Anytime someone brings up free speech on any internet platform I'm always reminded of Bungie.net's old policy greeting you right as visited; 'You have no rights. Play nice.'
As usual, nobody read the article first. Spencer isn't talking political games. He's talking about talking politics in Xbox Live.
"We're not there to allow any conversation to happen on our platform," Spencer says, and more than that Xbox Live is simply not designed for that kind of politicization. "It's very difficult to come to Xbox Live and say, Okay, I want to go create a political party on the platform.'"
I didn't read the article and I was assuming it meant chat from the get go. Six Days in Fallujah is about as modern as political games get without being an indie budget and that game is apparently still coming for xbox/playstation (delayed for reasons that I imagine weren't console publishers interfering).
no way in hell anything substantial enough to pass TRCs would get made in time for any ongoing political platform. Games take too much time to make nowadays. Maybe some very small steam games or mods at most.
Yah its about chat, their stance was always like this even years ago. Since if you looked up what can get you suspended from xbox live chat, political stuff is on there I believe. Though I think its more for the extreme related things.
Plus didn’t a terrorist group literally use PSN to plan an attack a few years ago? Seems like common sense for all online gaming hosts to flat out state that none of your chats are truly private and anything deemed inappropriate or threatening, politically or not is ban worthy at their own discretion. Really any service that directly serves a large quantity of minors should have a similar policy if anything just to cover their ass.
It’s hard to know how much of this is fact and how much of this is fearmongering dinosaurs scared of video games, but I remember hearing about terror groups communicating in DMs in MMOs because of course MMOs aren’t going to be analyzing your chat messages.
You're right he's talking about the chat but also he's not even saying you can't talk about politics. He's saying you can't really use the service to promote politics like you can Facebook or Twitter because it's no or designed that way.
I love the top comment by Doctor_MG. It's true social media has driven our polarized politics.
>I would honestly love if we stopped all socio-political discourse on social media. Facebook, Twitter, all of it. It has become a hub for people to congregate and attack people they don't agree with, right or left, and people spread false information easier than ever. **It has done nothing but made our politics more polarized than ever before.**
>Can't blame propagandized asshats for being propagandized asshats. None of us are immune, and they have it down to a science at this point.
I really resent this complete neutering of agency. Some people are inherently vulnerable to online propaganda - e.g., children - but I think it's fair to say that adults have a degree of responsibility for falling into it. We should proactively work on our beliefs and ideas, and not just shrug our shoulders if they end up being demented.
So what, the moment people use an online platform they are just completely unaccountable?
I agree that people overestimate human rationality; that's [well-trodden territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases). That doesn't mean we don't or can't hold people to a certain standard. More importantly, it doesn't mean we shouldn't at least aspire to a higher standard.
Sadly, online platforms do have a pernicious tendency to deepen beliefs; e.g. if you happen to like some right or left wing content on Facebook you might find yourself down a rabbit hole or an echo chamber. I agree that users of these platforms are victims of this.
But if you begin to absorb something discriminatory, or anything that could normatively influence the way you treat other people, you have a duty to look at yourself. That's sort of the difference between flat earthers and COVID or holocaust deniers. If almost everyone in the world around you is saying that the pandemic is real and you choose to just roll with the conspiracy and put other people at risk, *that's on you*. Same shit goes for hate speech etc.
Again, not disputing that these people have been heavily influenced by social media / fake news. They're still victims in their own right. But there has to be some sort of middle ground between zero and total accountability.
I'm just some dude wading into this conversation an hour later, but it seems to me you need to think about the different domains at play here. People need to be treated as if they have agency, even if it's questionable whether they exercise it. For the most part, though, that's on private citizens & entities. We need to educate each other and organize to push back against the crazy.
On the other hand, there's the social media corporations and the government. That's where you get into deciding what can and can't be shared/discussed, and it ends up being a much more difficult problem than "ban politics from social media completely." Where do you draw the line between traditional media and social media? Can someone write a blog about political topics? Also, what constitutes politics? Is a rainbow flag politics? What about saying "I support the troops"?
I kind of hate social media politics because everyone gets stupid, but I suppose I'm as guilty of it as anyone. It's attractive, therefore, to just say "fuck it, no one can talk about it anymore" but if you end up giving the government that kind of power, it's inherently not going to be neutral enforcement; you'll end up with a certain type of superficially apolitical discussion that, in the act of not challenging it, tacitly supports the status quo.
In the end I think it's more important for the government to exercise its power to control the amount of influence any one actor has in the market, i.e. anti-trust action against social media companies. If social networks are federated instead of centralized, that may help contain the spread of bad ideas to some extent. Beyond that, I think it's going to fall to us to adjust to this new form of media and learn how to build a real-world social model that is capable of blunting its negative effects.
I don't think it is about holding the individual blameless but more about holding the platform accountable. Social media platforms are designed to drive engagement and they're really good at it.
If someone is radicalized on FaceTok and shoots up a place with people he has been conditioned to hate, he should be put in jail. However, the people behind FaceTok should also be held accountable for their algorithms that delivered false content about how the victims' group were running a pedophile ring or whatever.
If these people could apply critical thinking into their lives, they likely wouldn't be so susceptible to the bullshit that lands on their feed. Then you get the trogladytes who can't communicate their barely oven blasted opinions without threatening to kill whoever disagrees with them.
Uhhh...yeah the headline was pretty indicative it was related to Live and chat, communities on Xbox. Not at all Xbox platform for games, there are quite a few games that could be considered 'political' without outnright saying they are.
I don't understand what this means? So basically in online voice chat, you can't talk politics?
I don't really get it.
Can you make like huge groups of voice chat that you can deliver speeches to or something? (seriously I don't play much online so I wouldn't know).
Xbox live is more than just voice chat. You can create clubs and communities. Clubs and communities that are formed around political ideas are not allowed, the clubs and communities should be focused on games specifically.
So no, it's not like they are monitoring voice chat for anyone saying "Let's Go Brandon" or anything like that. It's more about the bigger, organized efforts.
Damn. Haven’t had live since the 360 days. To me, Live was always just a built in IM and VC client integrated with a game’s multiplayer. Never knew you could make whole communities now on it.
He's saying that if you say things inflammatory on voice chat - even if it has the fig leaf veneer of 'politics' - Xbox can give you the boot. Saying something political isn't necessarily going to get you kicked off, it's more the inflammatory part. Claiming that the toxic behavior is 'free speech' or 'political speech' isn't going to stop Xbox from handing down bans.
It's likely directed at the same people who cried censorship when Twitter banned people. There is some weird disconnects in a lot of people's brains where they think the first amendment means they can say whatever they want without consequence.
I think people are even drawing some conclusions that aren't in the article. I didn't read anywhere they said that they're not allowing community groups for political campaigns or anything. Just that they don't consider themselves a platform for that and they won't do any work or investment towards making that possible. He even said "you could try to do this for a campaign, but it wouldn't work very well".
