They wanted feedback on the forums so I am here to do so. The profanity part in ToS has gotten the entire support team major backlash because it is widely hated, especially by overwatch players. If the language can be used in your games characters then people shouldn’t be able to be banned for using the same language. Even team 4 dislikes these policies. Also the punishment for it is way way too harsh. A mute would be sufficient but an entire account ban is uncalled for. This rule has killed most communication in your team based shooter and now going into vc most of the time you could hear a pen drop.
Blizzard games themselves are covered by the ESRB (or PGEI) ratings. That is for pre-made content that can be reviewed. That is what defines Blizzard’s rules.
Players are held to an entirely different conduct standard. For ALL Blizzard games the player content rules (names and chat) have always been very family friendly. Blizzard has never allowed players to use profanity, masked profanity, slurs, hateful speech, etc. What has changed is the ease with which players can report infractions, not the rules themselves.
What you are asking for is a change to rules that have been in effect since at least 2004 for Blizzard games. Even Blizzard’s M rated games do not allow players to deviate from the family friendly rules. I do not think Blizzard’s lawyers are going to allow that.
If reported, players will be actioned for breaking the rules they agreed to. Blizzard does not have AI monitoring yet - it still depends on player reports.
If you wish to use profanity you would be best to do it in private chats or other platforms where it is allowed.
While the rule has been in affect since 2004, that doesn’t mean that people agree with that rule. Games are covered by a rating system but it is very hypocritical, at least in my opinion, that players are forced to comply with rules that the companies games themselves don’t have to abide by. Furthermore, shouldn’t the games be leading by example via the in game content and its own profanity. As for the ease of reporting, I would say it’s more the fact that humans don’t initially check it now it is ai, which would mean it is the ease of action. Overwatch specifically does use AI for its report systems and blizzard does have auto responses to appeals and stuff, so saying they don’t use AI is incorrect. The issue with this is it makes way for false reports which have already happened before. I also don’t think their lawyers are gonna care as long as the language complies with the games rating. This then means that parents will know the language being used in the game and if they choose to buy it for their kid the company will have no push back on it.
The do care. That is why the player rules are set to be family friendly. They don’t want to get sued by parents or other organizations. I am not sure you remember the huge parental drama over music lyrics, games, and TV - it ended up with the music and games industry agreeing to self regulate and post ratings to avoid congressional regulatory action.
The game itself is hard coded - that stuff is reviewed and they can control the context that it is used in. That will match the game rating.
Player language is not something that can be reviewed before it is posted and they really don’t want that stuff, in an uncontrolled way, on their platforms.
They keep the player “speed limit” well below the max that their own game is require to meet. That is very much intentional and I do not expect it to change. You are welcome to disagree and give feedback of course! I just would not hold my breath about Blizzard changing their stance on it.
Keep any colorful language between you and your friends in private channels. Pretend you are at a town event with strangers of all ages and backgrounds - because you pretty much are when you are in public games/chats.
If I’m not mistaken, this was originally over mortal Kombat mainly. The issue with a parent suing over something like this is they have multiple controls (at least in overwatch) to combat this. You can have text chat filtered, via parental controls you can make it where they can’t join voice or text chat, etc. I’m def not saying it should be open season where everything is okay to say on any game, this is mainly about overwatch for me. Also they do have a way to report toxicity if that is the worry. I understand it probably won’t happen but it has been a big point of contention in the OW community for a while and the cs support team has gotten a lot of issues over it. Just want to save them the backlash and have people be able to talk in games again.
https://www.wowhead.com/news/new-chat-censorship-options-available-in-patch-10-0-7-331356
They have had the option to turn off all social functions in the Parental Controls for WoW since release. Not sure on OW, but probably that too.
The “new chat” options for WoW you are looking at are not really new, but they did do an update to the tools. It lets you block all messages from sub groups - so maybe you only see messages from friends and guild instead of seeing Trade chat too.
The Parental filters are not new. Those have been in WoW since 2004. They have been in Battlenet Chat since that software rolled out as well - so that covers Overwatch from release time. The profanity filters are for parents esp who want another layer of protection because people don’t follow the rules they agreed to.
This argument goes way back to the start of WoW and enforcement of the profanity/masked profanity rules. Here are a few examples from the early days. People have been trying to argue that the existence of filters means they should not be punished for breaking the rules. Yeah, no. Note the dates.
Funny that they are still having this issue over a decade later. Seems to prove that most players and blizzard higher ups are at odds with each other on the subject.
Two decades. The Game content has always been separate and based on the ratings. Player created content is not rated by the ESRB - and has always had a different set of rules. Those player policies have always been very family friendly. As I said, the “speed limit” for players is set pretty low.
There are people who want to be able to use profanity, slurs, insults, etc however they want. They don’t seem to understand that private companies have the right to set rules and enforce those rules. They could decide we can’t say “apple” and that would be up to them. Of course, players would have the right to not play a game that did not let them say “apple”. 
They also can’t seem to understand that in public chat channels and groups that these are strangers from all ages and backgrounds. They are not friends who share a common sense of humor. Blizzard does not want to be known as a place where player chat is hostile and abusive. Pretty logical and it is a decision a lot of companies have made.
People can talk to their FRIENDS however they like in private chat or private groups where they are not going to get reported. Blizz does not monitor our chat (at least that I know of but I don’t play OW). They only act based on player reports. Those reports capture the time/date, name, server, chat channel, and chat logs. A GM just pretty much has to decide if the language either breaks the rules or it does not. They don’t generally want people being toxic jerks to others. Blizzard would be very unwise to decide to cave to the most toxic elements of the internet and their desire to be as big of jerks as they want.
Save the colorful stuff for friends only or other platforms with different rules.
I agree on the toxicity part. That should stay reportable. I also don’t think slurs should be around. Just as you said previously, context is everything. As for overwatch, reports are ai reviewed and enforced. It still requires reports, but even false reports can get you actioned by the ai if enough is sent in, at least used to be, which has always caused issues. I think it would be a lot better to just make all reports have to be reviewed by a person so that this stuff doesn’t happen and they can discern context around what is said.
This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.