Sony Explains PS5's New Voice Chat Reporting Feature

Despite the privacy concerns, I do think tough action is needed to counteract the horrible nature of PSN. I stopped playing basically all online games on PS4 about a year ago because I was mentally exhausted from constant screeching, racist, homophobic, sexist garbage. If this goes a little towards counteracting that, I’m all for it.

@AJDarkstar If I see one more bloody person use ‘freedom of speech’ as a defence, I’ll eat the Declaration of Independence with a knife and fork.

@get2sammyb I know that this is out of context, but I have terrible news. Miles Morales is wearing A D I D A S instead of Nike!

@nessisonett
The Declaration doesn't hold much weight today since it's long established (with a few wars to boot) that the U.S. is an independent nation. The Constitution and Bill of Rights on the other hand...but "Freedom of Speech" is not a universal guarantee, as companies are fully within their rights to restrict speech if it's offensive or dangerous. A company's respective Terms of Service/Use cover those details.

And how will you be able to capture the """harassment""" after it occurs?
Sounds like PS5 is always recording the last 5 min of audio.

This is a great move for public chat. It needs to have standards. There should be a difference between private groups of friends and public voice lobbies. Say goodbye to swearing 13 year olds talking about raping your mom. (and adults).
I just wouldn't let anyone random in your private party if your planning on not adjusting your speech.
The terms of service have been around for ages but never enforced. It's the wild west in there.

@Makina Yeah, same way you can get the last 15 minutes of gameplay after it happens.

@Jaz007 so is always listening and recording my mic... On a private Party Chat?
This is ridiculous, Sony is getting chinese levels of shenanigans.

@lacerz Bet the Constitution’s tasty too. Like those sugar paper banknotes. Mmm, yummy.

@Makina Don’t buy a PS5 then. You agree to the T&C when you sign up, you can’t complain when they enforce those rules.

I remember when Home was in Beta on the PS3 and it allowed mics. It was awful. I don't understand the need to take something cool and make it toxic, to the point where it's almost completely removed (I believe you could still use mics in your Home space).

@nessisonett With some course ground mustard and gouda, I bet you're correct.

@nessisonett Most likely i will not. Every 9 out of 10 news about PS5 is some anti-consumer move.
Now Sony needs to always record my mic, even when talking to my friends, because someone out there can say "U mom gay" on a game.

I liked that in the past Sony would ban your account for PSN ID names against the code of conduct, when they stopped doing that and just made you pay ten dollars to change it from temp. I thought they went soft or became too much about Money. I like that they are going to start enforcing conduct.

The only problem I have with it is that I doubt people will be able to take a joke, saying something regarding any minority or oppressed people just gets taken too sensitively. If you came up with a white person joke it would be funny because it is a joke but if it is anybody else it's just automatic racism.

It's pretty good feature, I hope this cut out people that like to harras other people in the game online.

@Makina Then try to not say that when online, or mute the mic, harassing people online is not cool.

@wiiware That's not that point, what bothers me is the plain fact that the console is always recording everything i say, even on a private party.

It's atrocious, it's never enough for this companies. You pay the console, pay for the game, pay for then to not block your access to internet (PS Plus) and still they act like they are making you a big favor.

One wrong word not in line with their political affiliation and you're banned and all your games are gone.

You should be able to say whatever you want in a private chat with friends if you want. This is like if WhatsApp start monitoring my group chats among friends.

Public chat is fine, but private shouldn't be monitored.

I honestly think this is great. It's easy to report racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. remarks from chat but you're out of luck if someone is toxic over voice chat. This seems like a good way to be able to report toxic players.

Over the past four years I've changed my mind about some things. I used to have certain thoughts about "censorship," but now I think private companies should censor hate speech like crazy. Obviously governments need to allow most speech freely, but when racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc. remarks are constantly made aloud (such as by a president) it emboldens others to do the same, and it creates a more toxic world. Private companies shouldn't tolerate this crap or allow it on their websites. If you say something racist you deserve to be censored and banned.

@nessisonett why can't he complain? He's a consumer, he pays for their product, so he is absolutely entitled to criticise this move.

And most people are actually in favour of free speech, of saying whatever they want in private settings. Why are you trying to mock freedom of speech? That used to be such a left wing talking point, and rightly so. It's a good position to have, something to value.

I'd agree with Sony doing this in public chats, but private chats with friends? No. He's right, and he's allowed to criticise. Disagree with him, that's fair, but telling him he's not allowed to? Nah.

@oldschool1987 They aren’t doing it in private chats with friends unless your friend reports you. It’s stored on the PS5, not server-side. So you literally didn’t read the article.

