Microsoft talks to GLAAD about GLBT policy issues

by Ben Gilbert on Apr 14th 2009 6:00PM

Stephen Toulouse, handler of Xbox Live Terms of Service policing, appeared on last Sunday's Major Nelson podcast to speak about how Microsoft is handling the concerns of the GLBT community. He recently sat down with two representatives from GLAAD to speak about the policy and what Microsoft could be doing better. Speaking about the meeting, Toulouse said, "We asked them the question, 'How can we do this better?' ... That dialog was super, super helpful. I think it was a great engagement."

Problems arose in late February when an Xbox Live user named "Teresa" identified her sexual preference in her profile and was subsequently suspended from the service, seemingly due to self-identifying as a lesbian. Microsoft told us at the time that it suspends accounts that identify "any form of sexual orientation" and it seems as though Mr. Toulouse and GLAAD are working toward a more hospitable situation for everyone involved (be they from the GLBT community or not).

We reached out to GLAAD for comment on the meeting and spoke with Justin Cole, the Director of Digital & Online Media, who told us, "They [Microsoft] were very, very receptive and welcoming with all the suggestions. They even admitted that their policy isn't the best in the world. What we, at the end of the meeting, decided is that we're going to have quarterly meetings with them. They're going to be heading out to a panel on homophobia and online gaming in Silicon Valley that we're putting together later this year." We'll be speaking with Mr. Cole in the upcoming days and finding out more about the future of GLAAD's involvement with Xbox Live and, in general, online gaming.

[Via GayGamer.net]

Source

Tags: glaad, glbt, major-nelson, microsoft, stephen-toulouse, terms-of-service, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (93)

Iv seen thousands of "straight" tags and i doubt they were banned. Saying you gay isnt sexual. Its sexual orientation but it doesn't show or say what your doing. It just say what you like. God forbid children know that there are 2 genders in the world.

Straight tags? Like, run of the mill regular tags, or specifically hetero tags?

"Iv seen thousands of "straight" tags and i doubt they were banned"

Really Cj? Really? You've seen "thousands" of straight tags? Shit, I've been on xbox live from the oringal xbox days, carried right on through to the 360 and from the time "bio" section came out, I haven't seen a dozen straight or gay tags.

"Saying you gay isnt sexual. Its sexual orientation but it doesn't show or say what your doing"

What are you smoking? Saying I'm "straight" or "gay" is displaying sexual orientation, and either one, from what I understand, is a violation of the TOS.

Specifically hetero. I had a friend named "PoonPounder" It stood like that for the 2 yrs he was on my friends list.

Cj must've gone to "The Sun's School of Journalism"

1. Read news story
2. Relate story to personal experience
3. Exaggerate personal experience to create appearance of controversy
4. Run story as headline
5. ?????
6. PROFIT?

I think step 5 might be to go tbag "PoonPounder"

If you say you're homo/bisexual in any profile, you're going to catch a lot of flak for it, especially from a community built on adolescents. In my opinion, Microsoft had the right reaction, though they might have overreacted a bit.

Sorry for the double post but I'd like to add that The Sun's practices cannot be called "journalism", nor can they be called a "newspaper". Their newspapers are more like tabloids.

You, xbox live gamer, are lying!!! Just like when the Wii came out they sold millions, right? Oh wait...

BTW, I would be ticked if those GLAAD reps got special edition Xbox 360 Elites (even if it has the rainbow flag design all over it) for participating in a discussion!!!

is it just me or did latin trident's comment make absolutely no sense whatsoever?

If Microsoft doesn't want people talking about themselves, they sure as hell should not have a "Bio" section in the user profile, and they frigging do, so everyone can shut the hell up with that tired excuse.

Then, the whole thing about any sexual orientation discussion. People who act like they'll do all the same to straight gamers are full of it. Because it's not true. Do you know why it's not true? The very essence of our society, and our common language, makes even COMMON things that would be inclined as straight, as acceptable. Whereas a gay person saying certain things, is going to immediately be sexual.
Straight people have it very, very, very easy in that regard, as they can get away with saying a heck of a lot more than any gay person can.

I don't buy that for a second. If I were attracted to penis I'd be gay in a second. Oh no, I have to hang out with someone that prefers nachos and video games to the same degree that I do!? How terrible! Gay people who don't admit that they have it good are assholes.

It's sad they have to consult a third party to say "Yes, it's okay to have some gray areas."

Its's even more sad that 3rd parties force companies like Microsoft not have any gray areas. Its pressure groups like GLAAD and (fill in Christian group here) that make everthing black and white, get offended at everything, and generally forget that there are other people with viewpoints that aren't the same as theirs.

