Well, I kinda like it. At least the Xbox demographic—meaning, the 8-12 year-old kids—will learn to behave a little when their digital pocket money and CoD account goes bye-bye and they can either steal the bro's account or cry to the parents to get another one.
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When they saw EA is earning buckets of money even with all the Internet Crying I guess.
If only EA wouldn't touch Star Wars, we'd be seeing loot boxes in Solitaire already.
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In before all those little internet rambos whining about that like little bitches on reddit & co., hehe. Yeah, but seriously, kinda fucked up.
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True, people forget that Valve's ToS pretty much states "we can suspend your account alongside your wallet funds just because we felt like it".
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This was my thought, too. If they actually do it it'll obvious be a huge deal and a major scandal, but if this is just something someone read in their subscriber agreement I wouldn't take it too seriously yet, since those are almost always written like "we can take your firstborn child and eat it at any time, and you agree to pay us for this privilege."
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But when nothing is specified, people who don't know "fuck" is okay with 100% certainty stop using it and then everybody is scared of saying the wrong thing and that really limits the freedom to say what you feel like saying. It's just too vague and at least for me it would cause anxiety if I used any of the services mentioned.
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Blame Congress for passing an anti-trafficking bill (against the Justice Department's recommendation) that allows holding the digital platform operators liable for any activity that might be going on without the platform operator's knowledge: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-censored-internet
The result is that sites either shut down sections where such activity might occur - such as Craigslist's Personals section - or digital platforms have to start monitoring their users to make sure that such activity doesn't occur on their platform - such as the case now with Microsoft.
Vague and broadly worded legislation and overreach results in vague and broadly worded Terms of Service as platform operators seek to protect themselves.
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And now "no falling in love in our game" rule from that recent EULA scandal makes sense suddenly.
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Random 1st link from google https://gamerant.com/metal-gear-survive-wont-allow-players-to-date/
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Yep. This.
In fact, this is just so they can take action, but doesn't necessarily mean that they will. The vast majority of the time, you'll be able to drop all of the s/d/f-bombs that you want, and no one will say a thing. I see this as more the ability of the company to protect itself in extreme cases (so that they have a way to take action when the public screams that "you didn't protect me enough" when some individual acts like a moron while using Microsoft's services).
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I can understand trying to shut down places LITERALLY just openly speaking about committing real life crimes...
But going to this length to ban and revoke things from people for using "offensive language"?
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That's the thing, if you can be held criminally responsible for what users are doing on your digital platforms, then you need to start monitoring those users to make sure they're not doing ANYTHING that could lead to you being prosecuted.
But how do you monitor those users for something that could be illegal? What if they're talking in code? Could you still be held liable? And how do you cover yourself legally for kicking such users off your platform? You have to make your Terms of Service broad enough to be able to kick someone off for "offensive language" so that you can cover yourself.
Don't get me wrong, it's undeniably stupid. But this is what happens when the US Congress passes knee jerk legislation without thinking it through. It's like dropping a boulder from the top of a hill - as it rolls downhill it picks up more speed and more debris and by the time it reaches the houses (us users) it's a freaking avalanche. Thus misguided and overly broad legislation results in even broader Terms of Service for us. I seriously doubt that Microsoft is going to be kicking people off their platforms for using the occasional naughty word, but they now need to be able to kick users off with a suitably broad scope (in this case, "offensive language") to be able to cover themselves from potential litigation from either end.
Also, counter-intuitively, shutting down places openly speaking about committing real life crimes makes it harder to police those crimes, and thus hurts the victims of those crimes. If there was a sex trafficking subreddit, it would be really easy to police and catch the people engaging in such practices. But by making it illegal to have anyone conducting such heinous activities on your service, it pushes such criminals further underground and makes it even harder to police them.
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But what if the game itself has said language in it and they hear it on voice chat?
IE- What if someone was playing a game like Bulletstorm, the single most verbally offensive game I have ever played but in the fun way, and they hear the dialogue in it?
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Well, all they can take from me is the Skype account so they can get fucke- gets banned from Word
But seriously, shit like "The ban hammer could also fall if Cortana is listening at the wrong moment " is like from some fucked up super totalitarian police state
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If they banned everyone on Xbox Live that used foul language then nobody would get to use it.