@Makina can't believe he told you you're not allowed to complain 😂 and the way he mocked free speech... I'll never understand how people think that's its not something worth defending.

@nessisonett literally did read the article and you backed up my point, the last 5 minutes are recorded. And someone in that private group can report you. Maybe a friend does it for a laugh, maybe a friend invites his friend in that you don't know and he gets offended and reports you. Fact is private chats are also involved in this.

Next minute you're banned and you've lost thousands of pounds worth of purchases and trophies. All because someone's feelings were hurt.

@PhantomMenace84 and if that friend, or friend of a friend decides to do it for a laugh, or because they don't like someone in that group then that person could get banned, lose their account and all their digital purchases. This is open to abuse.

@oldschool1987 If your friend reports you and you’ve said something racist, homophobic or insert horrible thing here, you deserve to be banned. Same as if you said it on the street, somebody has to report it otherwise you get away with doing it. If there weren’t so many horrible people on PSN saying blatantly terrible things, this wouldn’t be necessary. If you don’t want to be banned, literally just don’t be a d*ck.

@nessisonett I deserve to be banned for jokes? Who decides the context? Me and my mate (black) often make racial jokes at each others expense, but he's my brother, we served together. Our jokes are edgy and messed up... Like most soldiers sense of humour. And if someone joins us, a friend of a friend, I deserve to be banned and have all my content stolen because I said something you personally do not like?

Honestly I find the stuff you say utterly comtemptable and hateful, you literally call everyone a racist and sexist often, I see you do it, and with no reason to do so. You throw around these "ism" words like they're nothing. You often support authoritarianism as well. I disagree with nearly everything you say, but I would absolutely defend your right to spread your dumb views if you so wish, and I definitely wouldn't want your stuff stolen from you because you, even though I find you incredibly offensive. Especially when you go out your way to virtue signal and morally grandstand above everyone else, calling them a racist, or something.

Even though I think you're sometimes a d*ck I would never want you banned. Banned is so final. Its a digital death sentence in many ways.

@God_of_Nowt and who decides the context of what was said? Was it malicious? Was it a joke? Was it quoting someone? How do they know the context of a small clip from a chat that went on for hours?

Yes I do, but I'm not on those things because I don't agree with silicon Valley censorship. I left those platforms a few years ago. They're banning people for not being left wing. I'm not even right wing either, I'm libertarian left leaning. But to people in California that's pretty much Hitler.

What about WhatsApp? That's a more accurate comparison to private chats.

@oldschool1987 They have a moderation team. It’s a 5 minute clip. You can glean the context from a whole 5 minutes. If your friend goads you into making a hateful comment and then reports you causing you to lose your profile... get better friends.

@nessisonett get better friends? By that you obviously mean...

"get politically correct friends because your sense of humour is wrong and there's nothing subjective about humour. My politics are correct, yours are wrong and people who don't bend the knee to political correctness deserve a digital death sentence"?

Got it.

Still yet to see hateful speech get defined. Because it sounds incredibly subjective. You telling me to get better friends because you don't agree with them is pretty hateful. Please stop your hate speech.

@oldschool1987 Politics has nothing to do with being hateful. People from all walks of life can be hateful. If you think being goaded into losing your profile is funny then good for you, you’re now banned and can’t blame it on Sony for your friend gaming the system. It would be like your pal calling the police and reporting you for domestic violence, you couldn’t then blame the system for coming down harsh on you if they produced a 5 minute voice clip of you pretending to beat your wife as a ‘joke’. If you genuinely said it was a joke to a judge, it wouldn’t fly. Words have consequences so if you don’t want to deal with the consequences, don’t say the words.

In Sony's defence, I don't think it's "monitoring", or "listening" to those last 5 minutes. The system hears it, sure. But that can be said for almost every bit of electronic kit. There's a digital footprint for everything. But it's most likely that the 5 minutes are encrypted, meaning someone at Sony can't just listen in, until you press the big red button to send it to them. It'll just keep "deleting" anything past the last 5 minutes perpetually, (like a goldfishes' brain, if you say their memory only lasts 5 minutes). I personally don't have an issue with it.

As for the ethics surrounding potential abuse and friends... I'm not delving into that. I don't have any friends to voice chat with anyway.

@nessisonett except it does, because its called "political correctness".

Why do I think someone losing their profile is funny? It isn't, you're the one making light of it. I genuinely think you're hateful, you even told someone they're not allowed to criticise Sony 😂 hate speech is defined by the ones in charge, one day that will be used against you. I mean you go around calling people racist who aren't racist, what if it's someone like you in charge of this system? That would be worrying.

