Microsoft’s Xbox group has a strategy to eliminate poisonous players

Microsoft has a stating in its Xbox department: “Gaming for Everyone.” Now, it’s pressing more difficult to follow through.

The video gaming giant is preparing to develop “new content moderation experiences” for its Xbox Live video gaming social media by year’s end. Microsoft didn’t use examples, however the brand-new tools might consist of filters to scrub words you personally discover offending from chats with other gamers. 

“We’re innovating now in these and other concrete ways to reduce, filter, and develop a shared understanding of toxic experiences, and to ultimately put our community of gamers, and their parents or guardians, in control of their own experiences,” Xbox head Phil Spencer stated in post Monday. “We believe in equipping you with the tools to customize your gaming experience fit for your personal comfort level.”

The relocation is simply the most recent in Microsoft’s efforts to motivate much better habits amongst the 63 million individuals who utilize its Xbox Live social video gaming network. That’s regardless of pushback from some players, who disagree that harassment and trolling ought to be moderated or are bad enough to benefit harder enforcement.

Last month, Microsoft launched Community Standards for Xbox, a set of guidelines released on its website that it called a “roadmap for contributing to this incredible, globe-spanning community.” One subject attended to is what gamers can’t state to other gamers, consisting of racial and homophobic slurs. 

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The company has also launched a “For Everyone” page on its website, where parents can learn about how safety and family settings work on its console. That includes making it easier for parents to create “child” and “teen” accounts that have stricter safety settings like limiting the types of games they can access and how long they can play.

The Xbox team has also helped bolster the positive end, offering support to gamers with disabilities through a special peripheral, the $99 Xbox Adaptive Controller, released last year.

Microsoft isn’t the only company increasingly turning its attention to its community. Sony and Nintendo both have robust parental controls for their respective PlayStation and Switch consoles, and both have worked to contain bad behavior on their online services. 

Spencer said Monday that despite the gaming industry’s far reach and massive size — currently over $100 billion in global sales — it has to contend with the “growing toxic stew of hate speech, bigotry and misogyny” on the internet. 

“No one group ‘owns’ gaming,” he added, and his team wants to make sure their diverse community feels welcome. “We commit to be vigilant, proactive, and swift.”

Originally published May 20 at 9 a.m. PT.