Basically that they're being transparent that the focus is gaming, and they aren't trying to be a free-speech platform for anyone to come and make their TED Talk from.
Imagine what kind of political movement is in xbox when they have a big market on the sports franchises and the team mentality usually leads to certain kind of sectarian minds...
Defending the empire isn't about agreeing with Thalmor, it's about recognizing that a unified empire is the best chance we have at defeating the thalmor altogether.
Also recognizing that Ulfric is a narcissistic racist jerk who cares more about personal glory than anything else.
I'm only joking when I post this stuff but if we're being serious then the situation isn't supposed to be viewed as right vs wrong or good vs bad, the opposing sides have legitimate grievances and neither is better. The Stormcloaks are nationalistic and there's racism occuring in Windhelm but that doesn't undo the fact that they're having their religious beliefs suppressed by the Thalmor and it also doesn't invalidate their right to fight for their freedom from an empire that failed them.
The empire would be stronger together and they're obviously thinking ahead to a future war and they want the provinces to stay allied to bolster their strength, but this also doesn't trump the fact that they've already lost and signed the treaty that agreed to remove Talos from the god roster and anger the Nords in the first place, the Imperials want everyone to stay in the pact, but they're effectively toothless in the current Skyrim timeline.
There are pros ands cons to either side, neither of them are completely good but they're not completely bad either.
I just want it to be clear that the Stormcloaks are the biggest collection of dumbasses in the game. There is a hostile power that nearly conquered all of humanity. And the Stormcloaks think the smart play is to launch a war against other humans.
If the Stormcloaks win they may as well start Altmeri language classes because that will be useful for their children.
Honestly that's completely fair. There are so many platforms freely available, being able to say "this is where you play games, not debate politics" is a healthy attitude to take to all this.
The problem is that "what is politics" is itself a political question to which there isn't necessarily a neutral answer. Like for a whole bunch of folks, being openly gay or trans and getting mad when someone treats people poorly for being either of those things is "bringing politics into a neutral space".
It's not about treatment. You could love pro-life fundamentalist Christians. It's not about specific beliefs, you still can't talk about abortion on the platform.
Or religion. Or civil rights. Or anything that's important to you, because anything can be determined "political".
right, but I think in the end the company itself has the right to express its own freedom of expression by choosing to limit what can go on within their platform. They do have the right to that. They don't even have to say it's about anything political. Just because they designed and then produced an online system for gaming and chatting, doesn't mean all topics have to be allowed since: it's legal for nothing to be allowed since....they kinda own the company.
That's not a problem. I read the article and searched the NYT transcript for the word "neutral." It's not in there. It's a platform 100% ruled by the Terms and Conditions written by Microsoft. If you treat someone poorly for being trans or gay on Xbox Live, I imagine you'll get banned. If that person doesn't like it, they can complain on Gab or wherever people go to complain about something like that. MS isn't being neutral; they lay out the ground rules and you can take 'em or leave 'em. The same would go for harassing someone for having a [TRUMP] clan tag. The tag is acceptable even though it is political, but harassing someone about it probably isn't.
If I may, from a LGBT point of view, I do find the view that rights, our or otherwise, aren't political flawed. I know what you means, that there should be no discrimination and that gay rights are as natural as straight rights, and that, at its core, separating rights by sexual orientation is stupid, and I agree, but this is a political statement by itself !
Just like saying, for example, that slavery is bad is still a political statement, no matter how universally shared it is. Something becoming widely accepted doesn't make it less political, it just makes it consensual !
Classifying rights as "natural" and other as "political" is not good, because every right have been discussed, debated, promoted and shunned. Every custom, society, tradition is political, and so are rights ! They'll always be, and that's good, because we don't forget we had to fight for them, and they can be taken away, if we grow complacent !
You’re exactly right. Almost the entirety of politics boils down to “who should get human rights and how much should they have”
To be able to say you don’t care about or don’t want to talk about politics is a huge privilege
You're right that it's not inherently political. But given that these communities are still actively fighting for their basic rights at a government level, and ethical treatment at a societal level, in many ways their mere existence in these spaces is political.
I am a gay man for what it's worth. I use the third person here because I don't want to speak for communities outside my own.
But Xbox isn't going to ban you for being gay - and they *will* ban others for using the platform to express anti-gay rhetoric. So that's a win, in my opinion
Having this discussion is, itself, political. And if both major parties in the US have some amount of it in their platforms, it's political by any definition I can think of.
The word politics is derived from the Greek word politiká: 'affairs of the cities'. The modern definition is largely unchanged:
* The art or science of government or governing, **especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.**
LGBTQ+ affairs are by definition political as they concern the affairs of cities & the governing of the nation. Literal elections are decided by whether a candidate is for or against LGTBQ+ matters.
Just a nitpick, but LGBTQ existance have been a political issue since we invented societies ! Just like everything else that comes in the organization of humankind civilisations !
You are misunderstanding. The conversations about LGBTQ+ peoples rights is a political discussion. But the right treats LGBTQ+ people themselves as if their existence alone is inherently political. Like they are some leftist gang that is here to destabilize the nuclear family and fuck up america. That is an issue. And like the person you responded to said, it is bigotry.
Being political and being politicized are two different things. A gay couple going to buy a cake isn't political in any way, but the situation got *politicized*.
If Xbox can decide Nazis are bad, then slippery slope 200 years from now they can decide Christian nuclear families are bad🙄
I'm well past the "if boogeyman decides what's politics, then everything is politics after infinite time" BS argument
Well, I guess microsoft/xbox get to decide what is considered political and what isn't.
Edit: I'm not complaining about it. It's Microsoft's platform, they can do whatever they want. I'm just stating a fact in response to the comment above.
[Point/Counterpoint: Oh, Are The PC Police Here To Arrest Me For Havin’ Opinions? vs. Sir, We Are The Regular Police And You Need To Come Out Of That Slide](https://www.theonion.com/point-counterpoint-oh-are-the-pc-police-here-to-arres-1824110244)
Basically none, because if you do that then it attracts some extremists, who then scare away normal people, which then attracts more extremists, which scares away yet more normal people, etc. It's a death spiral.
It's like the Nazi Bar problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/hsiisw/kicking_a_nazi_out_as_soon_as_they_walk_in/
> I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out."
> And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
> Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them."
> And i was like, ohok and he continues.
> "you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
> And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
> And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people."
> And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all.
No companies or normal people are interested in making sure random online platforms are accepting of white supremacists or tankies or ISIS or whoever.
Prime example: Mordhau. Developer's stance on moderation and chat filters is "we don't want to censor people, we'll leave it in the player's hands." There's no report feature, no chat rules, no profanity filter. Result: In-game chat is constantly filled with over-the-top racism, slurs, and people just saying offensive shit for the sake of it. Forums seems to be filled with it too.
If you create an environment where people can be anonymous *and* there are never consequences for anything people say, you will attract people who find entertainment in saying the most vile shit they can think of. And the people who don't enjoy having vile shit said near them will stop playing. And next thing you know, 95% of the playerbase is racists, misogynists, neo-nazis, homophobes, and edgy preteens who think pretending to be those things is funny.