@Bailers: I do agree with you on principle, but this is somewhat different. Let's face it, gamers are the most homophobic group of people out there, prolly more so than Muslims (though less violent) and /b/tards. It's not pleasant for any gamer who outs himself online. Furthermore, I don't see any forcing of the situation by GLAAD or anyone else. GLAAD, as far as I can tell, seems to only be talking to them about easing the situation, and not trying to push for some hate-crime-esque rules. They know they are entering some pretty volatile territory.

"Let's face it, gamers are the most homophobic group of people out there"

!?

I would say "14 year old boys are the most homophobic group of people out there," and well, there are a lot of 14 year old boys on XBox live (and a lot more that are just mentally 14) .

Well who the fuck cares if you straight,gay, lesbian, etc... at the end im gonna T-Bag you!.. lol some percentage will like that idea...

+1, do feel free to grace us with your presence whenever you please

/sarcasm

Keep your bags away from my corpse

Even if microsoft allows people to identify their sexuality in their gamertags/profile, there's still the problem that there are a lot of homophobic/childish people that use Live.

The above Lesbian (or another lesbian, can't remember) received a lot of abuse before being banned.

I agree. I think this is avoiding the real problem.

Terms of Use/Service aren't going to eliminate people harassing or attempting to ban someone (registering offensive complaints, etc.).

That's because a lot of people can't be bothered to act with any type of respect for others. If you ever find yourself being a dick to someone 'just because', you fit into this group.

Seriously, there's absolutely no reason to harass someone for their sexual orientation.

Yeah, and they punish the victim.

Not surprised by the actions of MS in this case. Pretty typical for a completely out of touch company.

I'd love to see everyone in the XBL community add their sexual preference to their bio.

I'd love to see everyone NOT have their sexual preference in their bio. Whose business is it anyways?

I shouldn't need to know yours, and you shouldn't need to know mine.

Easily-solved problem, Stix: don't read their profile unless they're someone you're really interested in learning something about.

No problems with psn/home. Have never had a chick fall into a Quincy yet

And henceforth, the RROD would be replaced with the more open minded and politically correct "Rainbow of Death".

EXCEPT YOU FORGOT AN R! FAIL

Oh come on, that was awesome.

HOW FABULOOOOOUS !!!!!

sigh...at least Microsoft made the choice of meeting with these people...I wonder how long it will be before so-called tolerance is legislated in this realm

I don't know what they are going to do about this during the current console generation, but I think the solution is clear enough for the next gen. They need to make the "zones" actually mean something. There should be a zone for kids that is heavily moderated, and a zone for adults that is only moderated for cheaters etc. To get into the adult zone, you'd have to E-Sign an agreement that says you are over 18, and acknowledge that the zone isn't moderated. From there you can have sub-zones for "casual" and for whatever else (you could have a gay category, a straight category, a furry category, or whatever else you could come up with) and no one could ever bitch because everyone agreed when they signed up.

Microsoft is in a difficult place right now, because short of building a machine to record every single bit of voice chatter, and then hiring people to listen to the tapes, I don't know what they can do to stop these kids (sorry kids, but the problem really is mostly you) from swearing constantly, using racial slurs, gay bashing, etc. All they can really do is come down on any people breaking the parts of the TOS that are easy to prove have been broken (namely "offensive" gamertags, bio's, etc). It's not ideal, but it is the best they can do right now.

Seems like a good idea, and i think LIVE could really go in that direction (heads off Sony neatly, and plays to the Facebook crowd), but i really think this is all being blown out of proportion.

Such a "gated community" idea is a BAD move. Even if the situation is relatively unmoderated on the adult side, and the motive is to "protect the children" (which is really just a sneaky mechanism to censor anything these days), you create a precedent. What if some straight bigots jump into the non-straight sub-zones and start a harassment campaign? Eventually it will be stopped, but then, either the sub-zones will be removed to level the playing field (unlikely), or more rigid rule enforcement will be in play, practically creating the virtual equivalent of Jewish quarters or ghettos. Eventually, it will get to the point that only gamers of a certain kind are allowed in a certain zone.

And what defines a "child?" Granted, the maturity of teenagers who play on XBL is certainly invisible to a degree, but they can't be really defined as "kids" either. It's sort of like this whole "sexting" craze: Because of current child porn laws (which I support, by the way), teenagers are starting to be registered as sex offenders because they send pictures of themselves naked to hookups/lovers and such. How can we define these teens as children if they willingly make porn of themselves?

It's a very fine rope you're walking there. The best we can do is adjust the ToS to a certain degree, and maybe increase enforcement of ToS. Gated communities, like the ones you are suggesting, will only exasperate problems by ignoring them.

I think this particular case is being blown out of proportion by a mile. I don't think it got so out of proportion without a reason though. There is an enormous amount of pent up animosity against Microsoft for seemingly doing nothing to tackle the problems (namely racism, sexism, etc) on Xbox live, even though there isn't that much they can do at this point. When people saw the "victim" in this case being banned, they interpreted what happened as a company protecting those racists and bigots (who are really mostly just stupid kids) at the expense of one person, when really they were just enforcing their TOS.

