News No More Lip Service: Twitch, Game Platforms Still Ignore Hate and Harassment

[SHaines]

Are people getting banned for disagreeing with the author of this article?

No. You can find the forums rules linked throughout the forums. As with any forum, users have to abide by the rules to maintain posting privileges. We will not discuss what specific posts warranted what specific action with any third party.

Those who wish to appeal are welcome to email community@futurenet.com with your forum handle and the specific forum in question so we can investigate and handle each request individually.

 

[imnotagamer007]

I know where you are coming from and it's why I stopped using voice chat in games back in 2007. A brief (several months) experience on xbox live showed me that without an outside deterrent, people will show you what is really inside their hearts, and it can be very ugly. Even when the insults were not directed at me it still took my enjoyment and fun away, and if I'm not having fun in a game then what's the point?

When I report people in overwatch ( i still use text chat) I sometimes get a message telling me that something was done because of my report. This helps as it shows me my reporting isn't in vain, and I know from reading the overwatch forums that people do get banned for being nasty and lose their accounts that they spent a lot of hours on. This is a great deterrent because people don't want to lose their accounts and start over, maybe twitch should have something like this if they don't already. Make it so that remaining in good status for long periods of time has rewards. That way getting banned will actually hurt them.

I love to share ideas, and as a religious person even controversial ones, but I also understand that twitch isn't the place for that, and would never go there seeking to promulgate my own beliefs, and if I did so I would expect a ban or mute or some form of punishment. Those who devalue a person based on their ethnicity, gender or sexual preferences should have the same consequences.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

This is the internet. This is the behavior I expect.

 

[HyperMatrix]

If you have to keep hitting "ban" 54 times during one stream and the same users come back the next time, it's not solved.

This part of your argument I can agree with. But this comes down to it being a tech issue, not a political one. Ineffectiveness of banning tools, regardless of reason for the ban. As the channel owner you have a right to decide who to let in or not let in. And you should be given powerful enough moderation tools for use on your own channel. One method I've seen employed elsewhere is a minimum account age before users who are watching the stream can comment/chat. That's a super simple way of resolving the issue you're talking about. So as a channel owner, you can decide to only let people who have had an account for at least x number of days comment. Ban someone, they'd have to wait another x days to be able to make a new account and comment on your stream.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

People will be hateful, especially behind a keyboard where they feel safer doing it.

Where do you draw the line between what is hate speech and what is just one's opinion? This varies from person to person and no matter what a moderator does, they will never please both sides. This issue is impossible to solve.

"Hate speech" has become a very big political debate in the United States recently, and honestly, politics don't belong on a tech forum.

In my opinion, this article should not have been posted, but at the very least, this article should not have had a comments thread.

But that's just my opinion......

 

[jimmysmitty]

The problem is that you are allowing for political comments. The article itself is political. And those who support its political stance are safe (obviously). Those who disagree with it are silenced by claims of political commentary. I, as well as those who were banned, are in 100% full support of your no political comment policy. In fact, we were complaining that a site we visit for tech news and information, is serving up politics, and we dislike that. Then your editor-in-chief comes in and posts even more political commentary on the matter. And if people reply to him with a different take on the politics that he initiated, you ban them.

I don't disagree. I have mentioned on many similar articles as I think we should keep the focus on the tech itself.

People will be hateful, especially behind a keyboard where they feel safer doing it.

Where do you draw the line between what is hate speech and what is just one's opinion? This varies from person to person and no matter what a moderator does, they will never please both sides. This issue is impossible to solve.

"Hate speech" has become a very big political debate in the United States recently, and honestly, politics don't belong on a tech forum.

In my opinion, this article should not have been posted, but at the very least, this article should not have had a comments thread.

But that's just my opinion......

I don't disagree. I am never a fan of this kind of stuff here.

There is a reason I ask certain questions about it. Honestly these always seem to be one sided and thats my problem.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Honestly these always seem to be one sided and thats my problem.

I can't agree more.

 

[CerianK]

In the end it is unfortunate that anyone has to deal with this at all but it is the world we live in. The internet has never been a truly nice place TBH.

