Microsoft to End XboxLIVE Abuse ?!
One can only hope.
by dkpatriarch:
©2008 David Hilton:
Update #1:
Due to popular demand, we have added a poll at the bottom of this article, please feel free to make your vote and let others know of the poll as well.
Do you, like me, hate pre-pubescent kids screaming profanity into their mics when playing online on Live?
Tired of the drunken swear-songs, racist or sexist commentary from the late night crowd?
Sick of having to press mute or hate having to say to your kids: “No you can’t play online because there are a bunch of idiots on there?”
Well it looks like Microsoft is doing something about it. Cheers all round! Or are there deeper sinister implications that I had not considered when begging for this to occur?
My disgust with what happens on Live is well known. Microsoft has not been blind to the abuses Live users have been perpetrating or been getting but has hasn’t seemed able to do anything significant about it. That may now change.
In 2004 they took out patent for real-time censoring of audio streams, and now the USPTO has granted that patent. What this involves, according to arstechnica.com is “real-time (or batch) analysis of an audio stream that can recognize inappropriate language based on phonemes, and then overwrite objectionable words with bleeps, other noises, or silence”.
Of course, just like with swearing filters in writing, some will always get around it somehow but it does seem like a step in the right direction to get rid of some of the over-the-top profanity out there. After all, if your comments are bleeped every second word nobody will understand you anyway.
What the website rightly points out, though, is the possible uses for the technology outside of Xbox Live. It could, like many ideas meant initially for good, become a tool of censorship on a bigger scale. What if swear words weren’t the only thing being censored and it was used to censor other words or anti-something ideas on mobile phones? On television? You get the idea. China would love it after firewalling the internet for its citizens.
Still, far reaching negative consequences are always a danger with new technology. The internet is great to find information fast and provide quick international communication but also enables dissemination of terrorist, race hate or simply wrong information too.
In the end, Microsoft had to do something about the rubbish on Live and this may help. How much so will be determined when they build and implement the new system into Live.
What do you think? Is it a good thing to be working on, is it a waste of time because it won’t do much, or are you concerned it could have other more worrying uses?
©2008 David Hilton:
Do the Poll and make your vote count
Filed under: Console gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | censorship, xbox live, XboxLIve censorship
i spend a lot of time on xbox (not that proud of it) the people who complain about abusive players, stop playing CoD. you’ll be good.. and as far as censorship goes, it wont work; not in America at least, just try to shut us up!
i need to conact microsoft about harrasment what is there Email for complaints?
Ps- I find the generalisation of this problem being confined to prepubescent teens and also people who are saying they ” haven’t encountered this much ” a bit bizzare. The scary thing is- A lot of these gamers are actually adults.
I hate these abusive people on Xbox live. I’ve resorted to no longer using my mike and limiting settings (which unfortunately causes problems when playing against releations). I can’t see something like this working – There are always ways around it.
Slightly besides the point of the article but for example: text messages if your settings are open like ours were. Myself and kids were subjected to a barrage of abuse which went on for a month. We filed a complaint, the gamers in question are still active.
All this simply because we won a few multiplayer matches. The feedback rep system’s also abused, which we found out quite early on. I’m glad they’re addressing this but the service should really be moderated by people if they’re charging a subscription fee. I won’t be subscribing again despite the kids pleas.
Thanks mate for the info, I have been hearing more news coming in on that front of late, and once we have some ‘solid printable news’ we will most certainly run an article on it for everyone.
To all the people that think that this is just some stupid rumor, its not, it will be put into place. “Wheres your evidence” you say, well one day i was chillin on the couch watching some ATTACK OF THE SHOW (i recommend this show highly) and they did a portion where kevin did a live interview via the internet. It was about the censorship issue and during the interview it was confirmed that Microsoft has already put this idea into action, they have already invested in develping the technology (just a censorship program to work with live) and they plan to make it a reality sometime in 2009. Sorry about the bad news.
2 jlv0628,
Thanks for the kudos mate. It is always mst appreciated when ppl give us feedback. You can also let us (and others know) via the Blogged.com site review on the righ-hand side of this site to pass a review on the site, which would be most helpful in making sure we know what others like, and dislike.
While checking out your site, I noticed your dismay at GameStop’s thumbprint requirements. GameSTop introduced this measure as far back as 2004 (may 04 – http://www.geek.com/articles/games/used-game-sales-require-thumbprints-2004053/), but simply have not really pushed it a great deal.
Plus many in your comments seem to forget that GameStop OWN EB Games . . so systems one uses, will eventually move across to the other. (http://au.gamespot.com/news/6122418.html)
But I agree with you, it seems the only reason they would need the information is for researching and database building, NOT security reasons.
I do however there does need to be a level of proof of ownership with trade-in games and hardware, as it is one of the highest items stolen from homes and used to raise funds for those who commit the crime.