My father was murdered a few years ago, it broke me, but one of my coping mechanisms is dark humour, I even joke about his death, even though its easily the worst thing to happen to me, he was my best friend and my biggest inspiration. But I make effed up jokes. That someone like you, who hates people with different views, would find hateful. I don't understand how you can't see our worry?

"don't say the words". OK, Mao.

Beat my wife? That's a strange example to use. Any reason for it?

@God_of_Nowt I was more using the example of friend of a friend. I often join voice chats with close friends who have some guy in there I don't know, but a friend will. Its just the private chat aspect of it I don't like.

It's just a concern of mine, it's not the end of the world, I just don't want it undermined, I think it needs scrutiny, especially when people have invested so much money into their accounts. And you have people like nessisonett saying he's happy to see people lose all their items over stuff he finds hateful, and as you can see what he finds hateful is pretty vast. What if its someone like him in charge? It's just a concern that should be talked about. I just didn't like it when he told that guy he has no right to complain. It rubbed me wrong.

Anyway thanks for the discussion!

@Makina Wow that's next level paranoia.

It doesn't matter what service you use, unless its Peer to Peer (which is extremely rare these days) any and all voice over the internet services you use are recording your voice and sending it off to their servers where its then sent off to all of the listening participants.

You trust that all of these companies are not keeping your voice data, what makes Sony any different?

Or maybe you don't trust them and you avoid all services that can transmit audio over the internet, in which case, just don't join a Party, and the PS5 will never transmit your voice audio.

Don't believe that Sony isn't "always transmitting" your audio? Its easy enough for anyone to verify this, so easy that they would have to be next level stupid to try it because it would be discovered by the first person to monitor data transmissions from their PS5. (Which you can be sure would happen, Day One.)

@God_of_Nowt lmao that's a pretty good retort to those guys who say that. And I'm genuinely sorry about your mother. From what little you told me about her humour even at the end, she sounds like she was brave.

I suppose worry is an overstatement, mostly concern, but I could be wrong and I hope I am. I'd love to be proven wrong 😂

And the same sentiment, I actually like everyone here, even @nessisonett often seems like a cool dude, I think I disagree with him politically and with regards to what people can or can not say, but I hold no ill will towards him at all, I just didn't like it when he told someone he can't voice his concerns. But we're all gamers in the end, he's a fellow gamer, and I'd never let anyone try and stop him airing his views, even if I'm not a fan of them.

I always get a little awkward when people thank me for my service lol. It's genuinely kind of you to say that, it's appreciated, but you don't need to thank me! But thank you anyway ☺

Add me on psn if you want pal, be good to game with you one day, its oldschool1987

And you @nessisonett add me as well, pal. No need to fall out over disagreements 👍

@God_of_Nowt

I technically do agree with @oldschool1987.

I get your point as well but he is correct that something like this can be rather toxic. I run a few different communities and one thing I have every one agree to is the fact that if they are adults, they need to behave like one. It doesn't mean just watching your own lingo.

It also means being able to be mature enough to withstand such lingo.

***** happens. People can be angry at times. People say hurtful things, not random "fudge Ur mom" type *****, but hurtful things. I chose to simply let them and move on.

It isn't polite when someone has a potential to report you for any thing they can take out of context.

The gentleman he is discussing above has, in the past, showed a very tendency of going "too PC", to a point where even I had to say harsh words to him in the past.

While his motivation was not completely wrong, his manner of pushing it was not right.

Alot of ***** said can be turned into hate speech very quickly and so yeh, 5 minutes really isn't a long time and any thing said can indeed be taken out of context.

Frankly speaking, it isn't a good enough reason for one to lose their access to games.

At best, they should receive a "status" to go with their profile suggesting that "this user is not friendly" maybe after repeated warnings.

In any case, you 2 had a decent and polite discussion, heated or not.

Good talking both of you. It was respectful.

@TrolleyProblems I'm definitely guilty of saying stuff I regret during debates, but that happens. I should work on that more lol. Its never meant maliciously, I type things out the way I'd say it in person and without my delivery it can come across as insulting or rude, which isn't my intent.

Appreciate the comment

@God_of_Nowt you've had it rough, man. But your mum sounded lovely. Sorry about your mum and dad. RIP.

And nah, it's not corny at all, it's really kind, I personally just feel awkward because I don't think I deserve to be thanked lol. But it's definitely appreciated. I'll never dismiss the thanks, because it's someone going out their way to be kind. But I'm not special for it, know what I mean? And you'd probably have surprised yourself, I thought I couldn't do it before I signed up lol.

I've enjoyed chatting with you, you seem like a really decent person 👍

@nessisonett You seem to be the only person on this thread being level headed and speaking some sense, in a thread full of people wildly overreacting.

