Matt Hazard

Here’s a weird take on this.

One of the many rules every online game platform shares is verbal/textual conduct. No swearing, racist or homophobic slurs, among other platform-specific syntax ruling. This is usually governed by automated systems that have word lists that ban users when the trigger words are detected. Here’s the question, is having this kind of moderation in place doing more damage than good?

Hear me out on this one.

If you’ve never played a competitive multiplayer game online, allow me to be the first to tell you it can be a pretty disgusting environment. People can and do find ways around the systems in place that ban foul language, and sometimes it seems like these systems are just creating a barrier between the “professional anger curators” and most other people. This is called trolling, and it’s rampant online. It’s a form of bullying that mostly goes unpunished, and it’s leaving otherwise normal people very upset globally.

The trolls will take stabs at other players using longer-winded, carefully crafted sentences designed to trigger the other player and lure them into cursing and ultimately getting themselves banned from the platform. And if the player isn’t as savvy with words as the troll, all they can do is either mute the troublemaker or ignore them. Either way, it leaves them in a position where all they can do is simply deal with it and move on.

Maybe that’s fine, I don’t know. The best solution is probably to block/ignore those people anyway, but I’m sure in a lot of situations, the anger from these experiences carries over out of the game and into that person’s day.

Back in the early days of the internet, before moderation, if someone attacked you verbally, you could simply reply with a “fuck off” and call it a day. At least getting that little quip off your chest releases a little PSI from the pressurized internal anger tank.

So the question remains – is today’s form of moderation helping, or is it leaving people who can’t reply in the same manner more angry, adding to the growing global online mental health crisis?

I don’t have the answer. I’m not sure anyone does, or this probably wouldn’t be an issue on almost every online platform. This is just a simple reminder for everyone to play nice while online, because maybe that teammate who just cost you the game is a 13 year old child, not ready to hear decades of built-up rage because we weren’t hugged enough as kids.