Dr. Phil Combats Racists On Xbox Live (Not Physically - That Would Be Too Awesome)

by Dan Landis on January 9, 2008 at 4:15 pm

A typical scene from Dr. Phil’s show

Dr. Phil is a good friend of mine. He’s full of nonsensical hillbilly analogies and great advice on how not to beat my wife. But for Terry, a gamer on Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, Dr. Phil has “valuable” advice on dealing with racist cyber-bullies.

Terry explains, that as a black gamer on Xbox Live, he endures heaps of racist verbal abuse, and on Tuesday’s show, Dr. Phil filled Terry with joyous psychobabble and helped heal his wounded gamer heart.

Terry admits to being a loyal 360 owner, but questions how long he can go on now that his headset is full of racism. He claims to have been called “monkey” on several occasions and was even told he was going to be lynched.

As a father of three, Terry fears for the safety of his family. He no longer allows his children to play online for fear they will also be harassed or threatened.

So what’s a guy to do? Well, he submits several complaints about the offenders, as well as calls customer support to report them. I wonder if “I’m being verbally threatened” is a phrase Xbox cool dude Max understands.

Apparently, Microsoft didn’t do anything, or at least not enough to satisfy Terry. The next logical step, obviously, is to call up Dr. Phil. I don’t mean to make light of his troubles, as I surely do not condone this type of behavior, but seriously, anyone who has played on Xbox Live has probably heard the n-word multiple times.

While it certainly is offensive, I don’t think anyone out there is actively hunting people through Xbox Live in order to find out where they live and attack them. Most people who use racial slurs on Live are idiot kids who think it’s cool because, well — they’re idiot kids. Going on Dr. Phil’s show just gives Terry’s favorite pastime an even worse reputation than it deserves.

Xbox Live has a system in place to block, report, and avoid users. While I don’t expect that Terry could prevent these things from ever happening again, at least he can get rid of a few bad seeds. In my experience, the system actually works quite well.

Of course I think Microsoft should do something about this, but the guests on Dr. Phil’s show think it crosses a more severe line. Larry Walters, a First Amendment attorney, believes that these online verbal threats are a federal crime and should be investigated by the FBI.

If somebody online is making threats to engage in some sort of violence toward this person or part of his family, that is absolutely a federal crime. The FBI should be all over it, and I’m surprised that they’re not.

If the FBI actually made cases out of all the morons on Xbox Live, or the Internet for that matter, they would be doing so at the detriment of more important issues. Isn’t the FBI doing a horrible enough job already?

Dr. Phil says he contacted Microsoft, who is now willing to make a case for Terry.

We explained to them that you have filed multiple complaints. You have the numbers; you have the tagline of the people who are doing this sort of thing, so Microsoft has said they are going to set up with [you] one of their security team members, and they are going to discuss this investigation regarding your complaints and try to get the ball rolling. So we have gotten them, at least, to assign an investigator specific to you, so they can sit down and start this ball rolling.

Great job, Dr. Phil. You got Microsoft’s security team to say they will think about doing their jobs. I’m sure Terry is very pleased to hear that.

You can go read the transcript from the show at Dr. Phil’s website, or just travel back in time and watch the show yourself.

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Tags: customer_support, dr_phil, microsoft_doesn, racial_slurs, Racism

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Comments »

HC
on January 9, 2008 5:10 pm

From what I read, it looks to me like your advise for Terry is to grin and bear it. Am I right?
Rhyme
on January 9, 2008 5:34 pm

How do they know he is black unless he specifically told them this. There is a Mute option also. People complain too much its crazy.
Tiga 102
on January 9, 2008 8:58 pm

There is no federal case, when you sign up for XBL, you agree to the fact that “game experience might change online”.
Dan Landis
on January 9, 2008 11:17 pm

HC,

I find racism to be disgusting and immature. I don’t want to get into all of my personal feelings about the issue because, quite frankly, that is outside the scope of my position as a contributor to this site.

What I think Terry should do is turn the tables on these racists, become a vigilante, wear a mask, hunt down his harassers, and bring them to justice.

Seriously though, I’m curious to hear what you think should be done about it. Do you think racial slurs over Xbox Live are a federal matter in need of the FBI’s attention?
HC
on January 9, 2008 11:48 pm

Verify the complaint, disable account for a day or so, take away some achievement points etc.
Why is it that when some guy makes a violent threat the police is called in(happened a couple weeks ago), but not in these matters?
Krispy Demon
on January 9, 2008 11:56 pm

I don’t think he should “grin and bear it” but if you read the text when you file a complaint on xbox live, it states in perfectly legible true type font in whatever language your system is set up for that:

“All complaints are reviewed by Xbox LIVE. However, Xbox LIVE policy does not permit disclosure of the status or results of individual complaints.”