@AdamNovice people still use their phones for like, actual talking? Jk

But seriously I'm a little on the fence about this one. A few people seem maybe a little too paranoid while a few others are maybe a little too quick to trade privacy for order (and way too trusting of Sony imo).

One thing I'm wondering is if it's some potty mouthed 10 year old or something how does that work? Kid gets banned forever? Seems a bit much. Or does the parent account get banned? And is that fair? Sure we can say maybe don't let your kids be that kid but life (and parenting especially) kinda isn't that simple.

"Mute all microphones" solution.

@Makina hahaha. Sure, buddy. But at least make sure you stick around to tell us how horrible Sony is. That would make a lot of sense.

@Powerpellet who needs comedy when you have people like you posting such hilarious things? By all means, keep it up.

@naruball
Ok fool.

Wow...this is the way the world and online world is going..i understand the need for racism and generally hateful behaviour to be eradicated i really do but i dont see as sony have any other avenue left open..so adults and i mean mature well educated adults with a grasp of the english or american alternative should be able to converse or debate with each other online without resorting to vile,racist,homophobic insults.Sony gave everybody the freedom to say and post whatever they choose online so long as certain perameters were not infringed and what happened...almost everybody decided to abuse the system and now its being activley policed people are up in arms about having their privacy invaded..if sony ignored the growing situation they would have been accused of being nothing but a money grabbing corporation and not caring about people being abused on their service..i dont think its fair to level this criticism at sonys door as the general online community are horrible at times..i myself dont communicate with others online unless i think they are like minded and not going to have a fit if i happen to comment on something they dont happen to agree with..i try not to impose my will in conversations or try to belittle and activley insult other gamers (did everybody forget the mute option?) There are people online who truly deserve to have a sound ass kicking,there really are but tben we ate playing their game and being goaded into a situation where you get recorded,reported and banned from something you love and have invested in...what next? Deportations?

So, when I fail at something and inevitably shout "f*** f*** f***" and someone reported it would I be liable for a warning for simply swearing? If so, what if the game was 15+ and already had swearing in the dialogue?

@Jayofmaya another point tbat seems to be overlooked..the age ratings..warzone is 18 rated and the ammount of childrdn playing that game is stupendous..is it fair that an adult game with adult language should have its user base scrutinized for bad language over voip?

@Makina Sony isn't recording your conversation, you're not gonna banned saying something to your friend as long as your friend didn't report you. It's like talking with your phone.

@get2sammyb you should have included this part too “Once the PS5 console launches, if a PS5 player needs to file a harassment report, they will be able to include up to a 40 second-long Voice Chat clip in their report — 20 seconds of the main conversation with the other player, plus an additional 10 seconds before and after the conversation selection. Only the most recent five minutes of a Voice Chat will be available for a player to use for this reporting function.
These reports can be submitted directly through the PS5 console, and will be sent to our Consumer Experience team for moderation, who will then listen to the recording and take action, if needed. Some submitted reports won’t be valid, and our team will take this as an opportunity to provide guidance and education. There won’t be an option to opt-out of this Voice Chat recording function because we want all users to feel safe when playing with others online, not just those who choose to enable

@oldschool1987
I agree with you on all you said .

Imagine standing on the corner reading a letter or talking to your friend. Someone approaches and starts reading your letter over your shoulder or stands 1 foot away craning their ear to be able to listen to whatever you were saying to your friend and made no pretense as to wanting to intrude. Then they even told you that, "I'm recording this conversation, if you say the wrong thing I will report you." Would you continue as if they werent there? Or would you get mad and tell them to buzz the hell off!!! Its your privacy man feel free to make fun of me if you want to but thats a line I dont cross..So people will be recording you and reporting you if you say the wrong thing in your own home. All I need to know. No PS5 is going in my house.

@Powerpellet But you not gonna have some random guy joining you or your friend’s party and listen to what you say with your friend unless you invite them to it tho...

@Flex_huusko
So then whats the big need to have recording and reporting Flex?

@Powerpellet for toxic people who bully and use slurs to be used as evidence against them... I don’t know if it will be just a party thing or it will be used for game chat too we will have to see

@Flex_huusko
I guess maybe but Im not as afraid of bullies and idiots as I am of losing the right to free expression.

This makes no damn sense now that I have a crappy chat party that I complete control over I have the power to invite and get people banned? This needs to die. How could anyone be on-board with this?

@Powerpellet you aren’t sure but there are a lot of other people who do. you just can’t to to the police and report someone abusing or bullying you without evidence right?

@Flex_huusko
I dont quite understand what you are asking. But who knows what can be taken out of context by those who from it, gain the power to control someones fate.