All I have to say to Microsoft is that gaming is NOT just for children, and they need to adapt their service in a way that recognizes that. Until there is a way to actually punish people for their awful behavior over Xbox Live, I'm going to continue only playing with people I know, or with people from a moderated community. I shouldn't have to make my own arrangements to avoid playing with scumbags, and neither should anybody else. Hopefully Microsoft (and Sony, because I know this problem will show its ugly head on the PS3 sooner or later) can fix this problem someday. It's obvious to me now that this is why Nintendo is seemingly doing everything in their power to make sure voice chat never happens on the Wii.

@???

I agree with you that gating communities is probably a bad thing, but a lot of us are already doing that. I know a lot of people that never play public matches anymore, and only play with friends or with a clan/group of some sort. There needs to be a guild-esque structure, where players can self police. It would be easy to get rid of griefers if people were given that ability themselves. Right now, the only structure that works (other than playing with friends) is tying gamertags back to a forum that keeps track of membership and gets rid of trolls. That type of functionality needs to make its way into the console itself.

In line with your idea about having a purpose to the zones, I imagine that MS may have realized that certain capabilities of the NXE could end up entangled with this issue. The new infrastructure allows for considerably more flexibility, perhaps even what you're talking about.

Take the events page, where organizations can promote their gaming nights. The GamerChix have one, Game With Fame is another. Most of them are directly affiliated with MS, but there have been a few outside entities that have promoted their gaming nights (Co-Optimus.com does every month). As far as I know, those events aren't closed to the public, but they are there to try and attract certain niche audiences out of the greater Live user base. So the process has already started of segmenting the user base into niche groups, and creating content/events just for them.

But, under the existing ToS, what would happen the first time that GayGamer.com or Lesbiangamer.com wanted to sponsor an event? Seems that it would be impossible, even though both are legitimate gaming news portals on the web.

I wish they'd me an option to check a box so people under 18 don't come into my games and vice versa. Sure some will get around it but will weed out many.

WOW so MS is caving to GLAAD & GLBT man political curretnist is running even on XBOX LIVE i would never cater to group's like those

I think the real issue here is that the girl got banned from Xbox Live without warning. Everyone's got a right to their own opinions about things but I do believe MS acted hastily and thoughtlessly in this matter.

Frankly I agree with Stix Remix. Whether you're straight or gay why advertise it? Who's business should it be besides your own? You are who you are! Why do you need to label yourself? Everyone should learn tolerance but there is no foolproof way of doing that I'm afraid. There will always be some dummies in the world who aren't with the times or have enough intelligence to think before they speak. Unfortunately that's just the way the world works. While it is good to be comfortable and proud of who you are as an individual I also believe that doesn't mean beating it down other people's heads everywhere you go..

GLAAD? Will there be cake?

I got really excited when I first read the title thinking they had a talk with GLAADos

Why do gays have to say they are gay? That's what i've always wanted to know.

Because they want people to care.

Listen, I don't have anything against those who are homosexual, but I think this is kind of ridiculous.

Can you think of one legitimate reason why you would need to state your sexual preference in a game over an internet service?

"Boy I'm so glad I'm straight. Yep so, so, so straight."

"Can you think of one legitimate reason why you would need to state your sexual preference in a game over an internet service?"

Um, because it's a social network?

People get to know the people they play with: they say where they're from, what they do for a living (or where they go to school), how old they are, and many other personal details. People share their beliefs, their politics, whatever they think defines who they are. And for a lot of folks, the people they date or marry help define who they are. If I'm getting to know someone I play with online, my girlfriend might come up -- do I need to avoid discussing her because it will acknowledge that I'm straight?

Bob nailed it. If you're discussing any aspect of your personal life while playing or in your bio, it could very naturally lead into revealing whether you are straight or gay by mentioning a wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, etc. Their policy was short sighted and poorly thought out.

Yo, everyone, listen up:

I'm straight!

That is all.

I respect Bob's logic...but in that sense, trying to find people of like dispositions and orientations is, in itself, segregation. If you're telling people that you're gay/straight because you want to be friends with mainly gay/straight people, then hey...that's segregation.

I suppose the point of my rant is that no matter what MSFT does, no one will be 100% happy. It's good that they're trying to show sensitivity towards touchy subjects...but in agreement with other posters here, I don't really think gaming should HAVE to be a social networking tool...sure, it works well as one, but I go online to play with/against other people and have fun GAMING, not learning about whether you like the same ice cream or whether you love women in the way that I do. All of that should not be the focus of online gaming (in my opinion), but I suppose for many people that is where it's headed.

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Microsoft talks to GLAAD about GLBT policy issues

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