Gaming Trash Talk Deemed Hate Speech to be Censored by Microsoft

Microsoft’s new community standards for Xbox Live lay out a guideline for how to properly trash talk without being “offensive” or “hateful” to other players.

If a player sends a message deemed “harassing” they could have their entire account suspended, and several offenses will definitely get you banned.

According to the standards, when a user is permanently suspended they are forced to “forfeit all licenses for games and other content, Gold membership time, and Microsoft account balances.”

Sexual threats, profanity aimed at others and racism are three vague topics Xbox will be looking for.

Even “Flooding voice chat with music during a multiplayer match” can get you in trouble under the new rules.

Redditors on the subreddit r/xboxone brought the new guidelines to light, and their reaction was largely negative.

Xbox does provide examples of language that will get you banned as well as examples of trash talk that are deemed acceptable.

“Man the examples of acceptable/unacceptable trash talk are gold,” said the top comment on the Reddit thread.

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