@Sub-Xero yeah true it might happen and i am not fully supporting that feature because of that but it kinda help with toxicity thats why i have my messages to ‘friends only ‘ cause i get a lot messages of people that hating losing and they even sent you a friend request with a message thats toxic and funny doesnt even stop them lol but hopefully Sony investigate well before taking action that and @Powerpellet he forgot to mention that you have to include 20 sec of the main conversation and 10 sec before and after the selection of the context also i dont know yet if it will give you a notification that someone is recording (but i think it will) so you can record too and have your own evidence too.. we really don’t know yet how any of this will work but hopefully it wont be that bad

And also i hate the new party system that I can’t create private party on my own and send invites without having to create a new group or that I can’t kick someone and haven’t tried yet but people say that you still can be heard even if you mute someone which is really stupid update snd hopefully they work on a fix soon

This seems reasonable enough. Sony will not hear your voice chat unless it's been reported by another player. So players shouldn't notice any difference unless they're being toxic.

@Sub-Xero
Giving anyone the power to say your speech is wrong is the first problem.
The weight given to the person deciding if your speech is wrong is dependent on the attitude/views/politics/innumerable variable life experiences/of that person. But they aren't you.
And regardless, listening in on a private conversation is so shifty and then adding to that the recording and reporting, it's repulsive as hell to anyone loving the freedom to think the way they want.

A few of my friends have expressed concern over it due to their privacy and while I sympathize privacy is important in the internet in general the fact that this is not actively listening in and us purely for combating online abuse I'm ok with it.

There are some people, mostly younger in my experience who can be harrasive and abusive. I don't partake in such things and resort to blocking for a peaceful online experience.

Although I mostly nowadays just talk to my close friends in private parties for the people who experience online abuse if this goes towards shutting up the children who apparentely did unspeakable things to our mothers last night that's fine with me.

@Sub-Xero
You know, I agree my friend. Except they can. And this will be abused and then become the norm. Every step conditions you for the next infringement. Which will in turn become the norm and someone will tell you to accept it as well or you are crazy out of touch. ad infinitum my friend. Im just a plebe putting his foot down and missing out on the glorious gifts of Ceasar. Complete with all the enslavements they might entail. And I will always be free. Yup, come get it, this Texan will indeed.

Two things:
1. Some of you guys are way to paranoid and are overreacting, as usual, to this. SONY IS NOT RECORDING YOUR CHAT, OTHER USERS CAN RECORD IT AND SEND THEM TO SONY.
2. If you think that this doesn't happen on xbox i have bad news for you https://m.republicworld.com/technology-news/gaming/does-xbox-record-party-chat.html

@Ggmate
Well that sucks. I dont own an X box. Sounds like I made a good decision then. But relying on folks not to abuse anything that can be abused is foolish right?

It's like people thought nobody could listen (and of course record) to their voice when they speak on the internet.
They see a warning and now it s a NSA paranoia thing haha

@Powerpellet
Well now you know. I guess?
Good luck then 😀

@JJ2
Sure enough boss. Say what you will, ya'll need more like me. Defending ALL our freedoms.

Isn’t this just for party’s though?

With in game chat I could see this being a feature where you are grouped with randoms, but in private parties it’s weird.

But surely why would you have someone you know is a cock in a party with you anyway?
I am free to say what I want in private conversations with people anyway. So what's the point?

I'm only ever in a party with my best mate paul, so if he grasses me up i'm having the c***!

@oldschool1987 nessisonett is the same guy who accused me of ignoring hispanics because I asked a question unrelated to a hispanic article. What is stopping him from reporting me when he thinks I'm being offensive when I'm just asking a harmless question. This is all hypothetical, I don't hate the guy I'm just saying

@nessisonett I'm offended by this because my grandfather helped your people in world war 2 and my brother both served to protect that freedom that you want to carelessly eat, so I would report you and you would get banned because what you said was offensive to me. that is what @oldschool1987 is talking about

@DualshockInfinit He did not accuse you of that, and the situation was resolved positively in that comments section. Can we not bring up unrelated topics to try and cause more confrontation and arguments, please?

Sure, I was just giving an example of someone taking offense to something that was out of context.
EDIT: I changed "hated" to "ignored" to be more accurate because he said, " you are giving off a vibe of, who care about hispanic heritage I can't get on my ps4"

For a long time, online gaming is too toxic. There will always be a moron taunting others. I never chat online, i feel and do nothing even if they send immature message after the session. I don't know why some are so worried. I dont think you will be perma ban even if you do something stupid once/ twice. But maybe if you’re a repeated offender in which case you need to reflect on yourself rather than this rule. Unrelated to this, i am more worried about facebook and other social media not taking action against blatant lies and fake news despite 1000s reporting. Freedom of speech is a great word but abused widely.