I agree. It is indeed very unfortunate that the the world is replete with such individuals wasting space.

I chose to not participate in online gaming years ago... no regrets here. IRL, competitions have rules that are enforced. If someone were stalking me IRL... there are ways of dealing with that.

If it were up to me, there would be a minimum E.Q. required to continue to access the Internet, but even cretins have money that is coveted by the various online services, so it is likely very little will change.

 

[alextheblue]

Well for starters I turned my adblocker back on for TH. I deliberately set exceptions for sites I want to support, and TH was one of those.

There are already tools to deal with these sorts of problems, and there are MORE tools that could be implemented that don't involve increasingly radical "anti-hate" rules. For example, I wish they'd just let you choose which tier of <insert service here> you participate in when you sign up. Sort of like selecting difficulty level. You could change later, of course, but then you'd be subject to the new ruleset. Of course you should still have access to all the regular tools (mute/block) either way.

 

[dstln]

Yo, it's not political to say that people shouldn't intentionally harass others online. It's common sense.

Just because the internet hasn't "traditionally" been a nice place doesn't mean that it should continue being toxic. In fact, quite the opposite. That's the most insane and nonsensical argument for anything, honestly.

Everything in this article was 100% common sense, and websites should have better tools to discourage harassment.

 

[alextheblue]

at the very least, this article should not have had a comments thread.

That would have been even worse, IMO.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

That would have been even worse, IMO.

These comments are unlikely to change Tom's future plans on posting political articles.

 

[Bamda]

From reading these post you can see that there is a LOT of hate online! It's their sad and empty lives that fills them with hate and malice in their hearts but regardless we need to continue to fight against hate and harassment regardless of what they think or say.

 

[andrewkelb]

From reading these post you can see that there is a LOT of hate online! It's their sad and empty lives that fills them with hate and malice in their hearts but regardless we need to continue to fight against hate and harassment regardless of what they think or say.

That reads like you are defining statements you disagree with as hate and then following up with personal attacks, and then saying we must do something to fight against people who say things you disagree with? Are you sure you know what hate is?

 

[Rogue Leader]

Right now, it sure seems like people with disagreeing opinions are being banned.

And what are people supposed to reply then ? This article was a political stunt. Are we supposed to all reply "yes, excellent"?

This is exactly the problem with moderation, when some moderator reads a something that doesn't align to their own, they can twist the intentionally vague terms and rules to lay down the ban hammer. Sounds like the Chinese CCP...

Do we really want the internet to become the space where only people that are WOKE can type whatever they want?

I'm just waiting to be ban hammered right now.

The problem is that you are allowing for political comments. The article itself is political. And those who support its political stance are safe (obviously). Those who disagree with it are silenced by claims of political commentary. I, as well as those who were banned, are in 100% full support of your no political comment policy. In fact, we were complaining that a site we visit for tech news and information, is serving up politics, and we dislike that. Then your editor-in-chief comes in and posts even more political commentary on the matter. And if people reply to him with a different take on the politics that he initiated, you ban them.

As mentioned by Shaines above we won't get into the exact People and posts that were banned as thats between the person whose post was deleted and the moderator who deleted it.

Suffice to say what I can tell you is within the article comments there is leeway given due to the nature of the articles. This leeway is NOT given in the normal forum. This is a politically charged article and therefore will have and allow for respectful political discussion. Another thing I will tell you is Tom's has a very strong separation between "church and state" The editors and writers are NOT going in here and banning or deleting people that disagree with them. Moderating these threads is the job of the community and moderation team.

But finally what I will tell you is no matter how many "good" posts a person makes within a discussion, the minute that person starts personally attacking others (or the writer for that matter), or using racial slurs, or any sort of other hate speech, that has NO PLACE here. And after reviewing this comment section (I have not looked at this at all yet today until now) the ONLY stuff I have seen that was removed has fallen WELL into that category. You may not have seen it, but that just means we are doing our job well.