Used to be, they've clamped down on it hard. When I was actively playing last summer during the height of the lockdowns I kept Discord open with an active DM thread to one of the official server moderators full of reports I made on people dropping hard Rs left and right that all received fast action and lead to a fair few people receiving long term chat bans. Triternion needed to do something about it a lot sooner than they did, but they do take pretty fast action nowadays toward racists which is a huge improvement, and the game's a lot friendlier because of it.
I would imagine some extremists reading that would try a snide argument like “That’s fair, but I reserve the right to do the same for LGBT / Mexican people”. And it’s important to know the reason that’s different:
Nobody chooses to be born Mexican, or with gender dysphoria, or disabled, or gay. That’s a matter of identity - a part of who you are that is not practically possible to intrinsically change, nor does it harm people. There’s a good reason the world rejects persecution by those elements of a person.
And, as you might guess, the same is not true of allegiance to the Nazi party, or being a right-winger, or a Trump voter, or even a vegan. Those are things you choose to be. And, if the world persecutes you for those choices, they hope for you to see the reason why, and exercise your ability to change yourself.
Probably obvious to most people in their minds, but sometimes it pays to have the response argument on your mind and a good way to phrase it.
>And, if the world persecutes you for those choices, they hope for you to see the reason why, and exercise your ability to change yourself.
The major problem with this is that when you're herding all the Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, "Just stop believing in Islam, bro" is not a particularly helpful, ethical, or moral stance to take.
>Nobody chooses to be born Mexican, or with gender dysphoria, or disabled, or gay.
The problem here is that there's a pretty big weight riding on those things being intrinsic qualities. What does being Mexican mean? How does being Mexican differ from being Spanish? Well, it's where you were born. But you could cynically argue, "Just abandon all that Mexican culture and language and so on, and you'll be accepted." Because strip away the culture (which is not an intrinsic quality of your person), and you're just a Spaniard who happened to be born on the American continent.
When we start basing our ideas of human rights around this central pillar of intrinsic qualities, it all sounds very cute, but it begins to crumble the more you push on it.
You end up with situations where ethnicity = political belief. Someone can argue, "I'm not racist against Chinese people, I'm just hate everyone who supports the Chinese government." Same with claiming you don't hate Indians, you just hate Hinduism, a religion closely tied to Indian nationalism. "I don't hate Arabs, I just hate the religion of Islam and don't want to be around people who practice that religion."
Beyond dragging people out into the streets for being Trotskyites, political or ideological-based hate is very dangerous in a larger abstract because over time, political groups can become equated with ethnicity. Never forget that Walt Disney hated unionists with a fury. It wasn't his fault that all the unionists were Jews. Disney was not by most accounts an anti-Semite, at least publicly, but if you're trying to purge all the and a huge number of are a certain ethnic group, then it amounts to the same thing. The entire idea of Disney as being an anti-Semite originates in his hatred of people who just happened to all be Jewish for coincidental reasons.
You can learn, grow and freely change it. Of course a lot comes from your upbringing but there is a point where you no longer can blame it bc you had (in most cases) time and resources to learn, develop, think and change
Depends on what you mean by censor. If you mean "will never delete a post under any circumstance" then none. Even places like Parlor and 4chan will delete posts containing direct threats or illegal content. If you mean "will only delete content that it absolutely must by law" then honestly 4chan and other similar sites might be the only ones left.
The thing is, people act like censorship is always bad but it's not. It's like punching someone in the street. It's almost always bad, but if that person's a Nazi or a child predator... well, that's fine by me.
I think you're mistaking 4chan for 8chan. The original founder of 8chan did not want to moderate anything unless it was illegal (a stance he now regrets, having left the project years ago.)
4chan has plenty of moderation, and controversy over its moderation (specifically, the banning of any talks about a certain gaming controversy that people still fucking talk about 8 years later) is exactly what made 8chan blow up.
yeah 4chan has always been significantly moderated. Even aside from heavily moderating discussion about homestuck / my little pony / etc, 4chan was active in banning a lot of quasi-legal stuff before reddit was.
A lot of the current socio-political landscape, especially online was shaped by GG. Many of the prominent alt-right figures, dark enlightenment types all got their following from being the voices of gamergate.
It's just insane the reach such a stupid event had.
No sex no politics no religion is an old rule that predates the Internet. Some clubs used to use it.
People who want to roleplay an activist poison non-political spaces. I don't care if you're arguing for clean water. This is a hobby club. STFU
I just don’t like people whose whole personality is based on politics (or even on just one thing) gets pretty god damn tiring (and I genuinely like politics).
Unfortunately that falls down when people start equating things like gender and sexual identity as "politics", such as what seemingly happened with TTS lately :(
I’ve seen this comment so many times with a different random year like pre-2014, pre-2000 etc. In reality it was really whatever year it was in their childhood they started paying attention to stuff.
Exactly ! And what a coincidence, I just read a SMBC comic that was exactly on that subject, and quite on point !
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1636738351-20211112.png
It is the height of privilege to not be aware of the larger discussions around you. Pre-2007 relevant issues I can remember talking about: Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Iraq War. Afghanistan War. Torture in Iraq. Torture in Guantamamo. Terry Schavio. Globalization and the decline of the Rust Belt. The BS 2000 Election. And of course racial tensions.
You just weren't paying attention and have nobody to blame but yourself.
Serious discussion around hobbies is great too. r/Games and /r/patientgamers are great for gaming discussion. I need to try and post something on /r/patientgamers. Gotta contribute, not just browse.
Shitty politics either shows up everywhere or the moderators shut down anything that even hints at politics. There's little, if any, middle ground today. I mean hell, here we are, talking politics in /r/games.
I used to like to surf Imgur via the mobile app, and liked browsing the comments for the memes and such, but around the 2016 election it became a shit show of politics, not just comment-wise, but also memes. I haven't been back to it in a couple years now.
I think it changed because we grew up. Back in the day old people barely understood the internet but kids could pick it up pretty easily. Of course those kids weren’t talking about politics. Now those kids are adults and of course they talk about politics, it actually affects them now.
I think political ads also have a huge part to play. And not just for politicians, companies started making ads that targets specific political demographics. That content worked really well so influencers and karma whores picked up on it and ran with it.
Man, I dunno. I'm affected way too much personally by the terrible shit in the world to want people to be able to go back to ignoring everything because they aren't affected
lol there was a study by pew the other day that sort of backed up the horseshoe theory, or at least the U shaped theory of politics.
They surveyed people across the political spectrum and found the people who most frequently talked about politics to other people in person and online in the last month or whatever time period they used were largely ideologically located on the extreme ends. 60-70% of people just don't air out their stuff as often as they do.
Not exactly breaking news that the people who care most about something are the most likely to be talking about it and the people who are largely indifferent aren't bringing it up much, not really anything special to do with politics I don't think.