@nessisonett Mute people?

I don't see why people feel the need that Sony has to babysit them. If someone is being vulgar it's a simple fix, you mute/kick them from a party. And if it's in a game's public chat like Modern Warfare, there's literally a feature where you can mute anyone who's not playing with you.

Sony is not your babysitter and as soon as you allow them to start moderating, they will go too far with it.

@Salt_AU I know right? Because Parental Controls are hard and actually being a parent and protecting their kids is also hard. They gotta have Sony do the work for them. You realize how ridiculous you sound?

@Kelrics90 It's like everyone wearing body cams in public with their hands on a panic button if they feel uncomfortable

The problem we have today is that you can be wiped from the internet for hurting someone’s feelings and I’m 100% sure Sony are also in favour of this with their Facebook boycott over ‘hate speech’. So be careful because if your playing something like destiny in a random party and someone gets offended by something you say you could potentially be banned for life.

SJW’s get to say what is considered ‘hate speech’ and they’re offended by everything.

@Ggmate I could almost understand this under the old system when some random guy/gal you added to your friends list 10 years back on PS3 drops in and acts like a *****. Even then I would just kick them from the party and block them. But now you are snitching on people that you yourself invited. Does this ***** ass feature also work on people that don't allow their voice to be shared? This seems like a thing no one wanted and no one asked for.

@AJDarkstar did you just call me a moron? 😂

I'm sorry that you are unable to understand my argument. Try not to commit hate speech by calling people "moron". It's incredibly offensive and outdated term.

@God_of_Nowt the odds are you're the one that's right and my concern is unwarranted. Sony is nowhere near as bad as twitter lol.

Appreciated the conversation! You stay safe too!

I'm outraged that I spent 4 years in Afghanistan risking my life fighting for the freedoms of the people of Sony Corporation, only to be reprimanded for yelling racial abuse over their servers!

@God_of_Nowt
I'm joking. I think it is important for governments to allow free speech and the free exchange of ideas, but that's not what is going on with Sony. Private companies are able to set up whatever lawful policies they want.

If someone writes racial abuse on PushSquare I assume they will remove the comment - it's their website and they can moderate it any way they like. They are also free to allow racial abuse, and that will affect the atmosphere of the website. Are people outraged with PushSquare for deleting comments with racial abuse? If I owned a website I would feel very uncomfortable with that sort of speech in an environment I facilitate, and I would disallow it. Sony owns servers and doesn't want them used to spread bigotry - sounds reasonable to me.

People are conflating their countries' guarantees on free speech with the obligations of a corporation, which is silly. Someone in this thread even said they fought for our rights of free speech. My comment was pointing out that they fought for the rights of the people in their country, not for the patrons of a corporation.

@Constable_What Yeah that's another thing I don't get is it seems to me game chat is where all the abusive profanity is. But that's not going to be recorded, just private room audio. Kinda suspect.

That chat isn't being monitored. Its being recorded for you to use if required for reporting. I am all for it.

@Makina I don't know about credibility of news but a kid committed suicide because of PS4 chats so I would say it's pro-consumer because all lives matter

@Salt_AU Sounds like you're inferring I'm at least some of the things mentioned above. If anyone here needs to calm down it's you. I simply made a comment about being a proper parent, and you reacted by calling me whatever the *'s mean and and "ist".

@Constable_What I guess if people are getting into that many group chats with absolute randos then I suppose this is maybe helpful. But my understanding is this is not how most people use the party feature. So it's like you say, PR. And I guess I don't love that my console is recording me just so Sony can look like they're doing something.

Admittedly though, I play online so very little it renders this argument purely academic for me. I just tend to be against this Big Brother stuff which, for all the distrust of governments, is proving to be way more of an issue with corporations.

When I was a kid even teachers would say nobody likes a tattletale. Now eveyone's a tattletale I guess. If someone is bothering then just stop communicating with them. I may be in the minority here. But I don't find this a good thing. I shouldn't be surprised. In a recent survey a majority of college kids said they didn't believe in free speech because of hate speech. The allowance of so called hate speech is the whole point of free speech. You don't censor speech to protect yourself from hearing what you don't like. Likewise rather than snitching on someone, how about you just turn off communicating with them if you don't like what you're hearing.

@Exlee300p @zupertramp
Totally agree. But how about this, a separate chat for adults and another monitored one for children or frail adults or those who like being censored or just people who like to snitch? Give them a safe space. Give them a seperate chat. Why must it only be, everyone that gets censored and spied on?

