Overwatch Is Proactively Scanning YouTube For Toxic Behavior

R

rgMekanic

[H]ard|News
Joined
May 13, 2013
Messages
6,943
In a developer update video posted yesterday, Blizzard gave a behind the scenes look at the progress on toxicity in the game, as well as how they balance heroes, and balance updates. One thing that stands out is director Jeff Kaplan announced they are actively searching YouTube and other social media sites to hunt down toxic players, and "action them" proactively.

While I agree toxicity in online gaming, especially Overwatch is a serious problem, one has to ask how far is too far in order to bring it in check? Regardless of my feelings on the tracking down of players outside of the game, I always appreciate this kind of transparency from game devs, and that alone should be applauded.

“We now proactively seek out social media sites like YouTube, for example,” Kaplan said, “and look for incidents of very toxic behavior and track down the accounts that are participating in those and action them, often times before anybody’s even reported them or they’ve shown up in any other place. That’s just one example of us being proactive that I think is going to make a big difference over time.”
 
So, I was at a restaurant talking to some friends about how much Overwatch sucks, and now I can't log in to the game...

^ This didn't actually happen, but is it really much different than what Blizzard is doing?
 
Last edited:
I'm okay with this. Youtube, Twitch, or even just normal play - give them the ban hammer. Now if RIOT only had the cojonés to ban for life.


But then there's the argument of "Grow thick skin", "This is the internet", "Snowflake" comes up whenever someone wants to take action against "Toxic" behavior.
 
Last edited:
I have to hope they're banning behaviours they witness happening in game through streams and not seeking more broad sources of information.

I really hope.
 
I almost never have in game chat enabled, I'm always in Discord BSing with the 1 or 2 friends I'm partied up with.

Say I'm livestreaming, or recording, and I'm bitching up a storm, in the privacy of my Discord, strictly to my friends.

Do I still get banned?
 
rgMekanic said:
I almost never have in game chat enabled, I'm always in Discord BSing with the 1 or 2 friends I'm partied up with.

Say I'm livestreaming, or recording, and I'm bitching up a storm, in the privacy of my Discord, strictly to my friends.

Do I still get banned?
Click to expand...

Sounds like it, I know of other games that ban streamers because of their behavior on stream only. It's a pretty sad state that our games have nanny cams now.
 
rgMekanic said:
I almost never have in game chat enabled, I'm always in Discord BSing with the 1 or 2 friends I'm partied up with.

Say I'm livestreaming, or recording, and I'm bitching up a storm, in the privacy of my Discord, strictly to my friends.

Do I still get banned?
Click to expand...

Does one of your friends work for Blizzard.....?
 
Behaviors like Swatting, sending death threats, backlashes, misunderstandings, taking things out of context... harressment in real life. Game developers hate talking to gamers because of Toxicity. Because people take things too far. If you're on a forum, you'll most likely see a swarm of people respond to an official source. They may try to take things out of context and soon it's a powder keg of shit.

"Any dev who talks candidly about the difficulty of something like that just triggers a wave of people questioning their entire resumé," he added. "Questioning" here being an absurd euphemism for "becoming a target of an entire faction of gamers for harassment or worse.
Click to expand...
Source

While in-game, you can be a toxic player by screaming at your teammates, or teammate obcenities, deliberately doing what you can to make your team lose - even if that's by doing nothing. Play a couple games of League of Legends, and you'll find a real definition of "Toxicity" in a game. Slinging hate speech (Speech towards racial, sex, sexual orientation,...). Also in game, you can be Toxic by griefing or Stream Sniping (Watching a player's stream, and proactively hunting them down). There's also pinging players repeatedly.



I think that the name "Toxic" generally means to be a player that makes the rest of the gaming community look like childish, disrespectful brats. A Toxic player makes the game worse by affecting all other players around them. It makes the other players "Sick" by affecting them mentally, or being one or more men down. You can have a thick skin, but given enough time words or actions will wear someone down.

There's a point of bitching, that it does become toxic. For example if you're bitching at your team, or trash talking to them - yeah. That's toxic. "You F#$king suck, n00bs" and keep on going down that train of cursing and taking your anger on your own team.
 
Last edited:
I've never seen the phrase "toxic behavior" fully explained. Same with "hate speech".
It's like if you say or do something that offends people, others think it's actionable. Now it's gotten to the point where they feel the need to monitor them outside of the game. Their priorities are seriously out of whack.
 
So in order to get someone banned, all I've gotta do is get their twitch video, strip the sound, and re-record the sound with some kpop and me screeching expletives into the mic, then post it on youtube and link to it in a few places?

.. cool?

Isn't it better to simply take away all text chat? Keep voice chat but make it super easy to perma-mute people. I don't see how text chat significantly adds to the strategy of the game, it's too slow. If you don't have a mic, well you can at least listen. If you're an ass, soon nobody will hear you. It lets people apply their sensibilities, nobody elses.
 