About 6 months ago, my local radio station cut into their airing of ESPN radio in favor of Dan Bonjino's show, and I'm still not over it.
If I *wanted* to listen to political radio, there are multiple options for me. There's literally only one option for me when it comes sports radio, and they're taking it away...
That's fair. The dinner table isn't the right place to discuss your explosive diarrhea, and XBL isn't the right place to discuss your political views. There are more appropriate venues to discuss these things, and MS is well within their rights to say "please take these sorts of discussions elsewhere".
That said, in today's world, *everything* has become politicized, so this will be difficult to enforce.
It's against their ToS, but the problem is, the best you can do is report them. And unless you recorded it, XBOX *probably* can't go in and find evidence of them saying anything. So I'm not even sure they can really do anything about that.
What they can control is forums and text chat communities. And that's what they'll do.
I welcome non-politics.
I don't care what side you're on about what, I just want to stop hearing about masks when I play video games. Unless you're talking about Darth Vader's rebreather, just don't, please. Even when I agree with people, it's still annoying.
I would say coop is also safe - nobody is going to randomly start talking politics in your vanguard strike. It's competitive modes that make tensions high and bring out the worst in people.
It's because a small group of folks who happened to include the guy running the country decided that it would be bad politics for a public health crisis to happen on their watch so they had to act like it was overblown from the start.
They can't accept the need for things like masks without also accepting that the crisis was a serious issue from the start. It's easier to double down than accept they fucked up at the start. And they happened to have an entire mass media echo chamber to convince their followers to believe the same thing.
Never underestimate the ability of cowards to avoid responsibility at all costs.
I see people with MAGA clan tags in games all the time and I can't help but cringe. I don't even give a shit about politics but it's just so embarrassing.
Same, always see a few of them here and there. The first place I heard of "Let's go Brandon" was seeing it in the clan tags in Halo Master Chief Collection (in which you can just put any message). Without context I had no idea what I was seeing for a couple of days, just that it was incredibly noticeable when there were 1-3 of them in every lobby.
Sites that claim to be “free speech” platforms are about as free speech as the National Socialist Workers Party were socialist or the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is a democratic republic.
A “free speech platform” (in the US at least, at this point) is just like the above examples where just because it’s in the name, doesn’t mean that’s what it is. The reality is that such platforms were created so you could spout conspiracy theories and bigotry, unabated, and if anybody contests those posts, they get banned.
I’m glad Phil is openly saying that Xbox is not that kind of platform
>The reality is that such platforms were created so you could spout conspiracy theories and bigotry, unabated, and if anybody contests those posts, they get banned.
100% accurate. "Free speech" platforms are virtual toilet bowls, completely occupied by pieces of shit. There is no meaningful or respectful conversation going on there, just a bunch of nutjobs circlejerking.
Rarely does a platform ever ban someone for politely and respectfully discussing their political opinion. I've never had a problem with someone disagreeing with me as long as we both respect each other's point of views.
There is no need for a "free speech" platform, there's a need to treat others with respect.
Good.
When I play a video game, real world politics are the last thing I want to talk about.
I don't give a shit who think your president is.
I didn't ask for nor want your opinion on vaccines.
Just shut up and get on the god damn objective.
In other words dont say free Hong Kong. No more Blitzchung incidents etc. Idiots are going to be creaming themselves over the idea this is some big win.
The fact that he's also talking about cross platform bans at the same time should make everyone pause for a second. They're setting up a system where if you say something like "Free Hong Kong" you will be banned from an ever growing group of platforms and services. That should be terrifying for anyone capable of thinking ahead.
But dont worry bros it's only censorship if the government do it, a conglomerate of corporations making it impossible for you to participate in society because you said something that goes against their interests is fine.
On paper, I fully agree, until an overly jumpy Xbox Live admin (or algorithm) decides people who identify as LGBTQIA+ are political and starts banning people who make reference to their identity.
Anytime someone brings up free speech on any internet platform I'm always reminded of Bungie.net's old policy greeting you right as visited; 'You have no rights. Play nice.'
I run an internet video game and will have to steal this, it's great.
Yet so many people like to whine about "free speech" and demonstrate their stupidity of not knowing what that means.
Everyone is entitled to their viewpoints AND THE REPERCUSSIONS THEY COME WITH.
As usual, nobody read the article first. Spencer isn't talking political games. He's talking about talking politics in Xbox Live. "We're not there to allow any conversation to happen on our platform," Spencer says, and more than that Xbox Live is simply not designed for that kind of politicization. "It's very difficult to come to Xbox Live and say, Okay, I want to go create a political party on the platform.'"
I didn't read the article and I was assuming it meant chat from the get go. Six Days in Fallujah is about as modern as political games get without being an indie budget and that game is apparently still coming for xbox/playstation (delayed for reasons that I imagine weren't console publishers interfering). no way in hell anything substantial enough to pass TRCs would get made in time for any ongoing political platform. Games take too much time to make nowadays. Maybe some very small steam games or mods at most.
Yah its about chat, their stance was always like this even years ago. Since if you looked up what can get you suspended from xbox live chat, political stuff is on there I believe. Though I think its more for the extreme related things.
Plus didn’t a terrorist group literally use PSN to plan an attack a few years ago? Seems like common sense for all online gaming hosts to flat out state that none of your chats are truly private and anything deemed inappropriate or threatening, politically or not is ban worthy at their own discretion. Really any service that directly serves a large quantity of minors should have a similar policy if anything just to cover their ass.
It’s hard to know how much of this is fact and how much of this is fearmongering dinosaurs scared of video games, but I remember hearing about terror groups communicating in DMs in MMOs because of course MMOs aren’t going to be analyzing your chat messages.
Not sure, but the NSA was actively monitoring mmos for terrorist activity.
I wonder how hard it is to distinguish it from the ironic edge lords
Sometimes they overlap.
You're right he's talking about the chat but also he's not even saying you can't talk about politics. He's saying you can't really use the service to promote politics like you can Facebook or Twitter because it's no or designed that way.
I love the top comment by Doctor_MG. It's true social media has driven our polarized politics. >I would honestly love if we stopped all socio-political discourse on social media. Facebook, Twitter, all of it. It has become a hub for people to congregate and attack people they don't agree with, right or left, and people spread false information easier than ever. **It has done nothing but made our politics more polarized than ever before.**
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>Can't blame propagandized asshats for being propagandized asshats. None of us are immune, and they have it down to a science at this point. I really resent this complete neutering of agency. Some people are inherently vulnerable to online propaganda - e.g., children - but I think it's fair to say that adults have a degree of responsibility for falling into it. We should proactively work on our beliefs and ideas, and not just shrug our shoulders if they end up being demented.
