An Open Letter to STS on Censorship, Hate Speech and Bigotry

[Serillia]

Your not getting the point. You can’t control the community and tell them chat nice. It wont work. Have you not been watching tv. People are hateful in real life. Work on those issues in the real world. Not Here! In Arlor your a warrior, mage or rogue. Not human, so no need to discuss which way you walk talk or swing.

Real people play this game. We make the community. The point of this discussion is not asking people to chat nice. It's to bring awareness and notify STS that the word "gay" is not a slur anymore. It's 2020. Would you be offended if someone called you "straight"? No? That is where we need to reach with the word "gay". Causing 5 minute mutes for uttering the word is harmful to that movement, and as OP said, could be quite damaging to a young mind's self esteem.

Cor suggested a good solution. Move the word "gay" from a hard mute to a soft censor, so that those who do not believe the community will chat nice to them can turn on filter chat and be rid of any potentially damaging words.

[Overbear]

Real people play this game. We make the community. The point of this discussion is not asking people to chat nice. It's to bring awareness and notify STS that the word "gay" is not a slur anymore. It's 2020. Would you be offended if someone called you "straight"? No? That is where we need to reach with the word "gay". Causing 5 minute mutes for uttering the word is harmful to that movement, and as OP said, could be quite damaging to a young mind's self esteem.

Cor suggested a good solution. Move the word "gay" from a hard mute to a soft censor, so that those who do not believe the community will chat nice to them can turn on filter chat and be rid of any potentially damaging words.

I agree. Hopefully a time will come when it won't need to be censored but we can only do thi for now.

[Jeffgeomon]

Would you be offended if someone called you "straight"? No? That is where we need to reach with the word "gay".

Agreed. Imagine yourself typing "I'm straight" in the chat, and then a message pops up saying: "Your chat has been muted. Further mutes may result in being banned." The thought of that gave me a visceral, disturbing feeling. I assume that's how members of LGBTQ would feel when they decide to disclose their sexuality, and then perhaps proceed to question if its okay to be who they are.

Chat restrictions were implemented in 2012. In those 8 years, culture shifts happened, the norms were challenged, and our language has been changed. Back then, people widely used homophobic language to describe things that were annoying or quirky. Many video game players used the term "r*pe" to denote domination, and the n and f word were loosely thrown around. Nowadays, we know how insensitive and disrespectful these words are, how uncomfortable they make people, and how damaging they can be. Words can be meaningless, but can also mean a lot. However, challenging status quo is never easy. Changing the language is big. It's never an instant fix or an instant cure. It requires lots of incremental reminders and awareness. It's a very slow shift.

The funny thing is that the world has done the hard yards for us, and the culture shift has already happened for many parts of the world. It's becoming a global shift. However, the culture shift train has taken off without the AL community or even the gaming community in general, leaving us behind at station 2012, comfortable in our veil of anonymity. This is one of the reasons why toxicity is so prevalent, and why a lot of outdated terms and expressions are seeing a resurgence in video game chat. The AL chat restriction system is definitely outdated, and having the word "gay" changed from a hard mute to a censor sounds like a good first step.

But we can't JUST do that, because like Qua and Zeus mentioned, lifting the hard mute will definitely increase harassment and the word being used in a derogatory manner, especially when the game has a lot of younger players. This is where the Devs need to come in to offer protection. They need to play an integral role in actively reviewing reports, lowering their tolerance with chat bans and being harsher when punishing players with toxic chatlogs. We as a community can also help protect these players by being better at calling out your homies when they use homophobic language insensitively or in a context that should not be joked about. Specific members of the community, such as GMs of top guilds, can make a huge difference here too.

For sure, it will be a bumpy road. I get the feeling that fighting against toxicity is like fighting a helpless war. Getting to the root of toxicity is definitely not easy. But boy, do we as humans love to take the easy way out, because that's how the human brain is wired. "Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?" But we got to be forward-thinking. We got to challenge things before it becomes cool to challenge them. And unlike a lot of commenters above who seemed to have given up or feel like toxicity is unsolvable, I'm still hopeful, because whenever you throw in the towel, give up, and say "gg go next", that's when there's really a 0% for change to happen.