So, even if they did do something, they couldn’t tell him about it.

I’d also like to say that, for a guy afraid for his life and that of his family’s, never once in the little Dr. Phil article did he mention calling the police. Seems kind of strange for a guy who supposedly feared for the safety of his children to not contact any authorities outside of 1-800-4MYXBOX. Hell, maybe the FBI would have looked into it if the guy would have let them know what’s going on.
HC
on January 9, 2008 11:59 pm

@Krispy So now we are doubting whether or not that guy is for real?

I thought the issue was what MS is doing about these things.
Dan Landis
on January 10, 2008 12:23 am

HC,

Taking away account privileges (not allowing them to use Xbox Live) is something that Microsoft can do and has done. As Krispy said, Microsoft would never tell you even if they ever did actually do something about it. Unless Terry was continuously harassed by the same people (which he doesn’t specify), he may have been helped already and just never knew it. Regardless, he’s very likely to just run into another racist in a short amount of time. So while I don’t think he should just “grin and bear it”, the only way he can ever completely avoid this situation is to not play on Xbox Live anymore. It’s impossible to completely rid the service of all racism, and a little naive to think that is something Microsoft is capable of doing. They could ban Terry’s specific offenders, but they will quickly and easily be replaced. It will never end. To a certain extent, Terry needs to accept that he will run into these types of people when playing online and determine for himself if he thinks it’s worth it.
HC
on January 10, 2008 12:31 am

In other words grin and bear it. Or get out of town.
Dan Landis
on January 10, 2008 12:46 am

I’m not going to get into an argument about this, HC.

The simple facts are that Microsoft cannot preemptively ban people that may one day say something to Terry that he doesn’t like. It’s just not possible. Your solution was to ban offenders. They can ban every single person that says a bad thing to Terry, but there will always be more to replace those people. The anonymous nature of the online world makes it easy for people to be jerks. They will never stop, and that’s something Terry, you, me, Dr. Phil, and everyone else in the world needs to accept and deal with if we hope to continue having services like Xbox Live and the Internet.
Krispy Demon
on January 10, 2008 3:22 am

I don’t think my opinion of him matters at all. I’m sure it is real, to an extent. I doubt the situation that led up to his appearance on Dr. Phil as being so completely one sided as the episode made it sound, but that has nothing to do with it.

I’m saying, if Microsoft did ban the offending player(s), they wouldn’t tell the guy. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. File your complaint and get on with your life. BLOCK the guy so he can’t send you messages or join your games anymore. There are several ways to protect your privacy on XBL and they are all easy. If you file a complaint, and now the guy is threatening your kids, call the cops. Don’t call XBL customer support back! Even if they find enough proof against the offensive player(s), it’s not like they’re going to call the police for you. I mean, like most CS service centers, you’re talking to people in India or something who more than likely wouldn’t know how to call you’re local police anyway. This is straight from Xbox.com’s website on “Dealing with Offensive Players”:

“CONTACT LAW ENFORCEMENT
If you feel that you are in danger, contact law enforcement immediately. We will work with law enforcement directly to investigate.”

Yes, more could be done to police the system, the same could be said for anything, including real life. I guess people don’t run into this problem in WoW, CoD4 on the PC, or real life, right? This is explicitly an XBL problem and it’s all about MS not caring about it’s customers? This never happens in Warhawk? The virtual skies of Warhawk have never once, in it’s entire existence, ever heard the capital “N” word? I guess the very second that someone says “I’ll fucking kill you for that!” in Resistance, they are instantly perma-banned and a federal warrant is issued for their arrest, right?

As far as police showing up for someone makeing a threat in real life, that is one example. I don’t think a cop is called in every single time someone makes a threatening remark. Hell, I’ve heard people say they’ll kill me plenty of times and I’ve never seen them get arrested. Of course, I’ve never called the cops over it, which is, I think, the big issue. I’ve been in public places like bars or clubs and have had it said to me, but the bartender never called the cops for me. I never actually felt threatened. I think that’s a big difference there. People SAY all kinds of things. I think the racial slur thing is a MS problem and one that they have to combat every day, but the threatening remarks thing is a police issue and something MS should not be responsible for.