The other side of the coin is, that it is actually a greater offense to “receive stolen goods” than it is to actually steal them. The law puts it down to the fact that if there were less people receiving goods, the rate of theft would reduce, which is in part true. Stolen property is driven by need and the ability to ‘fence’ it off to a receiver.
You also have an email Jorge’
I hate the idiots on Live, but I don’t think this is the right way to go. This is opening a large can of words in regards to freedom of speech. Frankly, I’d rather make this idiots fell dumb myself, rather than have something bleep them out.
Great Post, Great Blog!
-Jorge
thejorgezone.wordpress.com
I hate the idiots on xbox live but censorship isnt right. Stoping the screaming is something that needs to be done, but blanking out words limits freedom of speech.
It would be nice if it were optional for you to turn it on or off. Because muting someone is just as effective. It’s going to be annoying hearing… “beep beep beep you beep beep beep beep”!
Don’t blame MS. Blame every single media outlet and fly-by-night game/news website that continued to report that XBOX LIVE was a place for biggots and racists etc. It is because of these people that ms was possibly forced to take action as such. Yes we have some people being idiots on LIVE but they’re a drop in the bucket compared to the number of members. If you didn’t like thiese people don’t play with them, easy to do. But no the media has to make a mountain out of a breadcrumb and MS has no choice but to address it or they’ll get flamed for not dealing with the “perceived” issue. Unfortunately they’re a target because they’ve got one of the more popular online gaming communities. Amazing how the “news” tends to focus on the bad but not the good.
They can use other ways such as the facility to record conversations. Also employ Xbox Live mods who could ban such users from Live and have the recorded conversation as proof. If people know I can record them and then post that recording to a mod or some other processing unit they would probably think before they open their mouth IMO.
I think you will find that China already use this technology actively on Skype and other internet voice software.
The BBC carried an article recently where Canadian people were finding that things they were talking to the Chinese about through Skype were being edited in real time and that censorship via calls were going on.
Google it for more info how its already effecting China and now likely to infect Xbox Live
I am all for freedom of speech. However what I have experienced while playing on Live is not freedom of speech, but lack of intelligence. Sure, people will swear. And in some cases it is inevitable and appropriate. There are those on Live that will make an attempt to string as many expletives as possible together; most of the time they are not even using the swear words correctly in a sentence.
I am not interested in hearing a bunch of “bleeps” during my Live gaming. I would think it to be disruptive to other conversations going on. As long as there is an option to change how this filtering occurs (i.e. bleeps, silence, etc.) I think it should be OK. My biggest concern will be on team-based strategy games. These require real-time split second communication with your team members. In order for this filtering to work, there would have to be a significant time delay in voice transmission due to the filtering process.
Microsoft, I am glad to see that you are addressing this issue! However do not punish the entire community for the ignorance of others. Allow switches to be applied to choose when and how this filtering is applied. For example, everyone on my friends list is there because we enjoy gaming together. Sure we trash talk and the occasional swear may spill out in the heat of battle. Grant me the tools to deal with it, but let me choose. That is what “Freedom of Speech” is about….
There should be absolutely no place for racism or sexism on Live. I agree inexactscience that a more policed feedback system might help, but in the end only blanket ‘censorship-type’ methods will be able to be implemented.
The problem with reporting is that someone who decides not to like you can report things that aren’t true and get YOU in trouble.
They absolutely need to do something. The amount of racism I’ve heard while playing cod4 is absolutely disgusting. The current feedback system is worthless, but if it were tweaked slightly, lets say something along the lines of a “Racist Language” feedback option. And then if a player got more than 10 of these type of negative feedbacks they get banned for a week, then a month, etc. but of course M$ doesn’t give a shit about that, all they want is the membership money.
That should say “censoring”.
Your best bet would be to try and populate your friends list so you can play in private matches rather than sensoring the entire population, including the people that are just having a good time with each other. Playing with people you know is approximately 100000000x more fun that playing with random people, even if the random people you get matched up with aren’t 12 year old racists that think they are world class rappers.
Hopefully this would have an option to be turned off in private games (although any actual implementation of it is probably a long ways out anyhow).
I find I don’t run into this as much on the psn. It seems to be a more adult oriented community, or at least more mature. regardless, this is a bad idea. how about instead, they start banning people who get warned 3 or more times…
Terrible idea. Absolutely terrible. ‘Rude’ words can often be used to emphasise a point, eg. “this is a fucking nice game”. A constant beeping will be extremely disruptive to gameplay, and I am 100% sure the system will be inaccurate; it will censor similar sounding words.
http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/
Say NO to censorship.
i dont believe this… i bet this is one of the rumors that we’ll look back and laugh at it because it never became true.
Thats gonna be retarded