Xbox Live Continues TOS Inspired Bans on Sexual Orientation
Posted by Eric on February 25, 2009While state legislatures continue to wage the battle against violent games, Microsoft is continuing it’s battle with “offensive” users proclaiming their sexual orientation. The Xbox Live service has always taken censorship seriously, but it encountered stark criticism last year when it began to ban gamertags containing allegedly sexual explicit terms that were actual surnames of individuals that subscribed to its service. Now it appears that Live is using the same justification to ban users that have publicly identified themselves as homosexual while playing the game.
The gamer, identified as Teresa, listed her sexual orientation on her profile, and says that she began to receive threats and ridicule from other gamers while playing online. After filing her own complaint to Microsoft over the harassment she received, Microsoft promptly banned her gamertag accusing her of violating its terms by listing her sexual orientation and expressing it while using its service.
The specific clause in the terms of use, located here, states that your gamertag can be terminated if you violate their “code of conduct” by doing one of the following:
- Creat[ing] a Gamertag, avatar or use text in other profile fields that may offend other members.This includes comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate or relate to any of the following: profane words/phrases, topics or content of a sexual nature, hate speech (including but not limited to racial, ethnic, or religious slurs), illegal drugs/controlled substances, or illegal activities;
Whether someone’s sexual orientation can offend another in such a manner that the user should be banned under this contract clause is an interesting question. However, considering the relative cutthroat nature of Xbox Live in general, coupled with the fact that Microsoft released a game last year that contained a lesbian love scene, you have to wonder just how double sided Microsoft’s position is on this issue.
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As much as I personally find the practice of banning someone for disclosing their sexual orientation to be extremely heavy handed, I sympathize with Microsoft.
It’s an interesting issue, and, in Microsoft’s defense, they’ve made their views on this issue pretty clear and haven’t changed it, but I wonder about where the issue can go next. I believe the key factor in this case was the fact that she posted about her orientation on her profile. I’m just curious as to what the next step might be, considering most random pubbie games seem to have players calling each other all kinds of derogatory terms (at least, in my experience).
I wonder how much of this stems from the recent comment usage of “gay” as an all-purpose derogative.
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