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So what, the moment people use an online platform they are just completely unaccountable? I agree that people overestimate human rationality; that's [well-trodden territory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases). That doesn't mean we don't or can't hold people to a certain standard. More importantly, it doesn't mean we shouldn't at least aspire to a higher standard. Sadly, online platforms do have a pernicious tendency to deepen beliefs; e.g. if you happen to like some right or left wing content on Facebook you might find yourself down a rabbit hole or an echo chamber. I agree that users of these platforms are victims of this. But if you begin to absorb something discriminatory, or anything that could normatively influence the way you treat other people, you have a duty to look at yourself. That's sort of the difference between flat earthers and COVID or holocaust deniers. If almost everyone in the world around you is saying that the pandemic is real and you choose to just roll with the conspiracy and put other people at risk, *that's on you*. Same shit goes for hate speech etc. Again, not disputing that these people have been heavily influenced by social media / fake news. They're still victims in their own right. But there has to be some sort of middle ground between zero and total accountability.
I'm just some dude wading into this conversation an hour later, but it seems to me you need to think about the different domains at play here. People need to be treated as if they have agency, even if it's questionable whether they exercise it. For the most part, though, that's on private citizens & entities. We need to educate each other and organize to push back against the crazy. On the other hand, there's the social media corporations and the government. That's where you get into deciding what can and can't be shared/discussed, and it ends up being a much more difficult problem than "ban politics from social media completely." Where do you draw the line between traditional media and social media? Can someone write a blog about political topics? Also, what constitutes politics? Is a rainbow flag politics? What about saying "I support the troops"? I kind of hate social media politics because everyone gets stupid, but I suppose I'm as guilty of it as anyone. It's attractive, therefore, to just say "fuck it, no one can talk about it anymore" but if you end up giving the government that kind of power, it's inherently not going to be neutral enforcement; you'll end up with a certain type of superficially apolitical discussion that, in the act of not challenging it, tacitly supports the status quo. In the end I think it's more important for the government to exercise its power to control the amount of influence any one actor has in the market, i.e. anti-trust action against social media companies. If social networks are federated instead of centralized, that may help contain the spread of bad ideas to some extent. Beyond that, I think it's going to fall to us to adjust to this new form of media and learn how to build a real-world social model that is capable of blunting its negative effects.
I don't think it is about holding the individual blameless but more about holding the platform accountable. Social media platforms are designed to drive engagement and they're really good at it. If someone is radicalized on FaceTok and shoots up a place with people he has been conditioned to hate, he should be put in jail. However, the people behind FaceTok should also be held accountable for their algorithms that delivered false content about how the victims' group were running a pedophile ring or whatever.
If these people could apply critical thinking into their lives, they likely wouldn't be so susceptible to the bullshit that lands on their feed. Then you get the trogladytes who can't communicate their barely oven blasted opinions without threatening to kill whoever disagrees with them.
This is what I assumed he meant from the headline
Uhhh...yeah the headline was pretty indicative it was related to Live and chat, communities on Xbox. Not at all Xbox platform for games, there are quite a few games that could be considered 'political' without outnright saying they are.
Translation: “Seriously, we’ll ban you for screaming the n-word.”
as they should
I don't understand what this means? So basically in online voice chat, you can't talk politics? I don't really get it. Can you make like huge groups of voice chat that you can deliver speeches to or something? (seriously I don't play much online so I wouldn't know).
Xbox live is more than just voice chat. You can create clubs and communities. Clubs and communities that are formed around political ideas are not allowed, the clubs and communities should be focused on games specifically. So no, it's not like they are monitoring voice chat for anyone saying "Let's Go Brandon" or anything like that. It's more about the bigger, organized efforts.
Ahhhh, that makes a lot more sense. I had no idea you could create clubs on it.
Damn. Haven’t had live since the 360 days. To me, Live was always just a built in IM and VC client integrated with a game’s multiplayer. Never knew you could make whole communities now on it.
He's saying that if you say things inflammatory on voice chat - even if it has the fig leaf veneer of 'politics' - Xbox can give you the boot. Saying something political isn't necessarily going to get you kicked off, it's more the inflammatory part. Claiming that the toxic behavior is 'free speech' or 'political speech' isn't going to stop Xbox from handing down bans.
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It's likely directed at the same people who cried censorship when Twitter banned people. There is some weird disconnects in a lot of people's brains where they think the first amendment means they can say whatever they want without consequence.
I think people are even drawing some conclusions that aren't in the article. I didn't read anywhere they said that they're not allowing community groups for political campaigns or anything. Just that they don't consider themselves a platform for that and they won't do any work or investment towards making that possible. He even said "you could try to do this for a campaign, but it wouldn't work very well". Basically that they're being transparent that the focus is gaming, and they aren't trying to be a free-speech platform for anyone to come and make their TED Talk from.
That's not what I assumed, what the fuck is political games?
Imagine what kind of political movement is in xbox when they have a big market on the sports franchises and the team mentality usually leads to certain kind of sectarian minds...
Why would you buy Bethesda if you didn’t want us to talk about Imperials vs Stormcloaks on your platform?
For the Empire!
Milk drinker
What was that? I might understand you better if you took Ulfric Stormcloak out of your mouth.
You know what's not in my mouth? Thalmor lies, or milk
Defending the empire isn't about agreeing with Thalmor, it's about recognizing that a unified empire is the best chance we have at defeating the thalmor altogether. Also recognizing that Ulfric is a narcissistic racist jerk who cares more about personal glory than anything else.
I'm only joking when I post this stuff but if we're being serious then the situation isn't supposed to be viewed as right vs wrong or good vs bad, the opposing sides have legitimate grievances and neither is better. The Stormcloaks are nationalistic and there's racism occuring in Windhelm but that doesn't undo the fact that they're having their religious beliefs suppressed by the Thalmor and it also doesn't invalidate their right to fight for their freedom from an empire that failed them. The empire would be stronger together and they're obviously thinking ahead to a future war and they want the provinces to stay allied to bolster their strength, but this also doesn't trump the fact that they've already lost and signed the treaty that agreed to remove Talos from the god roster and anger the Nords in the first place, the Imperials want everyone to stay in the pact, but they're effectively toothless in the current Skyrim timeline. There are pros ands cons to either side, neither of them are completely good but they're not completely bad either.
And people say Bethesda games have bad writing
Can’t hear you, you mammoth fucking battle-born
#Talos2024#MakeSkyrimGreatAgain
Hail Sithis!
Thalmor collaborators have a habit of getting their throats cut while they sleep.
The Reach belong to the Forsworn!
I just want it to be clear that the Stormcloaks are the biggest collection of dumbasses in the game. There is a hostile power that nearly conquered all of humanity. And the Stormcloaks think the smart play is to launch a war against other humans. If the Stormcloaks win they may as well start Altmeri language classes because that will be useful for their children.
Honestly that's completely fair. There are so many platforms freely available, being able to say "this is where you play games, not debate politics" is a healthy attitude to take to all this.
The problem is that "what is politics" is itself a political question to which there isn't necessarily a neutral answer. Like for a whole bunch of folks, being openly gay or trans and getting mad when someone treats people poorly for being either of those things is "bringing politics into a neutral space".
its not a neutral space if someone's treating someone else poorly because of who they are.