Creepy but within their rights. They'd better corroborate it with logging to make sure someone isn't faking Overwatch identities to get people banned though. Wish they did this while I was playing WoW.
 
Gigus Fire said:
I've never seen the phrase "toxic behavior" fully explained.
Click to expand...

The best explanation I've seen is this simple: Toxic behavior is harassment of the player, not the character. When you single out the player even when the player takes whatever steps they can to avoid you, such as when they put you on /ignore, you make another account to by-pass it, that's "toxic". It is not defeating the character over and over, that's not (non) toxic. Its all about when you target the player.

Under no circumstances would (I guess technically should) BSing with your friends be called "toxic".
 
everytime I hear the word "toxic" or "toxicity" in relation to people, I already know you're a complete fucking retard hell-bent on political correctness.

And for the record, I don't even game anymore - so this isn't something I actively do or anything...
 
Cyraxx said:
everytime I hear the word "toxic" or "toxicity" in relation to people, I already know you're a complete fucking retard hell-bent on political correctness.
Click to expand...

Then you have no idea what toxic behavior really is. You've never encountered it.
 
Gigus Fire said:
I've never seen the phrase "toxic behavior" fully explained. Same with "hate speech".
It's like if you say or do something that offends people, others think it's actionable. Now it's gotten to the point where they feel the need to monitor them outside of the game. Their priorities are seriously out of whack.
Click to expand...

You know the insults that fly all over the place in a game, the ones that would get a person beaten to a bloody pulp if they had the hair on their pair to do it in public?

That stuff.

The idea is to try to get your players to do something called "acting like an adult". Internet warriors are really, really bad at that.

I still have a real problem with the idea of hunting people down outside of the game. Creepy, really creepy.

Cyraxx said:
everytime I hear the word "toxic" or "toxicity" in relation to people, I already know you're a complete fucking retard hell-bent on political correctness.

And for the record, I don't even game anymore - so this isn't something I actively do or anything...
Click to expand...

It's like when you see the term "SJW" and you instantly know that you're dealing with somebody whose mum still cooks his dinner.
 
Cyraxx said:
everytime I hear the word "toxic" or "toxicity" in relation to people, I already know you're a complete fucking retard hell-bent on political correctness.
Click to expand...

Funny...whenever I read the word "retard" in relation to people, I already know the poster is a douchebag. :punch:
 
Last edited:
bugleyman said:
Pre-emptive punishment is a bad idea, full stop.
Click to expand...
It's not preemptive, it's proactive. Instead of reacting to complaints from other players, they're actively seeking out "toxic" players and banning their accounts. They aren't trying to ban players before they do something "toxic" (yet).

I do think this will open the floodgates for trolls to get people banned "proactively" with some basic video editing though.

Here's a novel solution to "toxic" players: let PC gamers run their own damn servers. Ditch the toxic matchmaking systems that promote your shitty lootboxes and let players find the servers and players they want to play with. Cheaters and trolls don't have any power when an admin can rebind their keys, gimp their chat, or ban them.
 
Last edited:
I've never played overwatch because I thought it looked stupid... but they can absolutely suck it..

all the snowflakes must be protected all the time...f*ck you snowflakes.. f*ck you... I think like many people I enjoy online gaming to some extent for the opportunity to talk shit to other players.. hell to get shit talked to...nice way to blow off steam in a world full of PC bullshite all the time.

I mean.. it doesn't really matter if some dumb ass calls you a name on the internet / game chat.. just call the a dumb ass and move on... I'm sure you can mute people / block them ? (i don't know don't play OW but in most games you can).

how creepy that a video game company is going to monitor your actions outside the game to determine if you should be allowed to play...


The future is going to be more and more stupid....
 
Well, I have now achieved a less than zero desire to try this game. Don't they have mods online to instaban people? (like their other game)
 
I actually kind of like this. I think the occasional bad words etc is fine and should be tolerated, but there are certain players out there that are making a living out of being toxic and providing an unpleasant gaming experience for other players. While he is hilarious at times, one guy that stands out is MaximilianMus. Funny to watch on Youtube, but I would imagine, horrible to actually play a match with. He pretty much gets instabanned now even with new accounts which I feel he deserves.
 
EODetroit said:
The best explanation I've seen is this simple: Toxic behavior is harassment of the player, not the character. When you single out the player even when the player takes whatever steps they can to avoid you, such as when they put you on /ignore, you make another account to by-pass it, that's "toxic". It is not defeating the character over and over, that's not (non) toxic. Its all about when you target the player.

Under no circumstances would (I guess technically should) BSing with your friends be called "toxic".
Click to expand...
Lets discuss the word harassment: definition: to annoy persistently

You're suggesting in a single game of overwatch, which matches people randomly, there's can be enough time to be persistently annoying?
That's what i don't get. If someone is annoying you, then ignore them, mute them, leave the game and do another match, etc. There's so many simple solutions.