I’m sure tons of people have been banned from XBL for lots of different reasons, but I bet every single one of them was reported by someone. Just like real life, the police of XBL can’t just take someone’s word for it. They have to have proof. Terry says he has a text proving that was he says it the truth and that Microsoft should do something about it right away. I agree. If he had proof of threats that he felt were real he should have called the police. If he had proof that they were racists, they should be banned, but what proof did he have? I mean, a text message without previous history could be taken completly out of context. What if it was one of Terry’s kids’ friends joking and Terry got the text by mistake? What if it was another black guy and it’s supposedly okay for him to say the “N” word? I mean, what kind of shit storm would MS be in if they banned a black guy for saying the “N” word? Jessie Jackson would but up their pooper in a heartbeat.

In all honestly though, to me, it sounds like Terry shouldn’t be on the internet at all. Reading over the article yet again, I just find the whole thing hard to comprehend. He’s just some regular guy on XBL and people just start stalking him because he’s black. Not just casting about random racial slander that he happens to overhear but actively seeking him out and threatening him and his kids. I keep reading the article trying to figure out if this is a string of players or just one guy over the course of years and it’s hard to tell for sure. It sounds like more than one player, and if that’s the case, it could just be bad luck. MS could have very well banned every person he complained about, but as I stated above, they aren’t going to tell him that. So, he might be crying more about the state of the world than that of XBL.

If it is more than one person, one has to wonder what is going on that he keeps running into these people? I’ve been on XBL for almost 5 years and I’ve only heard the “N” word a handful of times, mostly coming from squeaky-voiced ADD kids whose parents aren’t doing their job and only got the brat XBL to shut them the hell up. Granted, I’m not black, so maybe I just don’t get it as much, but most of the matches I end up in have at least one black dude in them it seems and I’ve never heard them get threatened, and none of the players on my friends list that are black have ever mentioned anything about it to me at all. To be fair, maybe it isn’t Terry at all, but one of his kids going around and pissing people off.

I mean, thirteen is on the edge of the scale for gaming at all, in my opinion, let alone gaming on the internet. Ten is even worse, though being that it’s a girl maybe she’s a mature ten year old. I’d be more worried about sexual harassment with her before any kind of racial thing, to be honest. Gaming is still a pretty male dominated past time.

Really, my problem is the five year old who plays XBL. What’s up with that? What’s this kid playing? If the kid has any experience at all with XBL it’s too much. He shouldn’t be playing anything at all on the internet, let alone on a console. Maybe there are some edutainment online games on the PC, but I don’t think there are any on any consoles. I’m sure if the kid did get on XBL he got all kinds of names, not necessarily racial ones. Imagine getting matched up with a friggin five year old?! I’d be asking him to get his parents and then cussing them out because that’s just bad parenting.

Really, something must be going on if this guy is having this much of a problem on XBL with more than one player. Again, I’m not surprised that he’s run into racial slander and stuff, it’s going to happen at some point no matter where you go. I’ve seen it happen more often in my brief time in WoW and EQ2 than I have my entire time playing games on XBL and yet no one is on Dr. Phil complaining about those games… unless it’s because they’re so addictive. The difficulty I have in dealing with this is that he’s somehow managed to find people that are so racist that they’ll not only bother him during a game, but hound him with messages outside of the game. Not just a few times, but from the sound of this it’s a constant battle that the guy has to deal with. More than likely, and I could be wrong, the guy or his kids are “keyboard bullies” themselves and are either glossing over that part or Terry is unaware of how annoying their kids are online.

Let me give you an example. I was playing a game of Rainbow Six Vegas. All was going well and then someone new joined singing the Peanut Butter Jelly song. I don’t know what it’s called or if it’s real, but it was on an episode of Family Guy. Google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Anyway, we asked the kid several times to shut up and this just made him sing it louder. Luckily, the host of the server kicked him out. If the host wouldn’t have done something, I would have muted the kid and then marked him as an avoided player. If I was as much of a jerk as this kid was, who knows what kind of impotent virtual fight we could have gotten into. Perhaps, if he had done this in a different game with people not as civil as myself things could have gotten heated. Maybe Terry’s kids are annoying and he either doesn’t know it, doesn’t want to admit it, or is hiding it for the sake of being on Dr. Phil. Maybe Terry is a dick and his kids are too. I didn’t actually see the show, so I can’t make any assumptions one way or another, but it certainly sounds a lot more likely a scenario than this one poor guy consistently running into the worst people the internet has to offer.

