Activision celebrates with a new report the “best fans in the world” and announces 350,000 banned accounts due to toxic behavior within 12 months. Furthermore, the CoD makers give insight into how they are tackling toxicity in Call of Duty and what is planned for the future.
What is going on? Call of Duty has released a report regarding banned accounts due to toxic behavior (via callofduty.com). In total, the authorities banned around 350,000 accounts across four CoD games:
- in the Battle Royale Warzone
- in Modern Warfare from 2019
- in Black Ops Cold War from 2020
- in Call of Duty: Mobile
In the report, the publisher of Call of Duty – Activision – also informs why they banned players, how they have improved their measures against toxic behavior, and what improvements are planned for the future. MeinMMO presents you with the details.
350,000 accounts banned for racist names or toxic behavior
Why were players banned? The report reveals that the 350,000 banned accounts were banned either due to a racist nickname or toxic behavior. To achieve this, they thoroughly examined their own name database and checked player reports.
In total, several internal teams at Activision were involved:
- Anti-toxicity teams
- Enforcement teams
- Technology teams
Together, the teams ban suspicious behavior, check player reports, and develop new measures to combat toxic behavior in Call of Duty.
How have the measures improved in the last 12 months? The focus in the last 12 months has been on text chat and player names:
- Introduction of a new in-game filter that detects potentially critical usernames, clan tags, or player profiles
- Implementation of new technologies to filter potentially critical text chat
- These filters have been introduced in 11 different languages
More resources in the fight against toxic behavior
What is next? At the moment, Activision wants to offer more of what they are currently doing against toxic behavior:
- Improvement of the reporting feature and more moderation of player reports
- More resources to support the detection of toxic behavior and enforcement of penalties
- Additional monitoring and backend technology
- Cleanup of databases to update protection systems
- Consistent and fair review of enforcement guidelines
- Improved communication with the community
However, in the future, the systems are set to go even further and provide greater protection.
You should be equipped with tools that allow you to protect yourself from toxic behavior. The report does not specify here, but it is clear that you should gain a little control over what you experience from toxic players during your gameplay.
These measures are to be combined with a strict “enforcement approach”. Therefore, it is possible that rules along with specified penalties will be introduced – anyone behaving badly and getting caught by the system will face penalties.
And it’s not just about nicknames, player reports, and the text chat as before. The voice chat will also be more controlled to detect and penalize hate speech, racism, sexism, and harassment.
Are there concrete details on voice chat measures? The report leaves this open and does not go further on it. What is clear is that Activision is seeking a way to identify and sanction toxic behavior in voice chat. It is unclear what technology or measures Call of Duty wants to implement for this.
A possible application could be similar to the shooter competitor Valorant. Developer Riot records the voice chat and reviews the chat history if a report from a player is submitted during the respective match.
Many “Call of Duty” players have already experienced toxic behavior in the game. If you regularly participate in open voice chats or often match with unknown players, you’re surely familiar with the problems. The competitive environment often fosters negative feelings when things do not go well, and players with low emotional control let their bad thoughts run wild.
That Activision wants to do more against toxic behavior in Call of Duty is a positive development, and the announcements also sound promising.
What do you think of the announced measures? Do you regularly report players who overstep with their behavior? Or do you follow the motto “live and let live”? Discuss with us in the comments on MeinMMO.
