Mara in Call of Duty: Warzone. (Activision)
Over 350,000 Call of Duty accounts have been suspended for racist names and toxic behaviour.
The news comes from an anti-toxicity update on the Call of Duty blog that details how the developers are tackling harassment in the game.
Those banned accounts are based on player-submitted reports as well as a review of their player-name database.
In addition, new filters have been deployed to catch offensive usernames, clan tags and profiles, and new technology has been implemented to filter out toxic text chat. This is across 11 languages.
“We are committed to delivering a fun gameplay experience for all of our players,” says the post.
“There’s no place for toxic behaviour, hate speech or harassment of any kind in our games or our society. We are focused on making positive steps forward, and together celebrating the best fans in the world.”
The team admit there is still more to be done to tackle the issue, including adding player moderation tools and addressing harassment in voice chat.
“Our goal is to give players the tools needed to manage their own gameplay experience, combined with an enforcement approach that addresses hate speech, racism, sexism and harassment.”
As such, the Call of Duty team say that they’re increasing efforts in the following areas:
- More resources to support detection and enforcement
- Additional monitoring and backend technology
- Scrubbing databases to bring systems up to current standards
- Consistent and fair review of enforcement policies
- Increased communication with the community
“We know we have a long way to go to reach our goals. This is just the start. Addressing this is an ongoing commitment that we will not waver from. We look forward to making progress on this front and coming together with you to share in the fun and joy of playing together.”
Toxicity has been a growing issue in the online shooter.
Cheaters have been banned; T-Pain annihilated racist players on Twitch; and Activision split ways with a voice actor for misogynistic behaviour.
Check out the full Call of Duty blog post here.
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