When did blizzard stop extending mutes for abusive chat and start giving perma bans?

[Kaedi-11739]

Blizzard has always started issuing suspensions and bans if players continue to be disruptive in their games. However, I will quote this message from former Community Manager Molly Fender when they released the enhanced profanity filter features for Overwatch.

@Molly

Updated Penalties for Inappropriate Language in Overwatch

While using a profanity filter can help you control when you see offensive language, we’re also committed to constantly improving our methods of combatting this issue at its source. In the short term, we will be imposing harsher penalties against players found to be using offensive, hateful, or other similar language that violates our Code of Conduct , including longer periods of silence, longer suspensions, and permanently banning players after fewer repeat offenses.

In the near term, we’re also considering some changes to our internal processes that we hope will result in meaningful improvements to the effectiveness of our preliminary detection methods and the speed at which players found to be violating the Code of Conduct are investigated and actioned. As always, we appreciate your support and vigilance as we continue to work toward addressing these challenging and important issues—the best tool we have is your reports and feedback, and we look forward to sharing more in the future.

UPDATE (Oct 12):

In addition to the improved profanity filter and updated penalties for inappropriate language, we’ve also performed a manual action wave against some of the worst offenders of toxic language in Overwatch. This action will take effect with updates to profanity filter and penalties in the next live game patch.