Microsoft, EA and 1200 other developers call for an end to "hateful, harassing speech" in gaming

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Blandina

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http://www.totalxbox.com/80826/micr...an-end-to-hateful-harassing-speech-in-gaming/

Microsoft, EA and 1200 other developers call for an end to "hateful, harassing speech" in gaming
"It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish."

An open letter to the games community against online hate speech, threats and harassment has now been signed by hundreds of developers, critics and industry figures, including ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla, Assassin's Creed 3's creative director Alex Hutchinson, Epic's Dana Cowley and 343's Josh Holmes.

Created by Andreas Zecher of Berlin-based independent Spaces of Play, the letter follows weeks of often-violently worded debate about developer harassment and gender slurs on Twitter and various forums (touched upon in one of my recent blogs). It isn't phrased as a response to any particular controversy, however.


"We believe that everyone, no matter what gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion has the right to play games, criticize games and make games without getting harassed or threatened," the letter reads. "It is the diversity of our community that allows games to flourish.

"If you see threats of violence or harm in comments on Steam, YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook or reddit, please take a minute to report them on the respective sites. If you see hateful, harassing speech, take a public stand against it and make the gaming community a more enjoyable space to be in."

You can sign it yourself, if you like. Just send a Tweet to @andreaszecher in the following format: First name Last name (Company name, University name or Independent).

My feature from 2012 about how developers deal with fiery reactions from fans could be worth a revisit.


Edwin Evans-Thirlwell
Deputy Editor

 
The f***ing c***s with the ban hammers say they don't like harassing speech, yet profits say they don't mind if their consumers have to deal with the online gaming cesspools. My message back to all these developers - put up or shut up.
 
We need less kids surfing the internet unmonitored and playing GTA. My impression of this terrible vocal minority is that they are all children. You know, the ones who call out tons of racial slurs on Xbox Live and PSN.
 
Kassen said:
We need less kids surfing the internet unmonitored and playing GTA. My impression of this terrible vocal minority is that they are all children. You know, the ones who call out tons of racial slurs on Xbox Live and PSN.
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Yeah, this is essentially a call for better parenting.
 
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Anonymity added with no repercussions to abusive actions and the removal of the target as a real person is the problem.

I wouldn't say it was all children either, I have heard and read vile stuff from all ages and both sexes.

The problem is not limited to gaming but is an internet problem born mainly due to the dehumanisation of the communication method. In a room with the same people in the real world, you have body language which makes up the majority of communication, you have voice inflection, you can see the emotion on a face, you have a basic empathetic response and social etiquette to behave to another person a certain way. Unprovoked abuse in the real world by a single individual is generally rare because it makes someone stand out and be vilified, embarrassed, ostracised or humiliated for going outside the status quo and causing a scene in normal life.

I have no answer to the problem, I don't think there is one, in the same way that world peace isn't going to ever happen.

There will always, always, always be lowlife, sexist, homophobic, racist, xenophobic and other derogatory comments and vile abuse. It will always be around containment of the problem through good moderation, not through behaviour change of the minority of scumbags which you cannot change.

'an end to "hateful, harassing speech" in gaming' will happen when you manage to eradicate it from all aspects of human life on the planet.

Never.
 
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Kassen said:
We need less kids surfing the internet unmonitored and playing GTA. My impression of this terrible vocal minority is that they are all children. You know, the ones who call out tons of racial slurs on Xbox Live and PSN.
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I seriously disagree. In my experience the ones that do the harassing, as far as online gaming goes, tend to be adults.
 
Lnin0 said:
The f***ing c***s with the ban hammers say they don't like harassing speech, yet profits say they don't mind if their consumers have to deal with the online gaming cesspools. My message back to all these developers - put up or shut up.
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I'm just wondering what you think they should do beyond giving easy access to reporting functions, which has been done, because your post is pretty generalizing.
 
Kassen said:
We need less kids surfing the internet unmonitored and playing GTA. My impression of this terrible vocal minority is that they are all children. You know, the ones who call out tons of racial slurs on Xbox Live and PSN.
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Children mentally maybe, definitely much more than children partaking in all of this nonsense. One can simply look at how that Anita chick has been treated to see such. Bunch of nerds crying over some perceived threat (to them the threat being anything not white, male and straight).
 
sharkboy1200 said:
I'm just wondering what you think they should do beyond giving easy access to reporting functions, which has been done, because your post is pretty generalizing.
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No matter how simple, why waste my time reporting someone when nothing will ever become of it? You are right, developers have the tools to combat the issue. The problem is - they don't want to. Many developers and publisher look at toxic players as a sign your game is popular and fear disrupting the community balance (and profitability) by enforcing penalties against toxic players.

How about banning toxic players? How about suspensions? How about confining them to rooms with other toxic players? How about in game penalties? How about voting to kick being an option in every online game? How about doing anything other than just saying "report them" because we know nobody is f***ing looking into it. If developers are so f***ing concerned, then they should get off their high horse and do something about the problem. They hold the keys to the kingdom - not me, not you and not the toxic players.

Lets see a developer rule with an iron fist for a change. Maybe it would prove their hypothesis that toxic player are good for a game wrong and they would actually see more players joining and staying with their community. How about that experiment. Otherwise, being complacent and soapboxing is a slap in every mature gamer's face. I think everyone who wants to see an end to toxic players should start their own petition, a petition to grief these hypocritical developers.
 
