Zwift CEO Eric Min’s statement on doping and apology over shadow ban

Eric Min, co-founder and CEO of Zwift, attended Forum Zwift apologize to informant Luciano Palastra and appeal to A doping feat that came to light this week. Min came to the forum to offer a personal message about what he described as “a situation that has worsened in the last 48 hours.”

In that message, Min acknowledged that “both sides could resolve the situation better” and took the opportunity to lift Palastra’s shadow ban. Min also clarified that “the exploit is being detected and we have the opportunity to look back and identify those who used it,” and assured that correcting the exploit is a priority. Min also apologized to all involved.

Eric Minn concluded the statement by announcing plans to introduce a “bug reward program” for Zwift users. The program will make error reporting and exploits easier and reward Zwifters for it.

The full statement states:

I would like to personally publish an update on the situation that has worsened over the last 48 hours, regarding the ban imposed on a member of the Zwift community.

It is clear to me that this situation could be better dealt with on both sides. The performance boost exploit has so far been relatively unknown both inside and outside Zwift, but that’s no excuse not to consider it. The exploit can be detected and we have the opportunity to look back and identify those who used it. However, our priority is not to look back, but to look ahead, and fix this as a priority in a future issue of the game.

For this reason, we have decided to lift the 30-day shadow ban on Luciano. For clarity, the shadow ban does not prevent Zwifter from using Zwift; they just don’t show it to others.

Neither side had evil intentions and I can only apologize to all participants but in particular to Luciano himself. We owe it to the community to eliminate exploits on the platform and fix that exploit as a matter of priority.

It is important for us to comply with our terms of service as they exist to protect the satisfaction of most Zwifters. Instead of sharing information on how to use performance error, we will always encourage community members to turn to Zwift with their exploits. The process of how to draw Zwift’s attention to such issues has not always been clear, so to improve this, we plan to introduce a bug reward program that will not only make it easier for Zwifters to figure out issues, but also reward them for it. It will take us a while to develop this program, but in time we will share the information.

Thank you
Eric Min
Co-founder and CEO