As for your other feelings, well those are yours and you are entitled to feel that way, but no we don't want everyone to reply "yes excellent" we want you all to talk and discuss and interact RESPECTFULLY. If you can do that your opinions will remain. If you can't, well thats how you get deleted/banned.

 

[mrface]

Just to clarify for everyone:

Rules of Conduct

The Tom's Hardware Rules of Conduct are general guidelines for users within our community. We pride ourselves on being welcoming to users of all levels of expertise, from novice to guru. Follow these simple rules and you'll have a great experience here on the forum.

Please do...

• Search the forum before posting. Someone else may have already answered your question or discussed the topic. Checking for duplicates can help save you time.
• Read the Stickies! Sticky threads at the top of the forum category answer a lot of questions.
• Use proper spelling and grammar, with paragraphs as needed. Posts that are easier to read are easier to respond to.
• If asking a question, provide as much in the way of details as you can to help the experts answer. Include hardware specs and OS.
• Keep criticism constructive! If you disagree with an opinion, explain why, but never attack the person.
• Use formatting to improve the quality of your post. See below for a great, quick guide on how to format using BBCode.
• Report violators of the Rules of Conduct by the Moderation Team by clicking the "Report" link below a post.
• Be sure to post your thread to the category most appropriate to the topic, so others can find it easily.
• Check the date of the last post in a thread before replying. If the most recent post is more than 3 months old, create a new thread. You can link to the previous thread as reference, but we want to avoid “necro” posts that attempt to resuscitate old threads.

Please don't...

• Engage in any illegal activity. Asking for help pirating, cracking or bypassing copyright protections is not allowed.
• Post in ALL CAPS or use excessive punctuation!!!
• Share personal information publicly, including your email address.
• Post empty threads or responses that contain no content. Don't bump posts, claim "First!" or give single-word replies.
• Hijack a topic. Keep to the original subject matter.
• Spam or encourage spam. Commercial spam is handled with a zero tolerance policy. No posting links to any commercial service or product if you are personally affiliated. OEMs are present, but indicated expressly as "Official Representatives". No posts to advertise or promote.
• Be rude or impolite. Civility is essential on Tom's, and remember that behind each user is a real person. Personal attacks (ad hominem) and insults are not allowed.
• Abuse the forum software or try to game the badges or voting system. Use is closely monitored and investigated.

Specific Rules
The following activity is expressly disallowed within the Tom's Community:

• Harassment, threatening, embarrassing or insulting other users, including sending unwanted messages, attacking race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
• Hate speech is not permitted. You may not post or distribute any content that is harmful, abuse, racist, homophobic, sexually explicit, defamatory, infringing or invasive of privacy.
• Disruption of the natural flow of forum discussion through vulgarity, spamming, flooding or other means.
• Impersonation
• Phishing. A Moderator will never ask for your password.
• Uploading or linking to files which contain viruses or malware.
• Do not discuss moderator action, or attempt to re-open removed or locked threads.
  Removed or locked threads were removed for a reason; please do not attempt to re-open them by creating new threads. In addition, we will not allow forum posts that attempt to publicly discuss moderator action taken. If you wish to contest a warning, please send an email appeal to community@futurenet.com

The moderation staff is at a volunteer basis, picked at the behest of the forum owners. We are not paid and we do not "ban or delete" because people disagree with the author of any article. If someone steps over the line from rules stated above they are warned and if things keep going, remediation is necessary. Moderators do dirty work out of necessity and can be seen as offending actors at times(especially with these types of articles.) But, it is done for the good of the forums and its community.

Please feel free to contact myself or any of the moderators privately if something you feel is out of line with this; publicly can lead to warnings/bans, etc. Civility is paramount.


Cheers,
Cam

 

[xtc-604]

From reading these post you can see that there is a LOT of hate online! It's their sad and empty lives that fills them with hate and malice in their hearts but regardless we need to continue to fight against hate and harassment regardless of what they think or say.

From reading these comments there are also lots of soft people whom take the words of others too seriously.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

If you walk into a theater screaming obscenities and racial slurs and making threats would you be surprised if they kicked you out? Would you expect them to let you back in once a different movie is playing? Will you be outraged at the other patrons if they don't stick up for your right to do whatever you want in the theater?

