
Doing Something About the ‘Impossible Problem’ of Abuse in Online Games - vinnyglennon
https://recode.net/2015/07/07/doing-something-about-the-impossible-problem-of-abuse-in-online-games/
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Vaskivo
Automated moderators is a nice idea, but it has to be continually expanded,
and with human help. If you start blanking out or replacing certain words
(wordfiltering) the toxic users will quickly start transforming the existing
slurs or even coming up with new ones.

One thing that I find weird coming from someone working with online social
systems is the notion that the cause for toxicity is homophobia, sexism and
racism. The way I percieve it, those slurs are said with the purpose of
berating, annoying and/or offending the other player, and put them "on
tilt"[1]. The player says those things regardless of their gender, race,
sexual preferences and personal opinions/beliefs. This means that calling
someone and homosexual, the "N word" or saying they "did" their mom has
exactly the same connotation and "mean" the same thing.

Of course, there is also the way the recieving end percieves the insult. But
most of them are gamers so I believe they know the insult is not an attack on
their gender, race, etc. It's just a way to get them riled up. To sum up, the
problem is not the content of the insult, is that there are insults.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_%28poker%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilt_%28poker%29)

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forgottenpass
I find something deeply terrifying about implementing machine-learning
controlled conditioning on humans, rather than treating people like people and
communicating with them. It just takes all the problems with zero-tolerance
policies, and removes human interaction from the loop even further.

The obvious criticism to my point is that Riot can't scale personal processes
for dealing with so many players. And I'd agree, because that just echos my
impression game studios treat their user-bases as cattle they're just trying
to keep under control and remain better-behaved business assets.

    
    
       Is it our responsibility to make online society a better place? Of course 
       it is, for all of us.  It is our society. As we collaborate with those 
       outside of games, we are realizing that the concepts we’re using in games 
       can apply in any online context. We are at a pivotal point in the timeline
       of online platforms and societies, and it is time to make a difference. 
    

"Our" is a striking word to use in an article is about exercising his
machinery of control over the masses. It reads like the speech of a politician
(complete with only describing the upside of policy, and "I got a letter
from..." style soundbites), but one given a position by market forces rather
than election.

I already feel like society is a machine for delivering punishment to people
more than +/\- xσ from a social norm. This can be good in some circumstances
(ex: harassment) but also has a hugely damaging failure mode, one that you
can't prevent, only regret after your standards change (contemporary example
we're in mid-change of: treatment of homosexuals). Automating the process
makes my skin crawl.

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Torgo
For good or ill, online games are the laboratories for the future of
controlling people outside of games as well.

