Boards›Player Behavior

How hard would it be to implement an auto-chat restriction?

Barkley·12/27/2017, 9:23:09 AM·1 votes·573 views

How hard can it possibly be to automatically apply a chat restriction to someone's account INSTANTLY the moment they use homophobic slurs, racial slurs, or culturally derogatory slang?

All it would take is a list of words, and an automatic response to those words. I'm a Senior in college pursuing a CS degree, and I'm pretty sure I could figure it out, given the code for the game. You could probably pay some pimply faced high school student 30 bucks to do it.

I'm getting so tired of seeing this kind of language in chat. I don't know if these kids think they're cool, or they think they're edgy, or what. I swear I see this garbage in like.... 15-25% of my games these days.

Not to mention club names. Every variation of every hateful word you can think of in these club names, and Riot doesn't seem to care. People with club names like %%%%%% and the like. (an obviously exaggerated example, but you get my point)

Riot has made very clear their stance on such language, and yet they leave it to the players to report the behavior.... why? If your stance on the matter is that it is absolutely not tolerated, why not pre-empt the entire situation with an automated system?

You type it in ANY chat. ANYWHERE. Even in a message to your friends, BOOM. Instant chat restriction.

Make it ramp up like any other punishment. 5 games, 10 games, 15 games, 7 day ban, 14 day ban, perma-ban. Or however it goes.

I 100% support Riot's zero tolerance policy on hate speech. I just think they could be doing more to combat it.

19 Comments

usul120212/27/2017, 3:30:39 PM5 votes

I enjoy very very obnoxiously bad puns. My roommate has lived with it for 4 years now, and we play together. While we're normally in voice, it has happened that he's been unable to talk, and will simply type massive insults at me after a pun. When we have 5 people who are in on the joke this will include things such as telling me to kill myself and other banned slurs. We don't report it, because we're all in on it.

I think requiring a report makes the system much more community responsive.

zPOOPz12/27/2017, 9:35:59 AM5 votes

Because if the 4 (or 9 if all chat) players during that games do not find what you say offensive, then you can throw every single racist, homophobic slur, death threats, etc. comments in chat and I guaranteed you will not see any punishment or even so much as a warning.

It is a fact that if you do not get reported, your game will not be reviewed. You cannot be punished. If those 4 (or 9) players do not report you, they are telling the system they don't mind what you said. The system will response with "okay, moving on".

For this reason, you will never see an auto-restricted system implement in your lifetime because until SOMEONE tell Rito he/she is not okay with what you said, Rito will not auto-punished you.

This is one of the ways the IFS learn what is or is not acceptable based on what people will or will not report a player.

The Cream Reaper12/27/2017, 9:57:32 AM4 votes

or... you... could... just... control yourself!

how hard could that be?

ModUlanopo12/27/2017, 11:45:00 AM3 votes

I think the biggest problem with not requiring a report as a trigger is that it takes away the community's feedback. How reliably people speak up to say, "I don't want that" is important in gauging sentiment. That's how "KYS" went from pretty much nothing to a commonly escalated ban.

Strilter12/27/2017, 5:08:29 PM2 votes

I mean... they already have several flags that will virtually immediately get you chat restricted. ^^ trust me. The problem with an absolute 0 tolerance policy is everyone has moments of weakness, and with an actual 0 tolerance approach, there wouldn't be anyone left to play the game.

Pandemic Punch12/27/2017, 5:45:33 PM1 votes

This is better than auto-banning for sure. However, if they can detect trigger words, then Riot needs to consider global censorship on these trigger words instead. They think they are weeding out more toxic players with their current system but they are also weeding out a lot of non-toxic players as a result.

YerroFever12/27/2017, 3:42:59 PM1 votes

Riot has already explored full chat bans and they said it makes player behavior worse because they can't express their toxicity through chat and so they find other ways to express their toxicity.