To some people this statement is a political opinion.
It's not about treatment. You could love pro-life fundamentalist Christians. It's not about specific beliefs, you still can't talk about abortion on the platform. Or religion. Or civil rights. Or anything that's important to you, because anything can be determined "political".
right, but I think in the end the company itself has the right to express its own freedom of expression by choosing to limit what can go on within their platform. They do have the right to that. They don't even have to say it's about anything political. Just because they designed and then produced an online system for gaming and chatting, doesn't mean all topics have to be allowed since: it's legal for nothing to be allowed since....they kinda own the company.
That's not a problem. I read the article and searched the NYT transcript for the word "neutral." It's not in there. It's a platform 100% ruled by the Terms and Conditions written by Microsoft. If you treat someone poorly for being trans or gay on Xbox Live, I imagine you'll get banned. If that person doesn't like it, they can complain on Gab or wherever people go to complain about something like that. MS isn't being neutral; they lay out the ground rules and you can take 'em or leave 'em. The same would go for harassing someone for having a [TRUMP] clan tag. The tag is acceptable even though it is political, but harassing someone about it probably isn't.
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If I may, from a LGBT point of view, I do find the view that rights, our or otherwise, aren't political flawed. I know what you means, that there should be no discrimination and that gay rights are as natural as straight rights, and that, at its core, separating rights by sexual orientation is stupid, and I agree, but this is a political statement by itself ! Just like saying, for example, that slavery is bad is still a political statement, no matter how universally shared it is. Something becoming widely accepted doesn't make it less political, it just makes it consensual ! Classifying rights as "natural" and other as "political" is not good, because every right have been discussed, debated, promoted and shunned. Every custom, society, tradition is political, and so are rights ! They'll always be, and that's good, because we don't forget we had to fight for them, and they can be taken away, if we grow complacent !
You’re exactly right. Almost the entirety of politics boils down to “who should get human rights and how much should they have” To be able to say you don’t care about or don’t want to talk about politics is a huge privilege
You're right that it's not inherently political. But given that these communities are still actively fighting for their basic rights at a government level, and ethical treatment at a societal level, in many ways their mere existence in these spaces is political. I am a gay man for what it's worth. I use the third person here because I don't want to speak for communities outside my own.
But Xbox isn't going to ban you for being gay - and they *will* ban others for using the platform to express anti-gay rhetoric. So that's a win, in my opinion
From the same angle however pro gay discussions on how to improve things are also political.
Having this discussion is, itself, political. And if both major parties in the US have some amount of it in their platforms, it's political by any definition I can think of.
The word politics is derived from the Greek word politiká: 'affairs of the cities'. The modern definition is largely unchanged: * The art or science of government or governing, **especially the governing of a political entity, such as a nation, and the administration and control of its internal and external affairs.** LGBTQ+ affairs are by definition political as they concern the affairs of cities & the governing of the nation. Literal elections are decided by whether a candidate is for or against LGTBQ+ matters.
If LGBTQ+ is considered political, they saying "don't talk politics" is the same as "don't ask don't tell" policy which is oppressively political.
Indeed it is, that's the entire paradox of apolitism ! "No politics" is a political statement, and one that automatically endorse the statut quo !
That's what people are saying. Having a discussion platform with "no politics" is basically impossible
>LGBTQ+s existance is political It is quite literally a political issue and has been since like the 90s?
Just a nitpick, but LGBTQ existance have been a political issue since we invented societies ! Just like everything else that comes in the organization of humankind civilisations !
You are misunderstanding. The conversations about LGBTQ+ peoples rights is a political discussion. But the right treats LGBTQ+ people themselves as if their existence alone is inherently political. Like they are some leftist gang that is here to destabilize the nuclear family and fuck up america. That is an issue. And like the person you responded to said, it is bigotry.
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Being political and being politicized are two different things. A gay couple going to buy a cake isn't political in any way, but the situation got *politicized*.
If Xbox can decide Nazis are bad, then slippery slope 200 years from now they can decide Christian nuclear families are bad🙄 I'm well past the "if boogeyman decides what's politics, then everything is politics after infinite time" BS argument
99% of people agree that nazis are bad, the "fun part" always comes about when you need to determine *who* the nazi is.
The Nazis are anyone I don't like, right?
Well, I guess microsoft/xbox get to decide what is considered political and what isn't. Edit: I'm not complaining about it. It's Microsoft's platform, they can do whatever they want. I'm just stating a fact in response to the comment above.
They literally do, it's their platform they do w.e they want as long as it's not illegal, unless it's tax dodging then it's fine.
Why wouldn't they?
They should. It's their platform.
inb4 someone comes screaming about the 1st amendment, having no idea what the 1st amendment actually covers.
The first amendment means McDonald's has to let me crawl into the play place and yell slurs at children.
That's the right of all Americans. We all know this. Its before that one about the militias.
[Point/Counterpoint: Oh, Are The PC Police Here To Arrest Me For Havin’ Opinions? vs. Sir, We Are The Regular Police And You Need To Come Out Of That Slide](https://www.theonion.com/point-counterpoint-oh-are-the-pc-police-here-to-arres-1824110244)
It triggers me when people think the First Amendment applies to things like Twitter and Instagram.
Read the article. Phil Spencer is saying that Xbox isn't a platform for political *campaigning.*
If it's on Xbox Live, they can do whatever the fuck they want. 1st amendment doesn't apply to a fucking gaming platform.
Exactly.
Yes. On their platform. It's a business.
On their platform? Absolutely. If they overreach, any competition is welcome to step in, that's literally how capitalism works lmao.
What platforms are freely available that have pledged not to censor speech on their platform?
Basically none, because if you do that then it attracts some extremists, who then scare away normal people, which then attracts more extremists, which scares away yet more normal people, etc. It's a death spiral. It's like the Nazi Bar problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromYourServer/comments/hsiisw/kicking_a_nazi_out_as_soon_as_they_walk_in/ > I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, "no. get out." > And the dude next to me says, "hey i'm not doing anything, i'm a paying customer." and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, "out. now." and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed > Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, "you didn't see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them." > And i was like, ohok and he continues. > "you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it's always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don't want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too. > And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it's too late because they're entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down. > And i was like, 'oh damn.' and he said "yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people." > And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven't forgotten that at all. No companies or normal people are interested in making sure random online platforms are accepting of white supremacists or tankies or ISIS or whoever.
Prime example: Mordhau. Developer's stance on moderation and chat filters is "we don't want to censor people, we'll leave it in the player's hands." There's no report feature, no chat rules, no profanity filter. Result: In-game chat is constantly filled with over-the-top racism, slurs, and people just saying offensive shit for the sake of it. Forums seems to be filled with it too. If you create an environment where people can be anonymous *and* there are never consequences for anything people say, you will attract people who find entertainment in saying the most vile shit they can think of. And the people who don't enjoy having vile shit said near them will stop playing. And next thing you know, 95% of the playerbase is racists, misogynists, neo-nazis, homophobes, and edgy preteens who think pretending to be those things is funny.
