Major Problems with Criteria for Xbox Live Enforcement

I'm here to talk about some serious problems that I've seen recently in how Microsoft uses their enforcement actions against their player base. I've just received my third enforcement action for communications. I have never harassed anyone on Xbox live
or any online gaming environment that I have engaged in for my entire life of online gaming, going back well over a decade at this point. I have never trolled anyone in a game that would warrant enforcement action on the part of Microsoft in my own opinion
at least and in general I've never done anything in online gaming that I think would qualify as a justifiable means for a communication suspension or one of any kind for that matter.

What I have done is be a competitive gamer and respond occasionally to messages sent to me by people who do deserve some sort of punishment for their conduct. These are the trolls, the ragers, the teamkillers, etc. The people who should not be allowed
to exist in the same environment as competitive and overall friendly gamers and the same people who these enforcement actions should be targeted at but they are not. Even in these, I'll be generous by calling them "conversations", I didn't insult the other
player no matter how much they might insult me, I never harassed them after the conversation had ended by spamming their account with messages or having my friends do it or something. Usually the incident would end with me blocking the other person and moving
on.

What seems to be the issue here is my choice of words in these "conversations." I tend to swear a lot when in non-professional company. I don't think it's a problem and I've been doing it my entire online gaming life without incident. Last year I received
my first communications suspension, meaning messages, party and game chat, etc., for use of "inappropriate communications". From what I understand, and I'll get to later why I don't understand it all, if a message of yours gets reported by the, in my case
usually, absolute waste of human filth that messaged me in the first place to troll me, insult my play style or whatever it is that crosses their mind at that point in time, who would love to harm my account in some way because they probably get off on it
or something. Someone who would love to see your account get hurt in some way has the power to make that happen if I let lose a single profanity. All of this, in a supposedly relaxed, online gaming community which has historically been a place where people
defend themselves with words when challenged, often by using profanity. Who in the **** thought that was a good idea at Microsoft?!?!?

You're telling me, that in an online gaming environment where people swear at each other all the time, you're now going to regulate this act by suspending anyone who uses profanity, which is pretty much everyone who plays online games, on a first offense,
non-harassing basis, on a reporting system that is controlled by someone who wants to see your account damaged? Does anyone at Microsoft really think that people won't take advantage of this? You must suspend thousands of accounts a week if not every few
days with this system!!!! You'd be better off just disabling the messaging system altogether because it is incredibly rare for players to message each other with positive feedback in online gaming and that is a fact that everybody who plays knows.

This raises the question of why Microsoft/Xbox is even regulating speech in general on their platform. Unfortunately I do believe it may be politically motivated, when their questionnaire for even submitting a review of your enforcement has questions involving
the use of hate speech, gender identity and speech that might be deemed offensive by others. It is not the responsibility of the service provider to regulate what their players will see or hear from other players while using their service. Their job should
be to provide that service and update and improve it regularly to make the experience of their players as good as possible. The only thing that they should regulate on their service is the use of hacking and trolling by players in game. They should completely
stay away from communications between players. This does not negatively affect the game because Xbox Live has the option to block players from messaging you or mute them from talking to you. It does negatively affect the game when Xbox Enforcement decides
to get involved in personal discussions between players that do not qualify as harassment by any definition when one player decides to report the other for use of profane language, that player who usually has an axe to grind with the other player for reasons
I discussed above.

For those who think that Microsoft has to censor its players because perhaps there are younger players on the site to hear this content, that is again not the responsibility of the service to cater specifically to a younger audience because their parents
might complain. It is the responsibility of those parents to not allow their kids to be exposed to an environment that has that content if they are against it especially in games that are rated Teen or Mature.

As well as the obvious issues I have with the apparent social justice warrior attitudes that Microsoft Enforcement has adopted recently, they have some serious practical issues with this "service" as well. As I mentioned earlier, they do not provide the
specific message that they suspended your account for. They simply provide a blanket statement such as "inappropriate communications" or something else. So you will not know what message or messages that their "service" deemed worthy of suspension. If you
feel that your suspension was unwarranted, which it usually is, you can choose to appeal that suspension, by answering a questionnaire that reminds me of having to write lines in early school years when the kid did something wrong. Oh, and on top of that,
you have to answer every question correctly to even submit your appeal. On top of all of this, you cannot directly contact the enforcement team to speak to someone about your suspension. Reasons for this should be obvious but it's still very irritating to
not be able to talk to anyone about the extremely vague reasons behind your suspension. Not even a robot.

In general, there are some serious practical and philosophical problems with Microsoft's Enforcement conditions. They should not be censoring the speech of their players and punishing those who do something so small as swearing in a message, they should
not be regulating communication at all because players have the ability to block other players from communicating with them, and they should reconsider the practicalities behind their system involving communication between the players and the administrators,
especially considering this service is not free.

:)

 

Problems with Criteria for Xbox Enforcement Part 2

If you continue to repost content that has been locked you will be banned from the forums.

 

Problems with Criteria for Xbox Enforcement Part 2

It has been the rules for a very long time, maybe they are just policing it better. No point was missed, you admitted the violation, you got punished. Refrain from your choice of language and do not rise to bait messages. Simple

 

You swore in your communications, that is a violation of the code of conduct. Yes it is the responsibility of Microsoft to police its live service and you agreed to the rules when you signed up. Live is certified as E for everyone and therefore suspensions
can be handed out. Context in game play is one thing, where the odd swear word can come out amongst more mature players but in a message they are more aggressive, threatening. Simply put, don't swear and cus, you won't get a suspension.