It's kinda hilarious watching the people who see accountability in a private space as pandering to fragility or infantilism. It's a pretty weird way to spell "I am so privileged and insulated that I can't even imagine there being other ways that people experience life".

There are a lot of protected characteristics out there, be it gender, sexuality, race, religion, disability etc. Each and every one of those characteristics is protected because vast enough numbers of people have tried to do harm to others based on any combination of them, and still do. Every law that exists is there because somebody already broke it. Until you have been transgender, queer, black, Muslim, disabled or whatever in a public space you have no idea what it's like. I only fit one of those so I only know what that one feels like, but I can listen and empathise with others.

What systems like this say is: Everybody's welcome! It doesn't matter who is what you are, this is something you can engage with as long as you abide by the code of conduct.

As a disabled person I'm sick of being excluded from physical spaces because they are inaccessible to me, but online that's much less of an issue. There are people I know however who are excluded from online spaces because they look or sound different. Sites like TikTok are terrible for this, because of deliberate exclusion by people who don't want to see disabled bodies or hear disabled voices, and this leads me to a final point, but first, why does this matter? Well by excluding people you isolate them, and by isolating people you do harm. From my point of view that's something you should only do based on what someone has done, not what they are. In most of the developed world 20% of the population is disabled in some way; a statistic that shocks people because we're forced to hide our presence, to cover up what we are to interact with society. And that's only one protected characteristic.

Accountability is only going to be as good as Sony are willing to make it. TikTok is so bad because the reporting system is largely automated. Enough people report a video of a disabled person dancing and it'll be taken down, effectively removing those people from the space. I choose to be optimistic about the possibilities, but accept that in time this may be another thing that drives oppressed or marginalised people from a space.

It's just hilarious to me that it's the same people who ridicule accountability as 'cancel culture' and 'fragility' that are so fragile as to immediately protest anything they judge to impinge their perceived freedoms.

@theheadofabroom The irony in your above comment is that you are exactly what you accuse other people of being. You mock other people who view privacy and liberty as more important than having so called accountability rules that are slowly ushering in the future George Orwell wrote about in "1984." You do this by labeling them as privileged. Whether you realize it or not what you said is leftist ideology. And the tone of your comment has an arrogance to it that suggests you think your viewpoint is how the rest of the world should just obviously be. Well I respectfully disagree. I believe you should treat everyone with respect if they do the same to you. At the same time I believe the harping on identity politics from the left is actually dehumanizing. I believe in judging and interacting with people on an individual basis not identity group like gender or religion. And I say this as a gay man. As for the issue at hand, I don't like the tattle-tale system. If someone called me something nasty and it bothered me that much I would just turn off the mic and volume but more than likely I would respond with a witty retort. I don't need big brother or a nanny state thank you very much. Anyway I hope you have great day.

@Exlee300p I hate the term 'identity politics' because it's used to make people's everyday experiences look like a hypothetical situation. So this doesn't affect you personally, great; if I run up a poll on Twitter I'll find you a few thousand people it does affect pretty quickly, and I don't have a huge presence.

Please stop conflating private spaces and institutions with state institutions. You have the right to say whatever you want and within reason the state can't stop you. (Depending on the government where you live, but that's an aside I don't need to get into.) That doesn't mean anyone has to listen to you, and it doesn't mean anyone has to give you a platform.

Sony are giving people a platform, and they're saying that in order to make it the best possible place for the greatest possible number of people, they have a code of conduct for what you can express on their platform. If you don't like that, you can say it elsewhere.

All these changes do is to make it easier to enforce their code of conduct. There are two ways to go about that: surveillance and sousveillance. Sony have gone for the latter, but I guess you'd prefer police in your online spaces?

It’s great, and I understand why this page defends it. In fact, it would be best if all we did was monitored by, say, the government, so that no-one did or said anything bad...

@theheadofabroom And if you took a poll the main reason why people might complain is because leftist ideology has crept into everything from entertainment to the boardroom but especially schools. Teaching everybody they are a victim. Also I have not conflated private spaces with state institutions as you put it. This is my opinion about how I would prefer society to be run/behave irrespective of laws and rights. And believe me I understand the difference bud. Just a tip, if you want to try and sway people with your argument you might to lose the condescention, arrogance, and holier than thou attitude. Finally I love how you believe there can only be two choices. The government/police surveilling us or private corporations surveilling us. We couldn't just, you know, be left alone. We can't have a world where people take personal responsibility for themselves. People need to grow up a little and stop being offfended so easily.

@Exlee300p I'm not sure why you feel condescended to. I'm not in a position to judge whether I'm arrogant, but I simply try to state the way things are. I have no idea why you think this compassion is a leftist ideology, but perhaps you can explain that to me. I would have thought a true leftist ideology would be saying we have a right to all this and it should taken out of the hands of a capitalist institution?