 

[HyperMatrix]

If you walk into a theater screaming obscenities and racial slurs and making threats would you be surprised if they kicked you out? Would you expect them to let you back in once a different movie is playing? Will you be outraged at the other patrons if they don't stick up for your right to do whatever you want in the theater?

Everyone agrees that the owner of the theater should be able to decide who/what they want to allow in there. And we're advocating for tools that will allow just that. What we don't want is for one theater owner who may be particularly sensitive to a certain topic to prevent any other theater owner from having those people over in their theaters.

So, here's the general guideline:

1. Create better moderation/blocking tools for channel owners
2. If you run a channel, use those tools to ban people, ban words, ban new accounts, prevent comments from first time visitors, people who haven't donated, people don't have a good reputation score (if there is no such thing, implement one), etc etc...whatever you need to keep your channel running the way you want
3. Because you didn't like what someone said in your channel, don't try to attack or prevent them from participating in other venues. They're not in your channel, and your job is done.

 

[smashjohn]

Interesting how some people become silent, once they've been out logically debated.

You argued that people that don't want to bullied should get off the Internet:
"I'd tell them, if they can't hadnle the head, get out of the kitchen"
The context of the article and this discussion is specifically about people bullying others online based on their race and gender, but you say:
"It doesn't mean that we are racists or bigots..."
You seem to believe that words can't hurt people because you were taught that as a child:
"whatever happend to sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can not?"
This is especially ignorant giving the fact that that hate speech can and does hurt people. The saying you are referring to is designed to help teach kids how to be less effected by what others say. I've never heard this phrase used to defend hate speech before.

The last thing I'm going to touch on is this: You said, " it just means, that the people whom are offended should a)probably find something else that they can take refuge in , b)grow thicker skin or c)be the rest of us, and just ignore it."

You missed an option: d) you can call out racist and bigoted behavior and those who defend it whenever you want.

You can call it 'being a social justice warrior' or whatever you want. I post because I'm not ok with seeing these posts go unchecked. But for all your positing that people should just 'scroll on', here you are... still reading.. still posting..

Continuing an argument you've lost doesn't make you right. It just means that most people have given up on the idea that you will ever see the issue in a different way.

 

[SamirD]

Rules and laws without enforcement is exactly what happens in the third-world. The third-world is full of corruption and crimes go unchecked.

As MLK said in one of his letters 'injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere'. These words include the Internet which didn't even exist back then.

We are headed down a path to destruction of everything valued in civilized society.

The Internet was supposed to be this utopia of good things...until people started using them for bad things. And now that bad behavior can reinforce revenue streams, human nature has yet again ruined something that had potential for good. The reason the rules aren't enforced is because it doesn't make financial cents. Period. That's the reasoning. Ethics and morality be damned.

The current 'wild wild west' atmosphere of the Internet will be locked down into a civil state just as it happened in the real wild wild west as civilization and order was enforced. The same will happen with the Internet in time if civility and first-world thinking is to survive. Otherwise, we're all headed full speed into a third-world hellhole like no other where it is dog eat dog, dog hate dog, and dog kill dog--all over the Internet. And then 'the only winning move is not to play'.

 

[MasterMadBones]

I don't think I'd be able to say anything now that hasn't been said somewhere before in this comment section, but I am rather curious as to why the word 'black' needs to be capitalised.

On a personal note, I don't always report someone who trash talks or "harasses" me in game, Twitch, Discord or wherever. I generally only report people as a last resort or when that feels more "satisfying" for me. By the time I hear anything about it, I've long forgotten who and when it was.

 

[SamirD]

Yep, and that's a money thing. It costs to have people to deal with those reports just like it cost to have police to have law enforcement in real life. The difference is that when profit is the motive, laws won't be enforced so long as the money keeps flowing.

It actually goes beyond all lives, but the whole human race. We are at a point in time where we can decide what we will be in the future--but no one is lining up to do the right thing anymore...and we are doomed...

