Banning trash talk instead of just silencing

General Discussion
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Banning/suspending accounts over peer reports of trash talk is bad. In the past 5 years it’s become normal for a company to ban a paying account over trash talk, because people don’t want to use the mute button. In terms of toxicity: revoking paid access > arguing with someone. By a mile. Go ahead, empower losing teams that are venting on the one “bad” player…

The reality is in real life, if someone’s gonna give me attitude, I just might stick up for myself. Don’t like it? Too bad! I don’t need to run away from every situation and I won’t. I especially don’t need someone friending me after whining in all chat for the other team’s reports. And if Blizzard really thinks banning access to my wallet is the answer to sour grapes disliking my play style, have fun trying to run a business.

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You’re essentially ignoring the problem and letting the offender continue to be toxic.

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This is about as bad as using the “If you can’t handle it, stop using the internet” line.

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Then why have a mute button?

You’re essentially ignoring the problem overreactive game moderation. Which is much worse.

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Just to clarify: we’re not talking about a random internet poster, this is about a for-profit gaming company’s moderation policy.

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Can you imagine a world were you couldn’t be heard, seen or were able to touch anyone who decided that they don’t want you to?

Bullies literally would disappear overnight. Toxic behavior requires a RESPONSE. Without the response, someone literally cannot be toxic, unless you count them being toxic to themselves(?).

The offenders only continue to be toxic, because the so-called “victims” WON’T MUTE THEM. If every person just muted every “toxic” player in OW, they would probably all quit.

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It’s there so that’s you don’t have to hear the person anymore. Reporting and getting action isn’t instant you know.

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No one ever said reports had to be instant. That’s a strawman.

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The reality is, in real life, if you go to somebody’s establishment and act in a way they don’t like, they’ll throw you out. If you start heckling performers in a theater, they’ll have you removed. It doesn’t matter that you paid for a ticket.

Blizzard owns the servers. They want people to hang out there, which means they want them to be a fun place to be. If you’re logging on and harassing people, who do you think they’re going to cater to, the one person yelling, or the five people being yelled at?

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Real life theaters don’t have a mute button, so that’s not comparable. Getting banned over frivolous reports isn’t fun, did you consider that?

If you want to cherry pick another scenario: should Blizzard cater to 5 sour grapes banding against an off-meta pick?

Just reread my thread title: Banning instead of silencing. Kicking someone out is an overreaction when you have the option of just silencing them. That’s not complicated.

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Maybe. But then again, you know Blizzard bans people for being repeatedly toxic. If you’re toxic and get banned, you had warning and it’s 100% your fault

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You don’t get to overreact simply because you threatened in advance. You’re 100% going to have a lot of problems there…

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I mute AND report :sunglasses:

I mute for my own sake, and report foe everyone else’s.

I am a little confused by your overall message here though. Your OP says you were defending yourself because people didn’t like your playstyle.

The implication that you had to be toxic to defend yourself seems odd, unless I’m missing something here. Also, the implication that they should have just muted and ignored you, when you DIDN’T just mute and ignore THEM seems… shady.

Again, unless I’m really missing the something here. Maybe you weren’t trash talking, and your point here is you were banned on false reports? I dunno…

All other things aside, the number of tools a company gives you to avoid toxicity isn’t the point. Toxicity is against the rules, and breaking the rules can get you banned. That IS real life.

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The number of tools available is totally the point. You still haven’t addressed: why ban over toxic comm’s when you can silence?

You raise several false implications. Consider: people can report for any, or no, reason. Sticking up for myself isn’t toxic, so it’s totally unclear where you get that from… yeah, you were really missing a few things there :wink:

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85%+ of toxic players are that way because people pick stupid heroes for their skill set. Heroes that the user is not good at playing. Heroes that don’t go with the current comp. There is nothing being done about intentional throwers at all, so you should consider yourself lucky they even do anything about toxic players~ honestly.

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That’s what this community says when someone doesn’t like the current state of the game.

“If you don’t like it, just leave” - double standard nice

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People are free to play whoever they want. Period. That’s just not bannable, and really a different topic you should take in another thread, thanks.

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You get silenced before you get banned for toxicity.

In real life, you get fired/asked to leave the premise if you give complete strangers an attitude.

What I do to avoid being toxic is ask myself, “Is there really an excuse to put people down?” Instead of thinking that people should mute you and you should be free to verbally abuse anyone as you like, maybe you should consider your own position.

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Wait you got banned directly and not silenced? Did you have prior history of getting silenced?

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@Bogrim–Wrong. In reality you get told to deal with it yourself. Like a big boy.

@tiffac–I mean, I’m typing here now.

Can either of you explain how banning over reports is better than continued silencing? All you have to do is scroll up a few posts, you’ll see someone conflating “not good at playing” with intentionally throwing. Hello!