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I mean, if you're being a terrible human being in their multiplayer games or misuse their Microsoft Store functions it's fine to threaten to suspend their account, but banning people for using swears on unrelated services such as Skype seems really stupid. I highly doubt it will ever be enacted though unless it comes to really extreme cases, like Steam wouldn't suspend or ban users for like being under 13 and technically breaking the subscriber agreement.
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Oh no, they're going to take away the 0 games and programs I've bought on the Microsoft store! Oh wait, I don't use Skype, Live, or Cotana. Crisis averted
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surely not.. what about... oh wait...ummm... didn't they have a thing... errr..
Looks like i'm with you. although I actually like the idea.
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this is overblown.
Microsoft doesn't want to monitor everyone, and they really don't want to get involved. But if they get reports of some 40 year old creep cybersexing a 12 year old and trying to arrange an in-person meeting, they're gonna shut it down.
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Plenty of ways to do that without invoking this universal power akin to coming over and breaking all your Batman DVDs.
It's always a bad idea to write policy with a vast scope in order to protect a narrow area and hoping that everyone just acts in good faith forever. Eventually someone will start venturing out into the very sort of exploitation they've declared totally their right, but which they pinky promise won't ever matter.
I know slippery-slope arguments tend to be bullshit a lot of the time, but when the next point on the slope isn't even prohibited and it's only upheld by a promise, then the creep factor can never be ignored. There's a reason you start fighting for protected speech when they go after the shit you don't agree with; by the time its relevant, it's usually too late.
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This is only for the Microsoft and Xbox stores or whatever, right?
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I'll only be interested when they do the same with politicians. Insult someone? Lose the office. Now that's got to get us a more civil society in a hurry :P
But yeah when did Microsoft became Google? If they keep attracting the attention of the masses on the fact they monitor everything, people are going to get mad and stop using their products... (still waiting)
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If they keep attracting the attention of the masses on the fact they monitor everything, people are going to get mad and stop using their products... (still waiting)
This comes up at the very least every time a new version of Windows is released. Whilst more knowledgeable users may switch it just isn't a feasible option for a large number of users - at least when it comes to operating systems.
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I was mostly kidding and yeah I agree, most people don't even know what an OS is. Still they keep using Google products even though it's pretty out now that they are thinly disguised data collectors for Google to get rich on. My point was just that it won't change anything to anyone's behavior. Well, maybe kids will behave on Xbox chats
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I like it, although I play almost all online Multi with chat/voice disabled.
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There's already forums of all country based languages that specifically suspend/ban users for using it, or at least restrict it to specific forums, but taking their stuff away is...bleh. Forums that ban your forever usually do if you repeatedly do that even after getting a lot of warning/suspensions, but they also do that for avoiding the filter sometimes, but they'll usually never take your entire progress. Oh wait, several XBOX games DO CONTAIN offensive language, some of them from ratings of 12+ to 18+.
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I think they are only doing it for the super toxic players.
Like LOL or any other game does.
And It's the thing, I totally agree with them
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As far as the Xbox 360 goes only the bans would be possible as the system isn't set up for revocation of licenses (even after refunds/chargebacks). This is partly why the Games With Gold service on the 360 gave you permanent access to those titles regardless of whether or not you were an active subscriber unlike Games With Gold on the Xbox One or PS Plus.
The same doesn't apply to other Live services (Xbox One, Windows 8/10 apps, windows phone etc,.
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Anyone who buys digital games on XBox or the Microsoft Store, be careful, Microsoft may be getting ready to steal from you if you say any naughty words in ANY way that they can detect (Skype, Live, Cortana, etc.):
https://www.csoonline.com/article/3264658/privacy/microsoft-to-ban-offensive-language-from-skype-xbox-office-and-other-services.html
"offensive language...may result in suspensions or bans from participation in Xbox Services, including forfeiture of content licenses, Xbox Gold Membership time, and Microsoft account balances associated with the account."
So what do you guys think, is it OK for MS to steal money and games from people (kids even) because they may be annoying or hurt someones feelings?
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