World Of Warcraft Now Blocks Any Censored Messages From Sending
Over the years, Activision, and their developing branch Blizzard, have come under fire for the use of their profanity filter.
Last year, Activision was put under pressure to rectify their profanity filter in Call of Duty, where it has been known for letting many slurs through the net. Amid the protests led by the Black Lives Matter campaign, the developers released a statement apologising for their lackadaisical approach, before implementing a much more thorough system which resulted in a huge wave of bans.
It now appears that the tech giants have spread this effort to other titles, including the MMORPG World of Warcraft. Having previously had a satisfactory filter that asterisked any explicit or harmful words, slurs, or signs, Blizzard has now doubled their efforts by blocking any message that has an explicit word in, rather than adding in a couple of easily decrypted stars.
As shown by Wowhead, the chat moderation will now send a notification saying "Unable to send chat to *insert player name* because your message contained reserved words", should someone use a banned utterance.
Click to enlargeCurrently, the modifications to the profanity filter only applies to messages sent from within World of Warcraft. WoW players can send messages through a third party messenger on Battle.net, which appear in the chatbox in-game. The message blockers have yet to thwart full messages from Battle.net, although the standard stars will remove certain words.
WoW is set to receive a clever in-game feature that allows in-game messages to be read aloud, almost like me pretending to be fancy by having Siri voice my chats in the car - it's all fun and games until your ex gives you an earful with your mum sat in the passenger seat. The new modifications may be tied into this, meaning no explicit messages filter through to be voiced in gamers' offices, caves, bedrooms, or lounges. Either way, credit to Activision for stepping up the fight against the mouldy internet trolls.
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Image via Activision Blizzard
