- "The shot went backwards, I'll break you."
- "Cheap Victory Come up to me if you can actually drive without scraping cars."
Such sayings Microsoft considers "acceptable idiocy" when playing video games together. This is clear from the community standards for the online gaming platform Xbox Live. There are also examples of sayings that are no longer okay and therefore potentially sanctionable, such as: " Cheap Victory, I expected that from a [racist insult] ".
Even if such a set of rules seems to be involuntarily funny: Microsoft should be encouraged that the group tries to make its standards as clear and comprehensible as possible. Because hate and hate on gaming platforms are problems in the fight many gaming companies seem less committed. Microsoft, on the other hand, takes the issue relatively seriously - as evidenced, for example, by the company's reporting system and a variety of different penalties for violations.
This Monday, Microsoft has introduced a new feature that is initially available to participants of the Xbox Insider fan program, "in the course of the fall" but also to normal users. It aims less to prevent hatred than to stop its spread. Textfilters have been promised, for example, by which players should not even see hostility from third parties. It is also, but not only, private news.
According to Microsoft, content identified as problematic should be replaced by a placeholder text in the style of "[Potentially offensive message hidden]". At least "authenticated adult players" should be able to see the news in this case, if desired.
Different filter levels
"We want to give players control over which messages are visible and which are not," says Microsoft, explaining the system, which can be set in various ways and completely deactivated. "The filter intensity differs in four levels: Friendly, Medium, Mature and Unfiltered."
Through the steps, one recognizes that "some adults communicate with each other more coarsely than parents would find appropriate for their children," Microsoft writes. "There are also differences between the everyday language that you would use with your friends and insults that would hurt people outside of your circle of friends."
So if you choose the setting "Unfiltered", you do not have to worry about the fact that actually appreciated trash-talk between buddies is suddenly restricted by Microsoft. There is also the option to turn off filtering for messages from friends, but to enable it for messages from strangers. Child accounts would default to the highest filter level, so "friendly" set, it says.
Explanation video from Microsoft
In future, the settings in the console menu should be found under Settings> General> Online Security & Family> Message Security. The selected configuration is to be synchronized with the Xbox apps for Windows 10, iOS and Android.
The everyday test is still pending
How well Microsoft's filter system works - filter technology has known its hurdles, as regards the context of statements - will have to show in everyday games. There are plenty of reasons for introducing such a system, although the majority of players are supposedly respectful of each other. Xbox manager Dave McCarthy reports in an interview with "The Verge" but also "stories of African-American players who have been lynched in multiplayer sessions for lynching" and of players who are harassed.
Since not only in writing is communicated while playing, Microsoft is already planning the next step on the way to a hate-free game environment. So Dave McCarthy and another Xbox manager in conversation with "The Verge" hinted that they were trying to make the text filter system usable for Xbox Live audio chats as well. In the long term, it could be possible to replace certain statements in chats with a beep, as happens on US television. However, "The Verge" points out that many users may see a real-time analysis of language chats as an invasion of their privacy and as an attack on freedom of expression.
"When we translate speech into text in real-time and we have those text filtering features, what can we do to block communication in a locale?" Dave McCarthy describes the technique the group is experimenting with beyond the current announcement. But McCarthy also points out that the Xbox team is only just starting in the audio chat division: "We're taking our time to get it right."
