CYBER THREATS TO A MINOR

First of all, make sure your son is using a
child account. That way you as a parent have much better control with which people your child is playing and chatting with.

A child account needs an adult parent account that makes the necessary online and privacy settings for them, so the child can't change the parental settings.

For example, if you want to prevent him from talking to internet strangers, you could set his account to be able to chat with friends only.

That way, your child will only hear what people that are on his own friend list are saying.

But the behavior you describe in your post, is not acceptable and violates the Code of Conduct on Xbox Live.

First of all, your son should bring up the Gamertag profile that threatened him. Then he should use the profile settings on the console to mute and block that profile.

After that, use the report feature, to send a report to the Xbox Live Policy Enforcement Team, where you can then describe what the profile did.

The profile also gives information like the Gamertag name, that the cyber law enforcement can use to have Microsoft hand them information about that person if necessary.

To sum it up:

With Xbox Live you have a lot of tools and settings to keep your child safe (even if it's playing a game for mature audiences).

If the kid actually uses their own child account (and not your adult parent account), you can set your child's account up so they can't talk to complete internet strangers at all.

Then you can block and mute offending players, so they can't message your child, and Xbox Live will also TRY not to matchmake your child with blocked accounts.

And finally, you can report that sort of behavior via the console's reporting feature. The consoles involved will collect data and telemetry and send that in along with the report, so the Enforcement Team has evidence to work with.

And as for egregious and illegal threats, make sure to also contact actual law enforcement, with information about the accounts threatening your kid. The police and other government agencies can then work with Microsoft to take necessary steps.

Your best option is to report and block the person, and on your router, make sure you have ddos mitigation enabled to protect yourself.

gta is rated as an 18 game, meaning adults only, the amount of profanity and rudeness in that game is more than you will ever get in chat. my kids are in their teens and not allowed to use that game. would you let your kid go to the cinema to watch
an 18 rated movie.

100% agree with you on this Tezzarrific. GTA is an 18+ game (as in for adults only) and the game has so much profanity that an adult wouldn't give a second thought to some banter in chat and know it's just scare mongering.

I would have first suggesting to "report, block and move on..." but would suggest you get them off the game and make sure they play something more appropriate.

😮

getting someones ip is also not breaking any laws, they are public addresses, they cannot get a specific address from the ip either just an area. they will be just typical loud mouth teens or kids like the majority are, that shouldnt actually be playing
an 18 rated game.

I 100% agree you should as it's unacceptable behaviour.

However I'd advise you to report & block these individuals so your son will no longer come into contact with them nor can he find them in games anymore.