Hate speech in the Overwatch community

It’s understandable that it cannot directly be confirmed that it won’t work, though comparing it with other games just feels off to me knowing how notorious the Overwatch community is for being toxic.

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It’s not the company, it’s the history and definition of the word.

What you say in private is your own words, but when you’re using hateful derogatory language to random people in a public lobby, you deserve to be held accountable.

Really sounds like you’re using “I don’t want companies to impede on my free speech” as a cover to allow yourself to go on using language you know is harmful but you don’t wish to be held accountable for using.

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Hmm, maybe Blizzard should start doing things to deter players from being toxic.

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All these gaming companies have rules they can enforce at their whim, and most/probably all have clauses about slurs, racism, and the like. I’m saying enforce the rules they’ve already outlined for Overwatch, and possibly make the catching of rule-breakers a bit more savvy.

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Totally agree with this. People who are against tighter controls on discrimination are usually the ones who discriminate

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First off, without staff supervising verdicts it can result in much much more issues.
False warns/Suspensions/Bans due to the company not looking properly after reports.

A company can decide what is allowed or not, you purchase their games and agree to those terms. You’re not required to get the game if you do not accept these terms, though don’t complain if you feel controlled by a company creating a safe enviorment for the users.

How would these companies have any direct impact on law?
Sure i’m uneducated, though the way you talk about China makes clear they do?
Then again that feels much more political, which really shouldn’t be discussed here right?


Well a big part is also that the community does not believe the report system does much, thus resulting in less reports.

I think single reports don’t do much, so it won’t result in any punishment.

Around 2 years ago they have announced that they would make an automated system detecting bad word usage that would develop overtime and that it would learn bad words automatically etce etc.

Rules are put, yes.
Though i think any automated system could be bypassed.
Sure it might still have an impact, though i don’t think the population of toxic players will shrink. Then again i can’t say the report system is 100% reliable since we don’t have much info on that either.

Imo we’re kind of stuck here, not all solutions are effective.
Of course we can implement this system, no objections against it.

Anyhow after i wrote this i’d say let’s test before assuming, eh?

I’ve seen many comments from players who think that their reports are meaningless, but we want to stress that they are actually very helpful and incredibly important to improving the Overwatch community. The in-game thank you messages we recently added let you know that the time you spend making a report is indeed making a positive contribution. Just this last week, we corrected an issue that prevented many players from receiving these messages, so players should now start seeing even more feedback about their reports. To further improve these systems, we’re doing a lot of exciting work to develop “machine learning” systems to assist in accurately identifying abusive chat and gameplay sabotage. These technologies will work together with player reports, empowering the community to quickly bring attention to bad behavior so that the appropriate steps can be taken to discourage or prevent future bad behavior from ruining others’ experiences playing Overwatch. These same systems will also protect players from false reports.

Refer to: PLAYER BEHAVIOR IN OVERWATCH

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Pretty much, it might not catch that many people, but it’ll catch some. At the very least it’ll send a message that Blizzard won’t tolerate this kind of language which should deter some from using it :man_shrugging:

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Exactly! I have little to no faith in the report system. As I said above people who are toxic in the chat do so knowing they’re going to be fine and that they can get away with it. If we had an updated system that actually struck fear into the hearts of those who are racist, sexist etc. then the amount of toxicity in the community would go down because people would know there was punishment waiting for them if they’re horrible in chat.

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Shocking that this post has 15 votes, holy molly this is worse than I thought :rofl:

Congratulations on exposing your lack of knowledge about reality mate.
Hate speech not only does exist, but has been existing for a LONG time.

Yes you can, learn more about the “tolerating the intolerant” paradox, because buddy it seems you TRULY need to google some things here.

100% false and what you just used is called the slippery slope FALLACY. In case you dont know what that means, it means you used a false equivalency or conclusion derived from a fake/false premise to justify your statement.
That does immediately invalidate said statement.

Really? A history lesson?
Take a look at the world history and search for Anarchy and its Chaos. Dont mistake control with ABSOLUTISM because they are not the same, ok? :roll_eyes:

No you are not, and that situation is not global.
You know that defamation is literally a CRIME that can get you to court any day right? Those are WORDS made up in order to destroy someone’s reputation, even to a point that person gets fired etc.

Also promoting violence via words towards certain people/race/sex/ethnicity or whatever IS hate speech and is also a CRIME. What universe do you live in mate?

And there it is boys and girls, Hitler brought into the argument.
Funny thing is that, not only it doesnt support your point, but goes AGAINST it, because he had to “cover” his hate speech (dog whistle) in order to get into power. Because freedom of speech was not properly regulated (and some other things) that guy got into a power position.

