Overwatch dev talks about baning players over facebook posts

[Thelyron]

All this talk about "toxic communities" in the last couple of years, and what could be done to combat them.... If a community is too toxic for you, just leave it.

[shimerra]

All this talk about "toxic communities" in the last couple of years, and what could be done to combat them.... If a community is too toxic for you, just leave it.

Or how about if you manage a community you kick out those who can’t not be shitheads and play nice with others

[Machismo]

All this talk about "toxic communities" in the last couple of years, and what could be done to combat them.... If a community is too toxic for you, just leave it.

In reality, that's what Blizzard is trying to do with their own product, leave the toxic community behind. It's no different than a restaurant kicking out an obnoxious customer, or refusing to serve someone who is an avowed neo-Nazi. They simply don't want to do business with that person, and good for them.

[Varitok]

can you imagine if every business in society would be like this?

The bank "yeah we just looked at your social media profile and we decided we're going to shut down your account"
Your landlord "yeah i just looked at some of the comments you said and i don't want toxic people on my property i'm evicting you"

I'm really not going to support this type of morality and it only seems to be acceptable in the video game industry.

That is extremely misleading though. The equivalent would be if there was a video posted on social media of someone trashing one of their stores, stealing or screaming at people in the store, so they decide they don't want them back in their stores and ban them.

Assholes deserve to be banned and im so fucking happy a dev is actually taking initiative and making a real effort. They are making the game worse for everyone else and deserve to be banned. Good times

[LiiLoSNK]

If I ban you from overwatch, will you die?

[Kanegasi]

I wish the devs would go into detail and explain more on what they mean because if it is what it sounds then its messed up.
If they feel so strongly against "toxic players" then they should put it as a disclaimer on the box at this point since i wouldn't of given them my hard worked 40$ plus the money i have spent on lootboxes to support this type of business practice.

I disagree. I love this forceful attitude and will continue to throw money at Blizzard. A game free of the people you describe is paradise and I don’t care how the devs go about getting rid of those players.

[OrcsRLame]

Then, there is no problem, and no need to whine. It sounds like your problem is solved. It was an argument, not only that, you actually followed the advice I gave (you likely did it beforehand), meaning you supported what I said. How's that for a great twist, you agree with me.

You want to continue to whine about something that is simply not happening, and you have already found a solution to the issue. Your solution is my solution, so thanks for agreeing with me. I also agree with you, stop giving them your money.

I only agree with you insofar as that is my only means of combating the behavior I disagree with. It's the option I'm using because it's currently my only option other than capitulate. A better solution would be overhauling our anti-trust laws. Do to the tech companies what was done to the automotive industry.

[Machismo]

I only agree with you insofar as that is my only means of combating the behavior I disagree with. It's the option I'm using because it's currently my only option other than capitulate. A better solution would be overhauling our anti-trust laws. Do to the tech companies what was done to the automotive industry.

No, that is downright authoritarian in nature. For a guy who claims to support free speech, you don't seem to like how a business operates freely, and exercises it's freedom of speech. Talk about wanting an Orwellian government... You are the thought police...

[Endus]

Bullshit. Fucking quote me. What Nestle did, is they offered their services to the mothers. Then after a certain amount of time passed they rescinded that offer and made a different one. All they did was make decisions regarding the control of their own services. They didn't force anyone to do anything.

You just repeated it, right there. Your original argument was that they deliberately priced their product to get new mothers to use it, with the express intent of raising prices after they had no other option. That's completely incomparable to anything Blizzard is doing, since it's impossible for you to have no other options here; we're talking about entertainment products in a world with millions of alternatives.

You know this, stop pretending otherwise.

Do you have a source for this claim? It's my understanding that Blizzard will use posts on social media as justification for banning, without the caveat that it must involve toxic behavior in Blizzard games.

The video that started this entire thread.

If your "understanding" is that they'll use content unrelated to Blizzard to make those rulings, then you weren't paying attention to the developers' comments in the first place, and have been ranting about a fiction you invented in your own head.

Which is sort of my point.

