Is the Xbox Enforcement System a Weapon?

Hi folks,

I would like to tell you the story of the first time I have received an enforcement action against me. I will de-identify other parties involved for the sake of their privacy. But firstly, for context, a little bit about myself.

I am a 16 year veteran of the Xbox live community. I joined Xbox live back on the original Xbox console, and if I have my facts straight, that was during the second year of the service's availability in Australia. In all of that time, I have never had enforcement action levelled against me until about two days ago, after suffering a falling out with another Xbox live user. This is how the story unfolded.

Let's call the chief antagonist of the story Fred. Fred and I go way back to the Xbox 360 days. I had known him for over 10 years. He's always been a bit of a hot head, but over the years he had seemingly matured. Earlier in the week Fred and I were playing a game with my nephew and his mate. Let's call my nephew Bob. Bob clearly wasn't having a great evening. Fred had another friend of his in the party chat. A friend who wasn't playing the same game as us. They were chatting quite loudly to each other, to the point of the rest of us not being able to make call outs and play the game properly. Bob, in quite a rude manner, using profanity, told Fred to be quiet, because he couldn't concentrate, then abruptly left the party. It was rude, uncalled for, but nothing that two men couldn't sort out on their own. Sadly, that didn't happen. As I mentioned, Fred is a hot head and he was triggered to say the least. While Bob quickly reflected on his behaviour and was ready to offer an apology, Fred shifted the conversation to a private text chat on XBL. Suffice to say, mud was slung, profanity issued by both parties. Bob's brother then comes in to defend him (let's call him Gary) and more faeces hits the proverbial fan.

So to recap, in this scenario, Bob was rude initially, but Fred has escalated matters and Gary has injected himself into the discussion, and I am in the middle of all of this, caught in the crossfire between a long term friend and my family.

So the spat culminated with Fred filing a report both against Bob and Gary. They both responded in kind. So Bob and Gary are both served with a 30 day suspension. I can only assume Fred was served with some kind of suspension too. They appealed it, and the sentence was reduced to 3 days. It would be an understatement to say that everyone's night was ruined. So, in the aftermath, I told Bob that he should have handled that better and he agreed. He even tried reaching out to Fred to apologise, but Fred was not having a bar of it at this point. The next day, Fred starts chatting with me on another platform, trying to get me to side with him. I pushed back and told him, no you were just as bad if not worse. Telling him that his retaliatory action was a spiteful one. I told him that Bob was ready to apologise and that he should too. Needless to say, that opinion did not sit well with hot headed Fred and I started to cop abuse back. I called him out on his behaviour and his attacks started to get personal. It was in that moment I made the decision to block Fred on all social media platforms and on Xbox live. He clearly didn't take that well because he then jumped on Xbox live and filed a report against me. To my surprise, I was handed a 3 day suspension.

At this point, I was starting to suspect, that the Xbox enforcement system might be automated. Because to this day, I can't recall any communication I had with Fred that would have breached the terms of service, especially when you consider that the most substantive part of our conversation happened on another platform (and even then, some truth bombs were dropped but on my part I was careful not to be abusive or to use fowl language, knowing what Fred is capable of). So naturally I appealed the decision, citing my clean record, citing Fred's actions and citing my own communications. The suspension is now currently under review, but the review process, it seems, will take as long as the suspension itself. So Fred's act of revenge comes to fruition anyway. But the depths that Fred was willing to plumb had not yet reached rock bottom. On the day that Bob's suspension was due to be lifted, Fred filed another report against him, citing communication, which resulted in a further 3-day suspension. This showed me that this was very clearly an automated process. Bob had already had his communication features suspended. So how could Bob have breached the Xbox live terms of service again in that time? So clearly the system seems to be; someone makes a report, a program scans the report for keywords and a consequence is immediately issued. I find this highly concerning for a number of reasons.

1. This enables people to use the system as a weapon to exact revenge.

2. This system clearly uses a guilty until proven innocent method of doling out justice, which historically is open to abuse.

3. What's to stop Fred from continuing to abuse the system to others in the future or to continue to abuse the system against Bob or myself? After all, Fred is not exactly an innocent party himself.

Clearly Fred has no problem with degrading himself with such actions. If he so chooses, he could set a reminder for another 3 days and file another report against Bob and the system would automatically suspend him again. Would the weight of all of these past reports cause the automated system to cancel his account outright? And for no further breach of the terms of service than what was initially committed? My suspension is due to be lifted tomorrow, so I'll wait and see if he tries to hit me with another one. And if I find myself in Bob's shoes, being harassed with reporting, and if it eventuates into a cancellation of my account, after 16 years of membership, a tonne of gamerscore and progress, I wont be starting again. I'll just sell my two consoles, cancel game pass and leave it at that.

But surely this is not the intention of the Xbox enforcement system. On the Xbox enforcement system page, they set out their policy as such:

Our Values

Integrity

We are accountable for our actions; we must make consistent, unbiased decisions based on the best available evidence.

Compassion

The policy is our guide. We must do what is right, not always just what is written. Context matters.

Precision

With authority comes great responsibility; we must be precise in our investigations, documentation, reporting, and application of enforcement policy.

Team

Each individual is critical to our success. Each is trusted and empowered to do what is right. We learn from mistakes and always try to improve. We care deeply about our customer’s experiences on Xbox Live and are dedicated as a team to make it a safe and fun place to be!

In this scenario, I call in to question 3 out of the 4 values. If the system is automated, then there is no integrity. The system can only operate under the parameters its been programmed with. There is no compassion because it is abundantly clear that context has not been taken into consideration, especially with Bob's second enforcement action. And I especially call into question the matter of precision. It seems clear to me, that the only time any matter is actually investigated is if there is an appeal. It's for this reason why most western societies use an innocent until proven guilty process. Once guilt is ascertained, then the punishment comes, not the other way around.

Not being one to complain without offering up ideas for solutions, I feel this process needs to include a show cause step. If someone levels a complaint against you, you are given the opportunity to reply with context and make a pledge to improve behaviour that can be enforced. Privacy is always a concern in these situations, but if the accuser is known to the accusee (which I daresay would be the case the vast majority of the time), then there should also be a way for that person to provide evidence of any breaches they have incurred that were perpetrated by the other party too. Only then can context truly matter and unbiased decisions be made with precision and accuracy.

In any case, I doubt Xbox live would be comfortable with their system being used as a weapon of revenge. And if anyone from Xbox live would like to contact me for more details, I would be happy to share. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.

:)