Microsoft released its Community Standards for Xbox, and part of the document is the company’s attempt on dialing back trash talk on Xbox Live.
Under the “Keep your content clean” section of the new community standards for Xbox Live, players are advised to “know the difference between trash talk and harassment.” Microsoft admitted that competitive multiplayer action may result in a little trash talk between players, but it laid down the law that “hate has no place” in Xbox Live, and that it is no longer acceptable when trash talk becomes harassment.
For Microsoft, acceptable trash talk includes “get wrecked,” calling out opponents for “serious potato aim” and a “cheap win,” and “get good.”
Microsoft draws the line against trash talk when it becomes “personalized, disruptive, or likely to make someone feel unwelcome or unsafe.” These include sexual threats, profanities, KYS (kill yourself), and racial slurs.
“Know and respect the other player,” Microsoft said in its community standards, a simple rule that will improve the online gaming scene but is unfortunately not followed by everyone.
The Community Standards for Xbox includes several other rules that aim to prevent unwanted behavior in the Xbox Live community, including repetitively sending messages to others without their consent, flooding voice chat with music, pretending to be a Microsoft employee or game developer, using cheating software and unauthorized hardware, and engaging in doxing.
Microsoft said that violating the community standards will lead to temporary Xbox Live account suspensions that may prohibit online multiplayer gaming, block communication, and restrict content sharing, among other things. Repeat or severe offenses, however, may result in permanent suspensions, in which the owner of the account will be forced to forfeit all licenses for games and other content, Gold membership time, and Microsoft account balances.
Microsoft is apparently cleaning up Xbox Live before the arrival of the next generation of Xbox consoles, which will reportedly be revealed at E3 2019. Collectively known as Project Scarlett, it is said that the console will come in two versions codenamed Lockhart and Anaconda. Lockhart will be the cheaper version, and will possibly be disc-less like the Xbox One S All Digital edition to maximize the xCloud game streaming service. Anaconda, meanwhile, will be the more powerful console that will go head to head with the PlayStation 5.
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