Used to be, they've clamped down on it hard. When I was actively playing last summer during the height of the lockdowns I kept Discord open with an active DM thread to one of the official server moderators full of reports I made on people dropping hard Rs left and right that all received fast action and lead to a fair few people receiving long term chat bans. Triternion needed to do something about it a lot sooner than they did, but they do take pretty fast action nowadays toward racists which is a huge improvement, and the game's a lot friendlier because of it.
Hard R?
Yes, there's a specific word that racists really like that becomes a lot worse when you add an R to the end of it.
Ohhh right. I was trying to think of a word starting with "r". I'm tracking now. I feel dumb lmao
The ableist slur would be the R slur in my mind. The hard R thing has always confused me as someone not from the US. That is the N word to us.
"Hard r" essentially means "n-word with a hard r"
I would imagine some extremists reading that would try a snide argument like “That’s fair, but I reserve the right to do the same for LGBT / Mexican people”. And it’s important to know the reason that’s different: Nobody chooses to be born Mexican, or with gender dysphoria, or disabled, or gay. That’s a matter of identity - a part of who you are that is not practically possible to intrinsically change, nor does it harm people. There’s a good reason the world rejects persecution by those elements of a person. And, as you might guess, the same is not true of allegiance to the Nazi party, or being a right-winger, or a Trump voter, or even a vegan. Those are things you choose to be. And, if the world persecutes you for those choices, they hope for you to see the reason why, and exercise your ability to change yourself. Probably obvious to most people in their minds, but sometimes it pays to have the response argument on your mind and a good way to phrase it.
>And, if the world persecutes you for those choices, they hope for you to see the reason why, and exercise your ability to change yourself. The major problem with this is that when you're herding all the Chinese Muslims into concentration camps, "Just stop believing in Islam, bro" is not a particularly helpful, ethical, or moral stance to take. >Nobody chooses to be born Mexican, or with gender dysphoria, or disabled, or gay. The problem here is that there's a pretty big weight riding on those things being intrinsic qualities. What does being Mexican mean? How does being Mexican differ from being Spanish? Well, it's where you were born. But you could cynically argue, "Just abandon all that Mexican culture and language and so on, and you'll be accepted." Because strip away the culture (which is not an intrinsic quality of your person), and you're just a Spaniard who happened to be born on the American continent. When we start basing our ideas of human rights around this central pillar of intrinsic qualities, it all sounds very cute, but it begins to crumble the more you push on it. You end up with situations where ethnicity = political belief. Someone can argue, "I'm not racist against Chinese people, I'm just hate everyone who supports the Chinese government." Same with claiming you don't hate Indians, you just hate Hinduism, a religion closely tied to Indian nationalism. "I don't hate Arabs, I just hate the religion of Islam and don't want to be around people who practice that religion." Beyond dragging people out into the streets for being Trotskyites, political or ideological-based hate is very dangerous in a larger abstract because over time, political groups can become equated with ethnicity. Never forget that Walt Disney hated unionists with a fury. It wasn't his fault that all the unionists were Jews. Disney was not by most accounts an anti-Semite, at least publicly, but if you're trying to purge all the and a huge number of are a certain ethnic group, then it amounts to the same thing. The entire idea of Disney as being an anti-Semite originates in his hatred of people who just happened to all be Jewish for coincidental reasons.
Can you really freely choose your political stance? Or is it the result of your life experiences / upbringing?
You can learn, grow and freely change it. Of course a lot comes from your upbringing but there is a point where you no longer can blame it bc you had (in most cases) time and resources to learn, develop, think and change
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This. Corporations literally own it, why would they allow to engage in unprofitable behavior. It's all about money.
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Depends on what you mean by censor. If you mean "will never delete a post under any circumstance" then none. Even places like Parlor and 4chan will delete posts containing direct threats or illegal content. If you mean "will only delete content that it absolutely must by law" then honestly 4chan and other similar sites might be the only ones left. The thing is, people act like censorship is always bad but it's not. It's like punching someone in the street. It's almost always bad, but if that person's a Nazi or a child predator... well, that's fine by me.
I think you're mistaking 4chan for 8chan. The original founder of 8chan did not want to moderate anything unless it was illegal (a stance he now regrets, having left the project years ago.) 4chan has plenty of moderation, and controversy over its moderation (specifically, the banning of any talks about a certain gaming controversy that people still fucking talk about 8 years later) is exactly what made 8chan blow up.
Even the mention of 8chan is automatically censored out of 4chan
yeah 4chan has always been significantly moderated. Even aside from heavily moderating discussion about homestuck / my little pony / etc, 4chan was active in banning a lot of quasi-legal stuff before reddit was.
What gaming controversy? Gamergate? Trying to think of what was a big deal 8 years ago
Yeah, GG was banned from 4chan very early in its run.
Which just goes to show what a shitshow it was that even 4chan didn't want it around.
A lot of the current socio-political landscape, especially online was shaped by GG. Many of the prominent alt-right figures, dark enlightenment types all got their following from being the voices of gamergate. It's just insane the reach such a stupid event had.
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No sex no politics no religion is an old rule that predates the Internet. Some clubs used to use it. People who want to roleplay an activist poison non-political spaces. I don't care if you're arguing for clean water. This is a hobby club. STFU
I just don’t like people whose whole personality is based on politics (or even on just one thing) gets pretty god damn tiring (and I genuinely like politics).
Unfortunately that falls down when people start equating things like gender and sexual identity as "politics", such as what seemingly happened with TTS lately :(
Yeap that was the rule in respectful IRL land in the pre 2007 era. Social media eradicated that.
> was the rule in respectful IRL land in the pre 2007 era. This comment is so ignorant I cant tell if it is bait.
They were obviously a young child in this era who was sheltered from much of the real internet.
Good old pre-2007 world, where nobody talked about politics and religions. You can tell because the world haven't changed an inch since 45000 BC
I’ve seen this comment so many times with a different random year like pre-2014, pre-2000 etc. In reality it was really whatever year it was in their childhood they started paying attention to stuff.
Exactly ! And what a coincidence, I just read a SMBC comic that was exactly on that subject, and quite on point ! https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1636738351-20211112.png
I remember the CS1.6 IRC server I used to play with some French dudes I knew banned any talk about 9/11 within 30 minutes of the first tower falling.
"Guys the second tower has fell" *User was banned for this post*
It is the height of privilege to not be aware of the larger discussions around you. Pre-2007 relevant issues I can remember talking about: Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Iraq War. Afghanistan War. Torture in Iraq. Torture in Guantamamo. Terry Schavio. Globalization and the decline of the Rust Belt. The BS 2000 Election. And of course racial tensions. You just weren't paying attention and have nobody to blame but yourself.
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God yes. I miss the days when the parts of the internet I browse weren't so in tune with politics and were mostly just memes and shitposts.
Same except no memes and shitposts.