 

[xtc-604]

You argued that people that don't want to bullied should get off the Internet:
"I'd tell them, if they can't hadnle the head, get out of the kitchen"
The context of the article and this discussion is specifically about people bullying others online based on their race and gender, but you say:
"It doesn't mean that we are racists or bigots..."
You seem to believe that words can't hurt people because you were taught that as a child:
"whatever happend to sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can not?"
This is especially ignorant giving the fact that that hate speech can and does hurt people. The saying you are referring to is designed to help teach kids how to be less effected by what others say. I've never heard this phrase used to defend hate speech before.

The last thing I'm going to touch on is this: You said, " it just means, that the people whom are offended should a)probably find something else that they can take refuge in , b)grow thicker skin or c)be the rest of us, and just ignore it."

You missed an option: d) you can call out racist and bigoted behavior and those who defend it whenever you want.

You can call it 'being a social justice warrior' or whatever you want. I post because I'm not ok with seeing these posts go unchecked. But for all your positing that people should just 'scroll on', here you are... still reading.. still posting..

Continuing an argument you've lost doesn't make you right. It just means that most people have given up on the idea that you will ever see the issue in a different way.

"You argued that people that don't want to bullied should get off the Internet:"
I think you are confused.

If people don't want to be "bullied" online, then they can either go somewhere else, to a different service or get off the internet. We're living in an era where the minority get first dibs at setting the rules for the masses. This isn't the way any company or any reasonable person would think.

"The context of the article and this discussion is specifically about people bullying others online based on their race and gender, but you say"

That is YOUR preconceived and biased notion of whats actually happening, how are you so sure that the author of the article didn't warrant that hate in another way? Perhaps from a previously controversial statement made by the author in one their streams. Our information on this "bullying" is limited, as you can imagine if this were even a legal case, this case would not stand in court. You're also assuming that by not supporting the article and agreeing with the author, that we are racist and bigots. Hmmm sounds like the typical SJW: "If you don't think or agree with us, you're part of the problem"

Like others have mentioned in this thread, I don't care that the author is black, neither did i need to know that she is black and is a female. The article's title could of said "Gamer faces unfair trolls from twitch stream" and my responses still would of been exactly the same, my comments have never been racially charged.

"This is especially ignorant giving the fact that that hate speech can and does hurt people. The saying you are referring to is designed to help teach kids how to be less effected by what others say. I've never heard this phrase used to defend hate speech before."

You would be incorrect, I remember growing up that the phrase we are talking about here was heavily used in anti-bullying education. I do believe the education system believes in the usage of the phrase as well, you can see the amount of articles linking this article towards anti bully education:

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf...hUKEwjfzPDW0a_rAhVFO30KHZs8AL0Q4dUDCAw&uact=5

"You missed an option: d) you can call out racist and bigoted behavior and those who defend it whenever you want."

Sure, you can do that all you want. Let the world judge, just as other members and readers can read and judge right now.

"You can call it 'being a social justice warrior' or whatever you want. I post because I'm not ok with seeing these posts go unchecked. But for all your positing that people should just 'scroll on', here you are... still reading.. still posting.."

Likewise, i post because i'm not ok with seeing these posts go unchecked. But for all your posting, shouldn't you be talking about how i am currently conducting hate speech? Because my opinion is different to yours and that i am a part of the problem?

"Continuing an argument you've lost doesn't make you right. It just means that most people have given up on the idea that you will ever see the issue in a different way."

The same can be said from people sharing my viewpoint. Just because the masses aren't replying doesn't mean that you're right. It just means that most people are afraid of getting cancelled by SJWs. You can definitely see the unrest in the masses growing lately over this whole BLM and other SJW actions as of recently.

 

[SHaines]

Just a quick reminder that it's important to stay on topic for threads. In this case, an article discussing moderation tools available to creators. It's absolutely fine to disagree with this specific article, just make sure comments are related to that specific topic.

We will not publicly discuss moderator action so any posts discussing this topic will be removed.

Thanks all.