I usually like to keep things really lighthearted when it comes to talking about video games. It’s my hobby, not my job. I don’t want to feel stressed or depressed or any other “essed” when a joystick is in my hand (I still haven’t gotten one of those fancy “control pads”). Today, however, is gonna be really freaking heavy. So let me get this out of the way: If you are offended by political advocacy, sexual harassment, crude language, violent language, other people’s opinions, or ducks, I suggest you not read this. Some of the content is down right vulgar, but it’s necessary to demonstrate both sides of what is almost undoubtedly the next forum for the debate on free speech.
That said, let’s talk about Microsoft’s promise to work “towards improvements” in restricting online harassment.
1. What The Future Holds…
In response to some fairly accurate criticism that Xbox Live and online gaming as a whole has become a haven for hate speech and violent, ignorant ranting perpetrated by the absolute worst of society, Microsoft has announced that it will begin making moves towards limiting the possible outlets for that kind of speech on Xbox Live. The move from Microsoft to put an end (or at least curb) to online harassment has yet to be followed by any announcement of official plans. Microsoft is one of the most visible corporations on the planet, at the moment, and they know that no visible entity can go around restricting people’s rights to say whatever they want without drawing massive negative attention. And so, the Xbox Live team is taking their time and playing their cards close to the chest.
So why did Microsoft say anything at all about their upcoming plans? Well, a lot of it has to do with the fact that James Portnow called them out on their lack of action. For those of you who don’t know who James Portnow is (and don’t feel like clicking the link), he’s a respected professor, developer, journalist and consultant in the gaming community. When a guy like James Portnow calls you out like he did in this Extra Credits Flash video, you can’t just ignore it. While Microsoft itself hasn’t announced any of their plans, they seemed to imply in the above promise that Portnow was pleased with what they presented to him as potential solutions. That gives us very little to go with. But, one can take a leap and guess that the strategies suggested by Portnow in the video were among those considered by Microsoft. That may or may not be true, but it’s all we have to go with right now, so let’s look at those options.
1) Automuting – Internal programming automatically detects players whose “muted” rate is exceptionally high, and automatically mutes their output to other players at the beginning of a match. This presumably would filter out folks who get muted often (for acting like pricks) but leave the other players able to un-mute the muted player.
2) Message Response Counters – This option would detect players who sent an abnormally large number of messages that were not responded to. It would then restrict that player to only messaging friends in the future, under the assumption that unanswered mails are either spam or harassment.
3) Earned Communications – Rather than allowing players to immediately use communication tools, social gaming networks would require players to achieve a certain gamer score, reputation, or other measurement to ensure that their accounts are invested in. Once they had put in the investment, they would then be allowed to communicate directly with others.
4) Clan/Guild Reputations – The idea behind this is quite simple. If you punish the group with which the individual is affiliated (assuming he or she is part of a group) by reducing their reputation points, the other members will pressure the individuals to act more socially acceptable. This, of course, only works in highly social gaming communities.
As I said, these are not solid policy plans, these are the suggestions of an avid gamer, developer, and industry leader. But more than that, they are frightening. These policies (whether you support them or not) would restrict the ability to communicate with the outside world. True, the goal of restricting hate speech and harassment is far from tyrannical. But, the decision still has to be made about whether or not we should allow this to happen. So which society gets to make that decision? In the end it’s Microsoft. However, we as gamers are our own society; independent of national borders or religious organizations. Our gaming crosses the globe as easily as it crosses the language barrier. And anytime people’s ability to speak their mind without restriction is impeded, we as a society have a responsibility to ask ourselves if the means justify the ends.
The first step to doing that is looking at the unquestionably horrible things that anti-harassment policies would seek to eliminate…
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10 Comments
What people don’t understand about Microsoft’s online service is how to use the filter for a player review. If you don’t like what a person has to say giving a player a bad review essentially means you will probably not ever encounter that person again. As for outright profanity or comments directed at someone in a hateful manner it should be banned. The service is for playing games with your friends and possibly making new ones not using the anonymity of the service to hate on your fellow humans.
Can’t control the Internet a sence of society may develope with in a few decades which will actively stand against all the …ists but banning them now gives them some ground to complain and continue yapping about how all the failure in there life is to blame on some minority who has a better car
I’m not entirely sure I understand America’s (and more specifically American’s) position on the whole free speech thing. How can it ever be considered acceptable to walk up to someone in the street and issue them a verbal assault on their size, colour, choice of footwear or whatever else. This kind of crime, which is what it is, shouldn’t be something you want to protect, it should be something you want to eradicate.
Every White country, community, and institution on the planet is forced to become multicultural and multiracial. EVERY white country, community, and institution is told to end its own race and culture. No one asks that of ANY non-White country, community, or institution. Immigration and integration is forced upon EVERY White country, community, and institution and ONLY White countries, communities, and institutions. Anti-whites call themselves “anti-racists”, but their actions lead to the elimination of one race and only one race, my race, the White race. The true goal of anti-racism is to wipe out my race. It is genocide.
There is only one race, the human race.
@Pete
Human is not a race, it’s a species.
The fact is that you only hear about “one race” in White countries. And it’s usually said in order to promote some policy that dispossesses White people.
Peter: There are actually legal differences between “hate speech” and “verbal assault”. The difference being that “Verbal assault” is speech that implies the threat of direct or immediate violence OR makes one feel threatened. A lot of time “hate speech” perpetrated in person falls under that jurisdiction. The problem comes when people start trying to legislate what is or is not offensive based on hate. Does hate for a government constitute hate speech? What about hate for another football club? Though it’s dangerously close to falling under the “domino effect” fallacy of reasoning, the truth is that limiting people’s rights because we find a certain kind of word offensive sets legal precedent to do so when we find a new kind of word offensive.
That said….I totally support Walter W’s right to blather like a sociopath about whatever the hell point he was trying to make in his comment. But, I’m still pretty sure I disagree with his comment. Like, with every fiber of my body, because he was just spewing crazy talk.
When the R word is used, you can bet its just an attack against white people for being white and wanting to remain white. Is that not so?
The big taboo is that whites are not able to talk about what is good for whites.
And the strawman used to suppress discussion is slurring whites with labels, such as, KKK, white supremacists, nazi-who-want-t- kill-six-million-jews. Tell me this is not so.
Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-white.
I knew this atircle would bring out the kind of characters I avoid the like plague online. George I absolutely have no idea what your talking about, I think you’ll find your whole comment is an oxymoron, if someone is deemed a racist it’s because they are racist not because they are white. Your whole rant doesn’t make any sense and tbh belies your true colours.
Whereas Walters comment highlights the need for Microsoft to up their game on this issue, it’s not a freedom of speech issue racial incitement and hatred is against the law of most countries and the online space should be no different.
The rubbish I have heard on call of duty servers has forced me to concentrate on speaking to my friends only, which is a shame as many of those friends were made as a result of the good natured banter I used to have on those game servers.
Racism is a concept that needs to disappear. It has no place in modern society whatsoever, let alone in videogames. You above, who said that horse manure about white people being victimized, and that anti-racism is a codeword for anti-white: Apart from how ridiculous you sound, it terrifies me that people like you exist. Us white people have NOTHING to complain about. You insane freaks. Welcome to the twenty-first century.