The two choices are as to how you enforce a code of conduct. Surveillance isn't necessarily but the government, it's by those above you in a given system, in this case the platform holders. Sousveillance is by your peers. If you're not going to enforce it there's no point in having one. Obviously that's also an option, but it's one which would be commercial suicide for Sony in the current climate.

As for society and private vs government institutions, the point is that in a private space you don't have a say. Under democracy you theoretically do have a say in your governments run their part of society, and how much they allow private spaces to exist, but I get the impression that you'd be kinda against handing the government more power to regulate private spaces as you come across as using quite liberal ideals, small government, low regulation, so I'm not sure how you expect to have things both ways?

As for people not getting offended easily, you seem to have taken a great deal of offense at me suggesting that online spaces would be better if they're open to everyone. Obviously you don't feel like this affects you and are happy to discuss it as a hypothetical, as opposed to something which results in suicides every year and places a strain on mental health resources, so what's the beef?

First of all I'm not offended by a single thing you said. You have every right to have your opinin and express it. But in your two responses to me you have come across as arrogant because you are stating things as if your set of belief systems is objectively correct as opposed to it being, subjective, which is what it clearly is. Secondly I take umbrage with the way you have chracterized my position. You suggest that because I don't want either government or the private to surveil us for the stated goal of moderating and puniashing so called "bad behavior," that I somehow lack compassion or empathy for people. Particularly so called marginalized groups. I can honestly say I can't comprehend how you arrived at this conclusion. The actual reality could not be further from the truth. Believing that private communications between gamers should remain private and not be recorded so someone can't snitch on anyone because they got their feeling hurt, again does not mean they lack compassion. It simply means we believe that individuals should be the ones to solve problems that may arise, not a third party. You next suggest that I don't believe online spaces should be open to everyone because I don't believe that surveilling people's private communicarions for code of conduct violations is a good thing to be doing. You suggest that the only way for people to go online safely is by being monitored by the conduct police. I really don't get this assertion either and it is I think, frankly, an absurd notion. Partcularly when you have an option to end all types of communicarion instantly if you so choose. The sage advice advice that we are given as kids is sound, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will NEVER hurt me." Truer words were never spoken. I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one my friend. Take care

@Exlee300p please, quote something I've stated as a fact which is inaccurate. I'm very careful to make it clear what I see as objective fact and what I see as my subjective opinion.

It also like the nub of our disagreement comes down to you seeing this system as being actively surveilled by the platform holder, and this makes you uncomfortable - as far as I can tell, because you feel that it infringes upon your freedom. I meanwhile see this as giving the tools to people to defend their spaces from bad actors.

What are the options?

• Sony could choose to give a ban button to every user, but this would be hilariously easy for those same bad actors to abuse, so that's a bad option.
• Another bad option would be to hire people and/or use algorithms to actively monitor every chat in real time; this would be horrifically invasive as well as bankruptingly expensive, even if you don't consider bad actors within their staff, so that's out.
• They could choose not to have any code of conduct and accept bad actors on their platform. I think that's a bad idea but I'll talk about that later.
• They could allow chats to be minimally policed by relying on participants to submit evidence. For this to work it has to be possible to collect that evidence, and that's what this article is about. It means that for someone to be judged as a bad actor someone in the chat and someone they don't know from Sony have to agree. This isn't a perfect solution but it seems to me to be a lot better than the others.

Why have a code of conduct at all if its so much effort to enforce? Well from an objective standpoint, it's required to make their platform palatable to parents, and if they abandon children as a demographic then all those children are going to grow up with their competitor's product. This sounds a lot like commercial suicide.

Everything from here on is opinion

Now that we've got that out of the way, why do I think codes of conduct are the compassionate choice? Well first of all it sets an expectation of how people will interact with each other, which is far more conducive to pleasant social interaction and avoids a lot of inadvertent friction. That leaves us bad actors to consider. If you don't remove or punish bad actors, the people who were following the rules notice, and they object because it's not fair to have a set of rules which some people have to obey and others don't, and for a lot of people it doesn't matter whether they agree with the reasons why the rules are in place. For a great example of this see Dominic Cummings' antics during lockdown at the start of the year, which prompted a lot of people to stop following the guidance and has resulted in thousands of deaths.

So why not just ignore the bad actors, and the people who follow suit? Some people can, some people can't, and I refuse to see those who can't as somehow lesser. If the people who can just ignore abuse do so then the abusers find someone else to abuse, and if everyone who can do so ignores it, the only people left are the people who can't.

One can bet that the first person to say "blue lives matter" on voice chat will get suspended.