People are sheep for sure, but people without proper knowledge are way worse.

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it is a company that enforces rules on how to communicate, namely TenCent, which controls all communication in most online games in China. That could happen in every other country too.

It’s about who is in charge of the definitions. I might get banned for being toxic.
But what is toxic? It’s not always that obvious.

no, I think my reason for writing this should be clear. I hope you realize what you just did. I point out that large technology companies have a great influence on our language, and you accuse me of having bad intentions.

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Yes my brain actually hurt reading their posts - people like this are the reason Blizzard needs to step up and actually enforce rules on one of the most toxic communities out there/

There is a HUGE difference between companies in China which are run by the government stifling the use of language that goes against the government and Blizzard a privately owned company keeping you from using language that is derogatory and hateful.

It’s only hard when the definition of toxic applies to you, no one would ever want to admit they have toxic behavior, so in these discussions they attempt to dismiss and discredit any rules against their own behaviors.

Because if your language involves regularly, degrading someone and using hateful language that is rooted in violence and centuries of oppression you not only need to be held accountable you need to be educated.

I suggest you research the tolerance paradox.

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If you’re using sexist, homophobic, racist, transphobic or other derogatory language, in any context other than to say ‘this is bad’, then very clearly you are those things.

They intrinsically stifle other fundamental freedoms, and you have no more right to ask for your freedom of speech to do that, than anyone would have to use their freedom of religion to burn you at the stake.

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People love to move as if the requirements to be considered toxic and hateful is so arbitrary that anything can fall under that. When I hear “toxic” and “hateful” a few words come to mind. Not dozens of vague af paragraphs. :pensive:

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Blizzard has always been in charge of definitions. It’s their domain after all.

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that’s exactly my point, it’s not a big difference.
What do you think happens if the United States or other countries (let’s say EU) with a strong market insist on controlling communications through their own companies? It would happen immediatly.

There are clear cases of racist or sexual remarks that are not open for debate.
I don’t do that kind of thing, and I don’t defend it. I don’t know why this is being brought up so much now.

I’m concerned with cases that are not clear-cut. There is no rule book in which there is a practical example for each offence. In such cases, companies have a lot of freedom to decide whether something was fine or not.
So it is probably not a good idea to ban on the first offense, as someone has suggested here.
And we should be aware of how much tech companies can influence our language. That’s all I wanted to say.

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It’s not going to happen. People too busy burning books and destroying history.

So utterly tired of people acting like the world should be a safe room, and when it isn’t, it’s someone’s responsibility to them to make it so. The world is and always will be toxic. Some things get better, but if you think there will “be an end” to attitudes you don’t like in life, you better wake up already. Blizzard makes a profanity filter, use it. But they cannot nor is it their responsibility to ensure every person at all times can’t say something you don’t like. That’s frankly childish and a sad commentary on how immature our society in general has become. Maybe you should take some responsibility and not listen sometimes? it’s not all on Blizzard.

This “running to the teacher because Johnny said something mean” mentality is way, way out of control.

You can’t just make a statement like this without giving an example.
Reason being that I think even if it’s “culturally acceptable” in one place to be racist/sexist/LGBT-hating, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept that in an international game.

The filter could apply to team chat and all chat, not to group chat or whispers.
Regardless, this is not a good excuse though, because it normalizes such words and behaviour even if “just joking around”. And that is normalizing something that should not be normal in the first place, and which is also the root cause of these issues; it’s normal for those people to be racist or sexist, and if their friends are okay with it, then everyone else is just a wuss that needs a tougher skin and not be offended so easily, right?

So are you saying that moral integrity is less important than profits?

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There would immediately be protests and resistance to something like this and there would be members of the government themselves against it. Blizzard and other privately owned companies banning the use of derogatory language to make their games a better place isn’t going to suddenly result in the US using fascist tactics to censor any speech they don’t like because again there is a HUGE, GIANT, GARGANTUAN difference between banning words with hateful discriminatory definitions with histories of violence and oppression and the banning of words that call out the government one is accepted by the VAST majority of the government because it’s for a good reason and one is a tactic that the worst regimes In history have gone to war and lost for using.

What POSSIBLE situation is there, where someone is saying a slur and it isn’t derogatory? thats literally the criteria of what a slur is, a word thats only purpose is to be hateful and derogatory to a group of people. It’s not like swearing where sometimes it’s used to enhance the impact or emphasis of your emotions, it’s only use is being unkind.

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