Lnin0 said:
No matter how simple, why waste my time reporting someone when nothing will ever become of it? You are right, developers have the tools to combat the issue. The problem is - they don't want to. Many developers and publisher look at toxic players as a sign your game is popular and fear disrupting the community balance (and profitability) by enforcing penalties against toxic players.

How about banning toxic players? How about suspensions? How about confining them to rooms with other toxic players? How about in game penalties? How about voting to kick being an option in every online game? How about doing anything other than just saying "report them" because we know nobody is f***ing looking into it. If developers are so f***ing concerned, then they should get off their high horse and do something about the problem. They hold the keys to the kingdom - not me, not you and not the toxic players.

Lets see a developer rule with an iron fist for a change. Maybe it would prove their hypothesis that toxic player are good for a game wrong and they would actually see more players joining and staying with their community. How about that experiment. Otherwise, being complacent and soapboxing is a slap in every mature gamer's face. I think everyone who wants to see an end to toxic players should start their own petition, a petition to grief these hypocritical developers.
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I think they gotta have a science to it though. If you don't any schmuck can report somebody and there's no way they can prove it with the amount of online gaming that goes on. There's gotta be some number of reports that put a red flag on a name and from there you can do some kind of investigation or what not. Also, you're wrong about us not having a part in it. If you aren't helping out and putting out a report on at least one of these guys once in a while, then you pretty much have put that much time between what might be considered an isolated incident versus an actual troll ruining the experience for other people.
 
With these new consoles and their record features, reporting malicious players should be easier than ever.
 
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Like with anything meaningful - mass-changes won't work... but individual ones will.

Do your part. Don't worry about anyone else - just do your part. Set an example, and set a good one.
 
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Sometimes I wish we could split up the gaming community into groups like young children,Teens and Adults.
Id prefer to play with mature gamers and avoid the squeakers and social degenerates.

I remember on the 360 you could classify what kind of gamer you are like a clean playing tryhard or a casual family player or a anything goes douche and it was supposed to group you accordingly or so I thought.
 
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It's a good gesture but it won't change anything. Gaming has been a competition since it started. Now it's worse with the internet. It all makes sense when you do a search of the biggest console warriors gamertags/IDs and they have like no games played. Or they hide their tag/ID altogether. They'd rather b!tch and moan about everything and try and win some imaginary war instead of actually playing games. Those people were never really gamers to begin with. And the people threatening and harassing developers and gamers aren't even worth a mention. Those aren't even human beings, let alone gamers.
 
TDbank24 said:
It's a good gesture but it won't change anything. Gaming has been a competition since it started. Now it's worse with the internet. It all makes sense when you do a search of the biggest console warriors gamertags/IDs and they have like no games played. Or they hide their tag/ID altogether. They'd rather b!tch and moan about everything and try and win some imaginary war instead of actually playing games. Those people were never really gamers to begin with. And the people threatening and harassing developers and gamers aren't even worth a mention. Those aren't even human beings, let alone gamers.
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Culture can (and does) change. Either you can do your part to help make that change a positive one, or you can contribute to the problem (passively, or directly).

Hopelessness passively contributes to the problems and issues you're hopeless about... why not have a little faith in people (and in ourselves) and make an effort?

Don't condone negative behaviors - condemn them. Don't contribute to the problem, do your part to not contribute. Finally, do the right thing and speak positivity into the endless array of negative filth. If enough do it, then tides change... and even if only a few make a change, it'll make it all that much better for those few who interact with those few.... and who knows... maybe those few will help change a few... and those few will help change a few... and suddenly, it's not just a few anymore - it's a lot... and then: culture change.
 
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Flynn said:
Culture can (and does) change. Either you can do your part to help make that change a positive one, or you can contribute to the problem (passively, or directly).

Hopelessness passively contributes to the problems and issues you're hopeless about... why not have a little faith in people (and in ourselves) and make an effort?

Don't condone negative behaviors - condemn them. Don't contribute to the problem, do your part to not contribute. Finally, do the right thing and speak positivity into the endless array of negative filth. If enough do it, then tides change... and even if only a few make a change, it'll make it all that much better for those few who interact with those few.... and who knows... maybe those few will help change a few... and those few will help change a few... and suddenly, it's not just a few anymore - it's a lot... and then: culture change.
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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmun Burke
 
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Sometimes its not that we do not want to call out this people, but I have been end of abuse for doing just that (not talking about here), sad people.

I only hope that all these nasty comments online are not a reflection of their real life personality. Some of the stuff people said online, makes you wonder how these people get along with people in real life (if they act the same), or not end up beating every now and then on the streets.

But then again, its easy to call people dumb & loser when you are behind a keyboard, & not faced that person in real life.
 
Ketto said:
Children mentally maybe, definitely much more than children partaking in all of this nonsense. One can simply look at how that Anita chick has been treated to see such. Bunch of nerds crying over some perceived threat (to them the threat being anything not white, male and straight).
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Because all of the vitriol comes from white males? Nice generalization.
 
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I love making others uncomfortable especially with no consequences. I'll never stop the best part multi player games.
 
Partyman said:
Sometimes I wish we could split up the gaming community into groups like young children,Teens and Adults.
Id prefer to play with mature gamers and avoid the squeakers and social degenerates.

I remember on the 360 you could classify what kind of gamer you are like a clean playing tryhard or a casual family player or a anything goes douche and it was supposed to group you accordingly or so I thought.
Click to expand...
 
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