Microsoft Explains Les-banning
Wednesday's news about a lesbian banned from Xbox Live for identifying her sexuality caused quite a stir, and rightly so. Today Microsoft's Stephen Toulouse, program manager for Xbox Live policy and enforcement, offered TeamXbox a response:
There's been a ton of commentary on a Consumerist post about Theresa, an Xbox member who was suspended (not banned) from Xbox LIVE over expression of her sexual orientation in her profile. I don't know the particulars, because the Consumerist article doesn't give me much to work with from an investigation standpoint. But since most of the commentary has become rather emotionally charged, I wanted to talk about how things work inside Xbox because I think a lot of people are latching on to some kind of "Microsoft sides with homophobes" meme.Our current policy for Gamertags and Profiles does not allow expression of sexual orientation under the Terms of Use. That applies to *any* orientation, straight or gay or otherwise. Gamers can however self identify their orientation in voice chat, where context for their statements can be provided.
Well hey, somebody get this fella some info basic user so we can ditch that excuse. Then let's examine all of the many gamertags that leverage heterosexuality and yet go unbanned (a commenter brought up the many results for gamertag variations of "ladies' man," for instance). Finally, I like to remember that Microsoft is on our side from an ethical standpoint, but may be facing a daunting task. Should they be responsible for positive social engineering, or should they just back off and let gay-themed names be used regardless of the intent? Fruit Brute summed up the conundrum well: "it is high time this type of unfair treatment stops. My only issue is I'm not sure exactly what to do about it."
Microsoft sent out an official statement on the issue, which is more of the same, and makes me feel some sympathy for the folks at Microsoft who are trying to do right by the gay community from within a cumbersome corporate structure:
"As stated in the Xbox LIVE Terms of Use, a member may not create a gamertag or use text in other profile fields that include comments that look, sound like, stand for, hint at, abbreviate, or insinuate content of a potentially sexual nature. Profiles that do are asked to change the language and suspended until changes are made. In regards to sexual orientation, for gamertags or profiles we do not allow expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other. Players can, however, self identify in voice communication where context is more easily explained to all players involved.Harassment of any kind is not condoned and is taken very seriously; we strongly encourage Xbox LIVE members to immediately report inappropriate behavior through the compliant tools in the service so that it can be investigated and the appropriate action taken.
The Xbox LIVE community grows daily, and we continue to explore methods and levels of enforcement to enhance the ways our members connect and have fun, while adhering to a code of conduct that encourages respect and keeps the service safe and fun for all our members."
I would hate to be the guy or gal at Microsoft who has to sort this all out. It's a nightmare from any administrative viewpoint, but the hundreds of heterosexually charged gamertags out there that belie Microsoft's "no expression of sexual orientation" clause give me pause. (Excuse me for rhyming.) That discrepancy needs to be more thoroughly explained, or I'm not buyin' it.
Microsoft Explains Xbox Live Policy to Gays and Straights [TeamXbox]
tiny dancer
Posted to Hot Stuff, Miscellany on 27 February 2009
· Comments (9)
Other stuff like this: banning, gamertags, gay, lesbian, microsoft
The task may very well be daunting and difficult - that said, XBox should have been working on this a *long* time ago. It's certainly not the first time this issue has come up for them.
It's unfortunate that many people innately associate XBox Live with Homophobia. I'm one of them.
Just because MS doesn't have a clue as to what to do about it, doesn't excuse them from making attempts. It's really becoming pathetic on their part.
So does that exclude gamertags that also state that the people are married? For the most part it isn't legal anywhere. Does that mean that "Happily Married" should be excluded too? I think so.
Well of course here in the UK and elsewhere outside the US "married" can mean gay marriage too.
But blackrabbit is right, xbox live = homophobic abuse for me and plenty of others.
How about those that identify as gay get free Live access? Giving us a reason to get back on there and perhaps make a bit of a stand. Easier if your not losing out financially in the first place!
They should see that there's a difference between sexual content and sexuality. When someone announces they're gay they don't latch onto the nearest person and start humping their leg. We can state we're gay without having to resort to offensive behaviour. (Unless you're republican in which case we're offensive already.)
Technically the TOS says you can't have "topics or content of a sexual nature". Seems to me that if I say I am a male I would be violating the TOS. What a bunch of crap!
I suspect that the reason this policy looks so inconsistant is that they're not trawling through gamertags themselves, finding ones that break TOS and removing them.
Instead, they are dealing with tags that are flagged as offensive by $n unique individuals - and homophobes are well aware that if they dogpile someone with a gay tag, Microsoft will fuck with them.
Parity will require a crack team of determined queermos to flag every straight tag they see. Your mission, should you choose to accept it ... :P.
Xbox Live's site featured a married straight couple and a lot of it talked about how they were happily married. Her gamertag was something like "ScottsWifey"; clearly an "expression of any type of orientation, be that hetero or other."
What if my gamertag was HOMOSAPIAN? Would I be banned for the Homo part even though it describes everyone on the planet? What if I had fun with it and called myself BIHOMOSAPIEN? Or CURIOUSHOMOSAPIAN. I would like to see the Techo inclined LBGT XBL users record gay bashing and banning and post it to YouTube. Let's call MS's bluff.
First, the terms of use are what they are, and it is far easier to enforce something that is permanent and in writing than it is something said over voice for which, presumably, there is no recorded record. That said, the rampant homophobia on Live is absurd. The last time I played CoD:MW online there was a string of "fag" "homo" and "queer" being thrown out by one of the players, and when I called a vote to boot him it was overwhelmingly a "no" vote. That was 6+ months ago, and I vowed to never play that game, or any other, over Live again. The only use my Live account gets now is to download new songs for Rockband.