It is a step in my favor because individual persons can't get away with half the shit that corporations do. God I'm starting to sound like a communist, but it's fucking true. Also, if an individual person managed to legally usurp control of my life away from me, I would shoot them. Not saying Blizzard deserves to be shot. Google and Facebook maybe. It's easy to see though how Blizzard is walking that same path. Get money, get people to use your stuff, change the rules then threaten to take your stuff away from them if they don't abide by the new rules. If you can't see how that is incredibly authoritarian then I don't know what to tell you.

Corporations have less rights than individual persons. The only reason corporations have some concept of personhood is to simplify things at a legal level, so that you can sue the corporation itself, rather than every single one of the owners individually, for instance. There's no expansion of rights that occurs.

I am not a liar. If I have said anything untrue it is because I am misinformed. Accuse me again and I will prove that I am much more competent and throwing insults than you are.

Ooh. Scary.

Look, when I point out that you're misrepresenting the facts, and you double down on that misrepresentation rather than checking the facts, you're not leaving me many options other than "he's lying".

[OrcsRLame]

No, that is downright authoritarian in nature. For a guy who claims to support free speech, you don't seem to like how a business operates freely, and exercises it's freedom of speech. Talk about wanting an Orwellian government... You are the thought police...

Blizzard can think and even say whatever they want. I care about their actions. I only care about what they say insofar as it gives me insight into how they will act in the future. I don't want them banning people for wrong think. Do you even know the context of what thought police were in the novel? You're using these terms in nonsense ways.

I am not for a free unregulated market. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. As I said before, the closest description for what I believe is social liberal. I believe in liberal principles and I think a state should exist and that it should put rational limitations on the free market with the goal of protecting the citizens. Pressing the ban button is not a fucking act of speech or expression.

[AeneasBK]

I'm going to ask the same thing of you that I asked of Machismo. If you have nothing of value to say, then please leave me alone.

What? Gave you the opportunity to say "Oh wait no thats possibly the dumbest comparison this website has seen in years, my bad" but you doubled down on it so, naa.

I'll point and laugh.

[Machismo]

Blizzard can think and even say whatever they want. I care about their actions. I only care about what they say insofar as it gives me insight into how they will act in the future. I don't want them banning people for wrong think. Do you even know the context of what thought police were in the novel? You're using these terms in nonsense ways.

I am not for a free unregulated market. I am not an anarcho-capitalist. As I said before, the closest description for what I believe is social liberal. I believe in liberal principles and I think a state should exist and that it should put rational limitations on the free market with the goal of protecting the citizens. Pressing the ban button is not a fucking act of speech or expression.

You are being downright authoritarian. You want the government to break up any business that doesn't act the way you want them to act. You are demanding that companies think and act the way you want, or you will fucking shut them down. Screw that.

That's like a guy walking into a restaurant, calling the help "Useless niggers," then you getting pissed off when the restaurant refuses to serve that person. You want to hurt the bottom line of that restaurant, and force them to give that racist asshole a platform on their own property.

Screw that.

[Endus]

Blizzard can think and even say whatever they want. I care about their actions. I only care about what they say insofar as it gives me insight into how they will act in the future. I don't want them banning people for wrong think. Do you even know the context of what thought police were in the novel? You're using these terms in nonsense ways.

Do you?

Because it wasn't a group of police who locked people up for writing public posts that were illegal.

They were police who locked you up because your secret innermost thoughts were illegal.

Nor is this in any way relevant to what's going on here, because;
A> Blizzard is not "police" in any sense whatsoever, and
B> they're only targeting users for breaking rules on conduct within Blizzard games in the first place.

[Martymark]

"We see that on Myspace in 1999 when you were 9 you posted that you hated newbs, so we are now going to ban you from all the Blizz games you bought over that last 20 years. Have a nice day!"

[ro9ue]

The way I look at it is this:

I don't think they should just ban outright from something they see online. Now if they see something online they would classify as "toxic" (In so far as their definition of "toxic" isn't super watered down or politically motivated), AND they actually cross-reference that with their own internal data to verify it - I would be okay with that. It's too easy to cheese/edit videos and stuff these days for that to be considered hard evidence against a player in my opinion.

