PlayStation Contemporary has arrived with a not-so-gentle reminder to PS5 users to keep things civilized with voice chatting, and honestly? It was about time. On February 19, 2021, the official PlayStation Twitter account tweeted the message “Be respectful to each other on party voice chats” and a link to their safety guidelines.
So here it is-Goodbye to all those who think yelling slurs into your headset is the height of gaming hilarity. From now on, that harassment and inappropriate behavior report submitted to the PlayStation Safety team? Well, they are considering it now. Wild thought, huh? Don’t make other people miserable just because you are.
The tweet included a nice little light bulb tip next to the link to the reporting system. Reports by the users now can be sent directly from within the PS5 interface whenever the abuser uses voice chat. According to Sony, these reports would be taken seriously for actual review.
It’s also the harbinger of years of rather uncontrolled havoc in the past when the games would be played by multiple players over the Internet. Remember Xbox Live back in the day? Yeah, we never really missed it. PlayStation has finally started tightening up its community standards, and this seems to be another of such steps.
It’s interesting how they’re going even to name in-party chats, though. They aren’t just coming to public lobbies, but they want to control private groups also. What do you think they’re doing so much in those “private” spaces that it’s worth hinting against those private spaces? The link in this tweet leads to PlayStation’s safety page that also explains in detail how to report anything directly from PS5.
The entire thing goes: if one something suspicious is heard in the voice chat, press the PS button, open the quick menu, spot the player’s account of the offending player, and voila: report. There is even an option to attach a voice chat recording as evidence. They have actually been secretively recording all our voice chat all along. Creepy, huh? Good in stopping toxicity? You bet!
It has been there since the launch of PS5 itself, but either most players were not aware of it or they assumed Sony won’t do anything about it. This public reminder kind of signifies that they’re serious about enforcing it now.
Such as in every case, the hate speech and censorship outcries are being raised under the replies, but you have to realize one thing: PlayStation Network is a private service. They can make up rules as they want. If you don’t like it, please scream somewhere else.
One wonders how they could balance their application of rules. Reporting systems have existed in online gaming for ages, but most of the time, users think that their complaints are just shoved into a black hole. However, if it works to some extent where reports go through a desk for review, it would actually help clean the community.
End of story, and it isn’t difficult not to be a jerk toward someone else when playing video games. All that Sony is codifying is this point and thus making sure that in that rare instance when one is incapable of showing that elementary decency from person to person, there will be repercussions. And honestly? Goodness. Our times are being passed out from the fraternity of online gaming chats as a place for merry toxicity.
Perhaps it will merely inspire yet newer and more creative means of being bad. Indeed-the internet will always find a way. But at least now there has been built in something that might put a stop to it: a small but important step. So, just in case you find yourself in another PS5 party chat, think about holding on that racist tirade…or actually go on with it-anyway, you’ll get banned for it either way.
