As of right now, only one racial slur appears to have been added to this filter
It sounds as if what they’re doing is adding the general mature chat filter to apply to the entire chat and messaging system, and removing the ability to use the worst words. As I recall, we’ve seen that they’re doing this with guild chat as well.
Anyway, I do swear in real life. But I also don’t swear in real life, and I don’t use the kinds of words that Blizzard is likely to censor.
Trying to censor the gamers usually goes bad, really bad.
Cause people will constantly play around the Censor detector to say whatever they want and likely worsen the situation, also a lot of censor system get ridiculous sometimes with the words they censor (like Twitch)
Anyway, here’s how a proper censor in game SHOULD work.
Town of Salem, a browser game based off of Werewolf, uses a censor which replaces certain words with words like “Tarnation” and blocks especially bad words. Doing this is unironically the best way to maintain a censor, as it prevents people from doing the worst but also allows players to have fun with it a bit.
Although, and I will say it again, Blizzard banning questionable words which are racial insults is a good thing. “Censorship” wouldn’t have to happen if humans could simply be kind to one another, but unfortunately, humans are not.
Private companies can restrict whatever words they feel like restricting. Free Speech isn’t protected on private game servers. Blizzard owns the infrastructure and the accounts your characters are on, they can do whatever they want.
Players can always use Discord – should do so anyway, it’s far less restricted than in-game chat and has far more options.
I mean, this is a very very slippery slope. It literally starts with 1, then goes on to 100, soon 1000, eventually mostly only nice things being able to be said or nothing at all, which is terrible. We already pander to a bunch of pansies in the world who can’t take being called “dumb” when they’re actually dumb. How long til we get there? No clue.
Also in that regard, too, is that it’s a censorship to the free speech, which allows you to say whatever you want, as long as you also accept that the person you talk to can do or say whatever they want to you too in response. That’s not the actual article, but I mean if you are gonna say something, own up to your words and take responsibility if you did upset someone, meaning take whatever they give back to you.
Also, there’s literally an in-game profanity filter option. If you cannot handle being called -insert name here- or seeing it, turn the filter on. People are so dumb. Blizzard already has a stupid proof option, people just need to use it. I mean it’s auto checked the moment you make your character.
Let’s all also be honest here, if you can’t take what someone says over the internet, you probably should not be on the internet at all in the first place. But yeah, people just need to get thicker skin. We could be nice, but life isn’t nice nor fair to everyone. Don’t expect people to treat you nice, expect them to spit on you, try to walk over you, etc. Expect the worse in people, and then if they’re not bad to you enjoy them not being bad in that moment, but always expect the worst.
In either case, though, this is only the first ripple, which as they say will create a tsunami.
Free Speech is an illusion, otherwise there would be no suits for slander, no such thing as hate-speech, you wouldn’t be given the side-eye for swearing in public, you couldn’t be prosecuted for inciting people to terrible things to themselves etc.
Anyone who pulls the free speech card, really needs to adult more.
Also, Blizzard is a private company, you have no such right. Just like if you said certain things at my house, you’d hit the curb before you even took a second breath.
Its more so of a temporary outrage followed by people just moving on or accepting it. These things don’t “start” a war, they just add a little side note which is quickly dismissed.
The only time that this sort of thing would get any attention at all is if a war had already started, and people were just looking for things to pile on top of it. Which, quite frankly, they are.
Which is exactly why the censor I described with ToS is by far the best one. Why bother with going around it when you can just work within it and end up with an honestly fun situation.