However, if it ever crosses into the territory where, for example, a popular YouTuber/Twitch streamer makes social media posts they find toxic OUTSIDE of the game... and ban their game account - that's way too far for me. I think I would literally have to stop playing Blizzard games on principle.

[OrcsRLame]

You just repeated it, right there. Your original argument was that they deliberately priced their product to get new mothers to use it, with the express intent of raising prices after they had no other option. That's completely incomparable to anything Blizzard is doing, since it's impossible for you to have no other options here; we're talking about entertainment products in a world with millions of alternatives. You know this, stop pretending otherwise.

The consequences is what differed, not the tactics. I agree completely if you are arguing that the consequences are not the same. I do not think that anyone will die as a result of what Blizzard. I find the tactics themselves to be morally reprehensible though. You also don't have other alternatives if the specific things you want are Blizzard games.

The video that started this entire thread. If your "understanding" is that they'll use content unrelated to Blizzard to make those rulings, then you weren't paying attention to the developers' comments in the first place, and have been ranting about a fiction you invented in your own head. Which is sort of my point.

We're talking about the statements from 2:30-3:00 in the linked video in the OP, right?

But I'll give you an example of one thing that we've been doing that has proven very positive. We now proactively seek out social media sites like YouTube for example, and look for incidents of very toxic behavior and track down the accounts that are participating in those and action them, oftentimes before anybody's even reported them or they've shown up in any other place.

There's nothing in there about the toxic behavior actually needing to take place within a Blizzard game. The only line that can be read that way is "and track down the accounts that are participating in those" but it could also be read as Blizzard looking for connections between the social media profiles and Blizzard accounts. And I don't think that second interpretation is a stretch given how you can log in to Battle Net with your Facebook account. Maybe Laurcus posts 'Gas the Jews' on Facebook and then maybe Laurcus gets banned from Diablo 3. I actually checked and I haven't been banned, but I also don't post particularly controversial things on the internet, and I don't use Facebook. Maybe you're right, but maybe not. There's not enough transparency to tell. If it comes to light later though that I'm right, I'm gonna be really smug about it.

Corporations have less rights than individual persons. The only reason corporations have some concept of personhood is to simplify things at a legal level, so that you can sue the corporation itself, rather than every single one of the owners individually, for instance. There's no expansion of rights that occurs.

To quote my Accounting 101 instructor from ages ago, "A corporation is a separate legal entity." If Google does something shady and gets sued for it, then it comes out of Google's money. If Google can't pay the money they could get shut down. The legal responsibility though, will in no way transfer to the CEO, even if the CEO is the one that ordered the behavior that Google is being sued over. Being a corporation limits the liability of the people that run the corporation. At least in the US. Maybe it's different in Canada. That's kind of the concept behind an LLC. You get corporate protections without actually having to be a corporation.

Look, when I point out that you're misrepresenting the facts, and you double down on that misrepresentation rather than checking the facts, you're not leaving me many options other than "he's lying".

I have checked the facts and I don't believe my interpretation is incorrect. If you have a different interpretation or new facts that you want to bring forward I am all ears.

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Do you? Because it wasn't a group of police who locked people up for writing public posts that were illegal. They were police who locked you up because your secret innermost thoughts were illegal.

I was defending myself from the absurd accusation that I am the thought police. I wasn't calling Blizzard the thought police.

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You are being downright authoritarian. You want the government to break up any business that doesn't act the way you want them to act. You are demanding that companies think and act the way you want, or you will fucking shut them down. Screw that.

I want the government to break up any business that gets powerful enough that they can start holding that power over society's head if they so choose. To that end I do think Facebook and Google should be broken up. Question, did Russian bots on social media influence the 2016 US Presidential Election? If you answer yes to that question, you are ceding the point that companies like Facebook and Google have the power to influence society on a grand scale.

[mordecaiazeroth]

I wish the devs would go into detail and explain more on what they mean because if it is what it sounds then its messed up.
If they feel so strongly against "toxic players" then they should put it as a disclaimer on the box at this point since i wouldn't of given them my hard worked 40$ plus the money i have spent on lootboxes to support this type of business practice.

