Call of Duty’s Crusade Against Toxicity Nets 350,000 Banned Players

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in Call of Duty | Jun, 1st 2021

Anyone who’s played an online game knows about the way that voice chat is conducted, sometimes player who get upset will cuss out players, and arguments usually ensue. While this was the norm of voice chat for games like Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox 360. Things have changed in the years since t he games release. Now, activation is making themselves known that they are doing all they can to make Call of Duty an enjoyable experience for players from all walks of life, by enforcing anti-toxicity policies in Modern Warfare 2019, Cold War, and Warzone.

The Call of Duty Twitter account posted a link to a blog post on the official website, explaining their stance on what should be done with Toxic players, as well as their efforts to stop the same toxicity during the past year of Call of Duty. The blog post says: “Our goal is to give players the tools needed to manage their own gameplay experience, combined with an enforcement approach that addresses hate speech, racism, sexism, and harassment.”

According to the blog post, the company has successfully, banned 350,000 players with hateful names or had a history of abuse of the voice chat function through player reports, implemented filters for words in 11 different languages to help stop hateful messages through text chat, as well as deployed in-game filters to stop the use of hateful messages or imagery in clan tags and usernames. 

While it seems like a lot has been done already by Activision, this is not the end of their crusade against toxic players. “We know we have a long way to go to reach our goals. This is just the start. Addressing this is an ongoing commitment that we will not waver from. We look forward to making progress on this front and coming together with you to share in the fun and joy of playing together.”

While Activision’s efforts to stop harassment and hateful conduct in their games, frequent players of Warzone and the two previous Call of Duty titles are unpleased with Activision’s efforts in banning players with hateful names, although it’s not for any malicious reasoning. Players who are upset with the information are distraught by the fact that Call of Duty has spent more time dedicated to catching players who have said hurtful things online, rather than stopping the influx of cheaters that games like Warzone are being infested with. 

When the post linking the blog on the Official Twitter was uploaded, many were quick to criticize Call of Duty’s decision to focus on banning players with offensive names. 

One player by the name of @_jim1_ replied to the quote Tweet saying “Okay but you know what would make a fun gameplay experience? An anticheat.

Another user by the name of @lebold_jacob said this in response to the blogpost, “This game has more systems in place for “toxic behavior” than for legitimate hackers ruining the game

Some other players also found disdain that Call of Duty was banning players with offensive names purely on the basis of it offending someone. Many of these arguments state that Call of Duty’s voice chat is filled with trash talk and banter, and while it’s okay to ban people for offensive names, what constitutes hate speech and harassment is not clear enough to distinctly discern what could be cause for a ban. Regardless, Call of Duty remains adamant that their continued look into toxic behavior on their titles is going to continue. Call of Duty has been aiming itself to be more accessible from all walks of life, so the voice chat traditions found in the earlier call of duty games are going to be coming to an end. 

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