Xbox has unveiled a new 8-strike system today, aimed to curtain offensive or bad behavior on the Xbox platform. This system is meant to clear up any confusion about how Xbox enforces its community standards, as well as allow players to track any enforceable actions made against their accounts.
In an interview with the Verge, Xbox player services corporate vice president Dave McCarthy stated:
This is all about player transparency. We didn’t have a way to show our players what their standing was in our community. And this makes it completely clear.
In this new system, players that violate the community standards receive a strike against their account. The amount of strikes a player will receive is based on the severity of the violation itself, as well as the length of any punishment against them. At the end of this, should a player receive 8 strikes, they will be banned for a year from Xbox services like Online Multiplayer and voice chat.
McCarthy when on to illustrate that only around 1% of the player base on Xbox receives any enforcement actions, with only a third of that group receiving further action. Without any standardized program in place, McCarthy suggested there would be player confusion as to why one player received a day-long ban while another might receive a week-long one, and so on.
In a blog post on Xbox Wire, an illustration for the program was outlined. Despite this, a comprehensive list of infractions or their strike value will not be listed. What the illustration does do, is give players an idea of how the strike values scale with escalating behavior.
The illustration does give some idea of values, such as one strike for profanity and three strikes for hate speech. The illustration also showcases how appealing strikes and bans will work. Players can appeal bans and should their appeal be successful, that strike will be removed. Strikes will also not remain on your record forever, being removed after 6 months.
Xbox has been taking its community standards very seriously, having outlined back in 2019 what the company considered to be bad and Toxic behavior. This was followed up last year with Xbox releasing their first-ever transparency report, outlining actions the company has taken in the last 6 months to moderate content. Earlier this year the ability to clip and submit audio clips was brought to the platform, as Xbox continues to take the safety of their players seriously.
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