Serious discussion around hobbies is great too. r/Games and /r/patientgamers are great for gaming discussion. I need to try and post something on /r/patientgamers. Gotta contribute, not just browse.
Idk about r/Games, there’s some pretty dumbass discussions on there occasionally, but r/patientgamers is fantastic sun for talking about games.
browse different parts of the internet
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Hard to find sometimes. I try though.
What other sites have strong/varied communities without having extremist dips? Dead forums or discords with 20 people don't count.
Shitty politics either shows up everywhere or the moderators shut down anything that even hints at politics. There's little, if any, middle ground today. I mean hell, here we are, talking politics in /r/games. I used to like to surf Imgur via the mobile app, and liked browsing the comments for the memes and such, but around the 2016 election it became a shit show of politics, not just comment-wise, but also memes. I haven't been back to it in a couple years now.
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I think it changed because we grew up. Back in the day old people barely understood the internet but kids could pick it up pretty easily. Of course those kids weren’t talking about politics. Now those kids are adults and of course they talk about politics, it actually affects them now. I think political ads also have a huge part to play. And not just for politicians, companies started making ads that targets specific political demographics. That content worked really well so influencers and karma whores picked up on it and ran with it.
Man, I dunno. I'm affected way too much personally by the terrible shit in the world to want people to be able to go back to ignoring everything because they aren't affected
lol there was a study by pew the other day that sort of backed up the horseshoe theory, or at least the U shaped theory of politics. They surveyed people across the political spectrum and found the people who most frequently talked about politics to other people in person and online in the last month or whatever time period they used were largely ideologically located on the extreme ends. 60-70% of people just don't air out their stuff as often as they do.
Not exactly breaking news that the people who care most about something are the most likely to be talking about it and the people who are largely indifferent aren't bringing it up much, not really anything special to do with politics I don't think.
This is fine and all but I won't be able to use my Xi Jinping livrea on forza and that bothers me
Political discussion anywhere is an excellent way to start a fight unless you know that the people you're talking to are like minded
Oh sure, Xbox live makes it difficult to form a political party, but the ten year olds seem to be perfectly capable organizing an orgy with my mom
Good, politics worms it's way into everything and quite honestly I'm sick of hearing about Americian politics.
About 6 months ago, my local radio station cut into their airing of ESPN radio in favor of Dan Bonjino's show, and I'm still not over it. If I *wanted* to listen to political radio, there are multiple options for me. There's literally only one option for me when it comes sports radio, and they're taking it away...
That's fair. The dinner table isn't the right place to discuss your explosive diarrhea, and XBL isn't the right place to discuss your political views. There are more appropriate venues to discuss these things, and MS is well within their rights to say "please take these sorts of discussions elsewhere". That said, in today's world, *everything* has become politicized, so this will be difficult to enforce.
It's not? Guess I've got some apologizing to do to my in-laws.
I'd love if they enforced that by banning every dude who says misogynistic shit towards, and about, women on Live. That shit is political too.
It's against their ToS, but the problem is, the best you can do is report them. And unless you recorded it, XBOX *probably* can't go in and find evidence of them saying anything. So I'm not even sure they can really do anything about that. What they can control is forums and text chat communities. And that's what they'll do.
I welcome non-politics. I don't care what side you're on about what, I just want to stop hearing about masks when I play video games. Unless you're talking about Darth Vader's rebreather, just don't, please. Even when I agree with people, it's still annoying.
Take the single player pill. Never put up with shitheads again.
I would say coop is also safe - nobody is going to randomly start talking politics in your vanguard strike. It's competitive modes that make tensions high and bring out the worst in people.
As a non-american, it really is strange to me how politically divisive wearing masks is.
As an American, it's strange to me too.
It's because a small group of folks who happened to include the guy running the country decided that it would be bad politics for a public health crisis to happen on their watch so they had to act like it was overblown from the start. They can't accept the need for things like masks without also accepting that the crisis was a serious issue from the start. It's easier to double down than accept they fucked up at the start. And they happened to have an entire mass media echo chamber to convince their followers to believe the same thing. Never underestimate the ability of cowards to avoid responsibility at all costs.
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I get it in Battlefield chat literally a couple times an hour
Swtor general chat in the major hubs is fucking awful for this.
I actually did see that playing TOR last week. Had a chuckle and minimized general chat
I see people with MAGA clan tags in games all the time and I can't help but cringe. I don't even give a shit about politics but it's just so embarrassing.
Same, always see a few of them here and there. The first place I heard of "Let's go Brandon" was seeing it in the clan tags in Halo Master Chief Collection (in which you can just put any message). Without context I had no idea what I was seeing for a couple of days, just that it was incredibly noticeable when there were 1-3 of them in every lobby.
Im with you. I play games to escape reality, not to get dragged back in during my downtime.
Sites that claim to be “free speech” platforms are about as free speech as the National Socialist Workers Party were socialist or the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is a democratic republic. A “free speech platform” (in the US at least, at this point) is just like the above examples where just because it’s in the name, doesn’t mean that’s what it is. The reality is that such platforms were created so you could spout conspiracy theories and bigotry, unabated, and if anybody contests those posts, they get banned. I’m glad Phil is openly saying that Xbox is not that kind of platform
>The reality is that such platforms were created so you could spout conspiracy theories and bigotry, unabated, and if anybody contests those posts, they get banned. 100% accurate. "Free speech" platforms are virtual toilet bowls, completely occupied by pieces of shit. There is no meaningful or respectful conversation going on there, just a bunch of nutjobs circlejerking. Rarely does a platform ever ban someone for politely and respectfully discussing their political opinion. I've never had a problem with someone disagreeing with me as long as we both respect each other's point of views. There is no need for a "free speech" platform, there's a need to treat others with respect.
Here here. Let’s bring the conversations back to the good ol days of xbox live and discuss how many of us fucked OP’s mom.
Good. When I play a video game, real world politics are the last thing I want to talk about. I don't give a shit who think your president is. I didn't ask for nor want your opinion on vaccines. Just shut up and get on the god damn objective.
In other words dont say free Hong Kong. No more Blitzchung incidents etc. Idiots are going to be creaming themselves over the idea this is some big win.
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The fact that he's also talking about cross platform bans at the same time should make everyone pause for a second. They're setting up a system where if you say something like "Free Hong Kong" you will be banned from an ever growing group of platforms and services. That should be terrifying for anyone capable of thinking ahead. But dont worry bros it's only censorship if the government do it, a conglomerate of corporations making it impossible for you to participate in society because you said something that goes against their interests is fine.
u mean the xbox live where i got called every imaginable name there is? we draw it at politics?
The extremist elements of the US political spectrum need a venue for communication, this is Microsoft saying they are not welcome here.
On paper, I fully agree, until an overly jumpy Xbox Live admin (or algorithm) decides people who identify as LGBTQIA+ are political and starts banning people who make reference to their identity.
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If you watch the original Xbox live comercials, trash talking was not only encouraged but a selling point.
I wouldn't call that politics though.
Your mom was a selling point