Home's zero tolerance chat censorship policy criticized

by Griffin McElroy on Dec 28th 2008 7:00PM

We trust the collective PlayStation Home-playing community about as far as we can throw them, but we can't help but agree with a recent San Francisco Chronicle article that criticizes the "game's" ridiculously strict chat censorship policy. The article explores the case of Michael Marsh, who attempted to start a gay/straight alliance club, only to find that the words gay, lesbian and bisexual (all "preferred terms" in the gay community) were being blocked by the profanity filter; a policy Marsh worries could encourage players to think of them as pejorative terms.

The filter doesn't just apply an unflinching amount of restriction to terms describing sexual preference -- "Christ" and "Jew" are also given the asterisk treatment, and even "Hello" gets blocked for its implementation of the dreaded "h-e-double-hockey-sticks". An SCEA spokesperson responded by saying that "user behavior and feedback" will help guide their changes during the beta process.

What do you guys think? Can Home users be trusted to utter the names of religious figures and issue polite salutations to one another?

[Via Kotaku]

Source

Tags: censorship, chat-filtering, playstation-home, PS3, sony

Reader Comments (127)

****o

GAT D.AMMIT I MEANT H.ELLO

LOL *** ****** ***** at sony man.

I wasn't on Home for awhile. And when I returned, I kept seeing ****o. I didn't know they applied the filter and was confused until I tried to say Hello myself.

I find it ironic they are complaining about the same thing they beg for on XBOX Live.

Turns out that Sony prefers 'hola'.

Those anti-******** ********

Who needs ****o when you have HFILo? (lame dubbed version of DBZ reference)

Is this just on US Home? Us Euros can say Hello all we want.
I don't know what the japanese can say, as no-one talks on their Home.

People find ways to get around this shi.t all the time. H.ell, we did it in Gunbound.

wow, not even PSO was that bad, and it would censor "suspicious" because it had "spic" in the middle of it

um. to answer that last question. if the way women are treated on there is any indication....then no. no they cannot.

You mean the boys posing as women?

I know right!

the first time I saw home, I was at a friends house; and for every girl there was 3-6 guys surrounding and following that one girl!

so ******* creepy.

there should be an option to turn off profanity filter.

There should be A LOT of options in Home that didn't quite make the cut... unfortunately that sort of thing takes months, sometimes years, of research and developme-- oh wait...

Well, to answer the posed question: Of course the Home community can't be trusted with using such language in a non-offensive way.

But even more offensive to me is the idea that such strict censorship (of any kind really) would be implemented.

Oh well. Home is just a glorified chat room anyway.

Hah, last time I've dealt with censorship like that is when I played Runescape (biggest waste of time ever).

Problem with these types of filters is that you can't blanket words. Many "normanl" words can be used inappropriately, and some "bad" words have legitimate uses, a good example being the Gay/Straight Alliance club.

That's why moderators are needed and work in the case of Joystiq's comments and many message boards/forums' posts.

Man, I got to level 80 mining then noticed I'd wasted a summer holiday.

lol thats exactly what it reminded me off... astericks in ever second sentence. but i guess the people got used to it? there were complains and what not... but it never got out of hand, ppl didnt seemed to get so pissed over ****o, but i was a level 110 member a long time ago which had a select social group i used to hang with. i dont know how things are now with the general view.

I just realized that the Jew Alliance and the Gay Alliance would both come up as the *** Alliance.

Confusing? yes. Amusing? **** yes!

'Gay' is not a 'bad' word, but it can still be used pejoratively. Then again, so can 'moose'. Should Sony be filtering that one out as well? If they're going to filter out words then they should stick to things like fuck, shit... that most people would agree are offensive to some extent.

Pedant's Corner: Yes I am aware that all words are entirely arbitrary and have no intrinsic meaning (besides maybe onomatopoeia...)

What you say 'bout moose?

I often call people mooseheads.

Any word can be used pejoratively. Our old IT head used to piss people off when he called them a goose when they did something stupid. It was they way he said it, which I now imitate on a regular basis.

a moose once bit my sister...

@ Cassiel: Yes, yes it is.

Censorship sucks, but you can't help but feel that little kids are gonna be playing (can the term even be applied to Home?) it, so it's, in once sense, necessary.

Not this kind, though. This kind seems to suck.

Well, there's a problem with that: Why would someone let their children play in Home, when its design is clearly NOT AIMED at children? And even with that, if someone doesn't feel comfortable that their child might be exposed to this, shouldn't they make an effort not to have their child use it in the first place?

I'm sorry, but by implementing censors/filters to "protect children," you only make parents more ridiculously incompetent than they already are. (this is why I find it so bizarre when people hate children...it's not their fault, it's the parents)

Before public voice chat closed down i heard what was very obviously a 10yr old boy or so, hiding behind the avatar of a hot woman.

I can't even tell you how creepy that is. So fuck the kids, keep em off.

And it's not like the internet community has bastardized word spellings anyway. Do they censor 'ghey' as well? Or does only the 100% offensive version get in while the useful version is exiled?

Who the fuck censors Hell anyway?

Not Even Disney, or Noggin Censor Hell.......lol

Believe it or not even the so called hardcore guilty gear censors hell.

HEAVE OR HECK! Let's fight!.

Dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I recently caught a rerun of Batman: The Animated Series on the Disney Channel... the episode was "Heart of Ice," about Mr Freeze. There's a scene where Batman views an incriminating video tape and reacts with "Dear God!" Disney crudely edited out the "Dear God!" part for some bizarres reason.

The video footage of cold blooded murder he was reacting to was left in tact, though.

I'd be up in arms, but in the ten minutes I spent in Home on the day it launched, I saw every curse word imaginable, combined with every racial slur, and every other "bad" word imaginable. I heard them too, since it was open mic, but I guess they've closed that down as well. Basically all they want you to do is politely chat, buy their overpriced furniture, and look at the billboard ads of various movies and products.

Meh

@Wiinterfang

Seriously? I played Guilty Gear X for ps2 last week, and it said "Heaven or Hell". What version are you playing?

It was Guilty Gear X2, the First Guilty Gear X didn't have that censoring problem.

toon disney cut certain scenes from the gargoyle show. i used to watch that show daily when it first ran and knew some episodes by heart and they've removed parst here and there of extreme violence even though it only airs now after midnight and before 5 am

In this day and age it's better to start with all your bolts really tight and then loosen them up slow.

Fascism much?

What a bunch of idiots, havent they ever heard of moderators? Its just ridiculous when a game decides to have worse censorship than a G movie. Dont they have any common sense?

"What do you guys think? Can Home users be trusted to utter the names of religious figures and issue polite salutations to one another?"

No. Not even a little bit. Which is why Home is such an awful idea in the first place.

Im so ****ing glad Joystiq dosn't have filters.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Ha! +1

Fuck!

Chuck Norris facts number 3546667768.

Chuck Norris post bypass any censorship.

there were a couple times i tried to japanese or jewish on joystiq and my post disappeared into space.

...wouldn't a prominent disclaimer before Home is loaded absolve Sony of most of the issues that they are at risk for?

Bad press is bad press. Rules don't matter.

It's a good thing they avoided bad press by putting in this draconian censorship then.

..oh wait

A few months ago, I had to work on a chat filter for an MMO game and ran into a similar situation. Basically my coworkers thought gay, lesbian, and Jew were bad words and should be on the filter. I agreed that 99% of the time, they were used by people in a pejorative way. But I also said that there were, gasp, actual gay, lesbian, and Jewish people playing games and it made no sense for them to come into a game and find themselves to be censored.

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Home's zero tolerance chat censorship policy criticized

Reader Comments (127)

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