World of Warcraft scans your chats in real time – and abusive messages are filtered. Censorship or a really good feature?
The next World of Warcraft update is already available on the PTR. Patch 10.1.7 Fury Incarnate not only brings new content for night elves and abandoned ones, but also some comfort functions. Blizzard wants to moderate the chat between players in real time in the future – toxic messages should be automatically filtered out.
How is this supposed to work? With patch 10.1.7, World of Warcraft chat will be moderated in real time. This means that if the game detects that a message contains offensive words, the filter will take effect automatically.
If the game detects a potentially toxic message, the message will be hidden immediately and you will instead be given an option to show the message anyway, if you wish.
If you decide to check the message anyway, the “Report Player” option will appear immediately below it, allowing you to report the message and the corresponding character immediately.
Incidentally, the system is only active for characters who are not in your friends list. Chat messages from friends are generally not filtered.
What does reporting do? The reporting system in World of Warcraft is controversial. Even if Blizzard has not confirmed this, parts of the sanctions appear to be automated. This has repeatedly caused problems in the past. For example, a “craft cartel” simply silenced unwelcome players by constantly reporting in order to eliminate the competition.
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What does the new system bring? The new function should primarily protect players who simply do not want to come into contact with toxic messages. At the same time, the feature also makes it easier to report the perpetrators directly, since this option is displayed much more prominently instead of appearing only after right-clicking on the name.
So it’s another step towards making World of Warcraft a friendlier environment.
Is the feature mandatory? No. If you don’t want messages to be filtered, you can simply switch this off again in the options. Then all messages will be let through to you. Of course, you still have the option to report an offensive message.
What do you think of this innovation? A good thing to cut down on toxic comments? Or does that not help at all?