I understand wanting to create a pleasant enviroment in your game but if some one is playing nice then going around their social media checking to see if the guy has a potty mouth is too orwelian for my taste.

And if they hate toxic players this much they should hate their money too. How can the devs sleep at night knowing they made so much money out of toxic players.


And to sumarize other reasons that can get you banned from overwatch so far

-Using too many emotes
-playing only one character (even if you're very good at it)
-having a potty mouth
-posting naughty things on social media
-Winning too many games (there was a guy who was a one trick pony playing reinheard and got banned)

At this point i think its safe to say that the devs are toxic and they really need to chill the hell out.

I agree 10 char

[Deleted]

I want the government to break up any business that gets powerful enough that they can start holding that power over society's head if they so choose. To that end I do think Facebook and Google should be broken up. Question, did Russian bots on social media influence the 2016 US Presidential Election? If you answer yes to that question, you are ceding the point that companies like Facebook and Google have the power to influence society on a grand scale.

If Machismo has any concept of coherence, they'd support the possibility of private actors subverting democracy. But would take issue with other governments doing so, which is the issue: Kremlin, not the trolls per se.

[Machismo]

The consequences is what differed, not the tactics. I agree completely if you are arguing that the consequences are not the same. I do not think that anyone will die as a result of what Blizzard. I find the tactics themselves to be morally reprehensible though. You also don't have other alternatives if the specific things you want are Blizzard games.



We're talking about the statements from 2:30-3:00 in the linked video in the OP, right?



There's nothing in there about the toxic behavior actually needing to take place within a Blizzard game. The only line that can be read that way is "and track down the accounts that are participating in those" but it could also be read as Blizzard looking for connections between the social media profiles and Blizzard accounts. And I don't think that second interpretation is a stretch given how you can log in to Battle Net with your Facebook account. Maybe Laurcus posts 'Gas the Jews' on Facebook and then maybe Laurcus gets banned from Diablo 3. I actually checked and I haven't been banned, but I also don't post particularly controversial things on the internet, and I don't use Facebook. Maybe you're right, but maybe not. There's not enough transparency to tell. If it comes to light later though that I'm right, I'm gonna be really smug about it.



To quote my Accounting 101 instructor from ages ago, "A corporation is a separate legal entity." If Google does something shady and gets sued for it, then it comes out of Google's money. If Google can't pay the money they could get shut down. The legal responsibility though, will in no way transfer to the CEO, even if the CEO is the one that ordered the behavior that Google is being sued over. Being a corporation limits the liability of the people that run the corporation. At least in the US. Maybe it's different in Canada. That's kind of the concept behind an LLC. You get corporate protections without actually having to be a corporation.



I have checked the facts and I don't believe my interpretation is incorrect. If you have a different interpretation or new facts that you want to bring forward I am all ears.

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I was defending myself from the absurd accusation that I am the thought police. I wasn't calling Blizzard the thought police.

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I want the government to break up any business that gets powerful enough that they can start holding that power over society's head if they so choose. To that end I do think Facebook and Google should be broken up. Question, did Russian bots on social media influence the 2016 US Presidential Election? If you answer yes to that question, you are ceding the point that companies like Facebook and Google have the power to influence society on a grand scale.

Yeah, that is some authoritarian bullshit right there.

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If Machismo has any concept of coherence, they'd support the possibility of private actors subverting democracy. But would take issue with other governments doing so, which is the issue: Kremlin, not the trolls per se.

That is pretty much my stance.

[OrcsRLame]

If Machismo has any concept of coherence, they'd support the possibility of private actors subverting democracy. But would take issue with other governments doing so, which is the issue: Kremlin, not the trolls per se.

I'm talking about the power of the platform itself. If the Kremlin can use Facebook to harm America then Facebook can use Facebook to harm America. I'm not commenting on the morality of either action.

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Yeah, that is some authoritarian bullshit right there.

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That is pretty much my stance.

Your stance doesn't address my argument.