Instead the answer is to ban them? To police people into complying with being nice?
If i want to make a rude comment to a stranger, that's a-ok in my book. I get rude comments constantly from strangers. Back in the day with xbox and COD it was nonstop, but it was actually fun looking back at it. In fact having the experience and skills to deal in these adverse situations can help you in the long run.

It's just pathetic that now a days a simple comment like "stop being a fag" or "go suck a fatty" or something which millions of kids have said in the past is now actions that people feel the need to police against.
 
Gigus Fire said:
I've never seen the phrase "toxic behavior" fully explained. Same with "hate speech".
It's like if you say or do something that offends people, others think it's actionable. Now it's gotten to the point where they feel the need to monitor them outside of the game. Their priorities are seriously out of whack.
Click to expand...
Made up bullshit from the hurt fee fee squad.
 
Gigus Fire said:
Lets discuss the word harassment: definition: to annoy persistently

You're suggesting in a single game of overwatch, which matches people randomly, there's can be enough time to be persistently annoying?
That's what i don't get. If someone is annoying you, then ignore them, mute them, leave the game and do another match, etc. There's so many simple solutions.

Instead the answer is to ban them? To police people into complying with being nice?
If i want to make a rude comment to a stranger, that's a-ok in my book. I get rude comments constantly from strangers. Back in the day with xbox and COD it was nonstop, but it was actually fun looking back at it. In fact having the experience and skills to deal in these adverse situations can help you in the long run.

It's just pathetic that now a days a simple comment like "stop being a fag" or "go suck a fatty" or something which millions of kids have said in the past is now actions that people feel the need to police against.
Click to expand...

It's not about a quip saying "Go suck a fatty" in a brief moment of anger, it's what that one phrase will usually lead into that's the problem.
 
A game company trying to police the internet? Hahahahahaha. Good luck with that one Blizzard. Just look at your clientele.
 
I'm going to take the unpopular opinion and say I fully support it, until I see proof that they are being too far reaching. Watching streamers being total jerks is the same as criminals posting their crimes on facebook and later getting arrested. Obviously if Blizzard goes too hard, the fan will leave and they will have to relax the rules.
 
This is like an employer creeping you on Facebook. I'm thinking this may be crossing the line...
 
RogueTadhg said:
It's not about a quip saying "Go suck a fatty" in a brief moment of anger, it's what that one phrase will usually lead into that's the problem.
Click to expand...
Fatty usually means a blunt.

You mean to tell me words can mean different things?
BloodyIron said:
This is like an employer creeping you on Facebook. I'm thinking this may be crossing the line...
Click to expand...


I agree with companies checking your Facebook. You represent them.

This is nothing like that.
 
NNgfR9c.jpg
 
Perfectly fine with me if they are willing to do it. As a paying job though it is a shitty one at best. Searching for and watching videos at social media sites all day long.

We live in a global society where we tolerate bad behavior. I wish there is something drastic that can be done about it.
 
snowcrash said:
Perfectly fine with me if they are willing to do it. As a paying job though it is a shitty one at best. Searching for and watching videos at social media sites all day long.

We live in a global society where we tolerate bad behavior. I wish there is something drastic that can be done about it.
Click to expand...
This will be a "paying job" for an algorithm.

And there is something that can be done about bad behavior - personal responsibility. When it's someone else's fault and someone else's job to clean it up no one is happy.
 
Gigus Fire said:
Lets discuss the word harassment: definition: to annoy persistently

You're suggesting in a single game of overwatch, which matches people randomly, there's can be enough time to be persistently annoying?
That's what i don't get. If someone is annoying you, then ignore them, mute them, leave the game and do another match, etc. There's so many simple solutions.

Instead the answer is to ban them? To police people into complying with being nice?
If i want to make a rude comment to a stranger, that's a-ok in my book. I get rude comments constantly from strangers. Back in the day with xbox and COD it was nonstop, but it was actually fun looking back at it. In fact having the experience and skills to deal in these adverse situations can help you in the long run.

It's just pathetic that now a days a simple comment like "stop being a fag" or "go suck a fatty" or something which millions of kids have said in the past is now actions that people feel the need to police against.
Click to expand...

You obviously didn't read or comprehend my post.
 
It just blows my mind that we're in this situation. How did we get to a point where a company thinks it is acceptable to judge its customers, let alone try to police their behaviour? It's insane. In any other industry that kind of bullshit behaviour would have people leaving in droves for a competitor, but game companies have this all wrapped up in a neat little bow. First, a game is an inherent monopoly. You may be able to play something similar to it, but if they ban you you can't that specific game anymore. Second, refunds. For most goods and services a customer can get their money back if a company acts like a dick, but good luck with that when it's a game. Try to get a refund via a chargeback and they'll ban you from any other games they've made that you own.

This is why I don't bother with any online titles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top