there.

I'm not so sure, I bet some (or most?) of them are racist too. I'm sure they play it up, but do you really think they are all that accepting of people of color?

Not being able to pass anything on - my knowledge and experience

I know this may sound like satire but you can write a blog and share your knowledge and experiences. It may seem weird at first, but it's an actual option, and people could organically come across your blog, especially if you use the right keywords that they're looking for.

I mean, interviews have always been hell for me (often with multiple rounds of leetcode) so there's nothing new there for me lol

Is he wrong, though?

You would think they could store that information privately, and have it be accessible privately, without it needing to be entirely public.

I didn't other than for testing, in fact I had to research and figure out ways to bypass ad blockers, to prevent social icons from being blocked etc. I even wrote that company a brand new admin website to replace their old one, they liked it so much that they laid me off a few months later even though they were already underpaying me because they wanted someone cheaper to maintain it, after announcing they had record-breaking year-over-year profits. I found a 30% higher paying job a few months later and been there since. lol

People buy into the BS sold by companies, they eat it all up without thinking twice about it. It's easier to point fingers at each other than at companies when companies are paying so much money to attack end-users.

The weird thing is, corporations can't even make any money from these older games. I guess they think that means people who can't play older games will just buy their newer garbage, and yet that's not how it works at all lol people just end up buying indie games instead these days.