If it’s one person that’s been hounding the guy for years, than that’s even worse. It’s virtually impossible to actually harass someone on XBL. There are so many privacy features and community features to prevent this sort of thing that it’s laughable to me that anyone would ever have that issue at all. It’s almost like the poor people that were on Dr. Phil previously there were duped into cashing fake checks for some overseas finance company. Sorry, but stupid is as stupid does. I get all sorts of scams in my inbox all the time. I’m apparently a lottery winner, possible heir to some dying Arabian prince, and the winner of countless gift certificates and giveaways. Sorry if maybe I’m a little uncaring here, but if you fall for that, you deserve what you get. If this poor guy spent years with XBL and couldn’t figure out how to use the extraordinarily easy ways to protect your privacy on XBL, they have no place to complain. It’s like complaining that you had an accident because the headlights in your car didn’t turn on automatically in the dark(by the way, it’s called an on switch).

So yeah, I agree that MS should do something about the problem, but there is only so much they can do. It’s never really states for sure that nothing was done, every one of the complaints the guy filed could have been followed and every single player banned, but Terry wanted the satisfaction of knowing that the offenders had been punished and MS does not discuss that information. THAT seems to be the problem here is that he couldn’t answers about his complaints. It’s easy to say that everyone should be banned for doing this or saying that, but “Verify the complaint, disable account for a day or so, take away some achievement points etc.” is not an actual suggestion to achieving this lofty goal. It’s like saying, “People who commit crimes should be caught, and then punished”. Yeah, that’s a great idea, and is in fact the way things work in theory, there is a lot more to it than that. Unless MS hires enough people to sit in and watch every single game played and read every single message sent back and forth, people are going to get away with stuff. People should do what MS suggests people do when confronted by situations like that Terry experienced which is right here on this page:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/live/ti-obnoxious.htm

If he followed these steps, I don’t see how he could have a problem. If he experienced it more than once, sucks to be him, follow the figgin policies. I think “grin and bear it” is a lot different than muting, blocking and filing complaints. Grin and bear it suggests that he do nothing and just accept some hicks ignorant quips and that’s the worst thing you can do. I never heard the 10 complaints thing before, but that sounds perfectly legit I guess. I don’t, however, think it’s the same as robbing someone’s house. Saying something and doing something is completely different and the statement is idiotic. The way that example goes would be like calling Home Depot if your house was robbed, because Terry never called the fucking cops, he called Microsoft. As far as I know, while racial hate speak is ugly and wrong, I don’t think it’s illegal. I mean, if that were the case, people like the KKK wouldn’t be able to do anything at all because they certainly have no problem saying the “N” word. Yes, it violates XBL online policies, but that’s their laws and it’s theirs to enforce as they please.

I’m sorry if this has gone on so long, but as a gamer I’m passionate on some subjects and how our community is viewed is always skewed toward the worse side of things. Do we really need some douche bag like Dr. Phil or his millions of naive suburban house wives thinking internet games are not only addictive but also full of horrible racist murderers? This is the same kind of thing that dungeons and dragons went through where all these people thought it was some kind of satanist thing and that if you played it you’d go crazy and kill your friends? Anyone remember that old Tom Hanks movie where he goes crazy playing D&D? Yes, there are some bad people on XBL and the internet in general. It’s almost like real life that way. If this guy followed the procedures that XBL has in place for this sort of thing I don’t see how it could have possibly gotten as bad as he makes it out to be unless Terry or his kids are doing stupid stuff on XBL to bring this sort of negative attention on themselves in the first place. I’d also like to know what games they are playing. I mean, is that five year old kid playing Halo 3 and team killing because he doesn’t know what he’s doing? I mean, besides the fact that the game is rated T and none of those kids should be playing it unsupervised, who knows what kind of annoying things they’re doing. I just find this extraordinarily hard to swallow that this guy has had such a constant problem with this sort of thing if he’s not doing anything wrong. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that a five year old, and 10 year old, and a thirteen year old are being completely civil while playing games on XBL themselves. It’s been my experience that annoyance begets annoyance, and that things only escalate from there. Really, I guess my problem is that I don’t understand what the problem is really. Is it just the MS wasn’t banning the people? If they were the evil racist toads Terry seems to think they were it would be a matter of weeks before they were banned from XBL. Is it just that they wouldn’t tell him what was going on with each individual case, because that’s their policy. Yes, there are an abundance of dick heads on XBL, just like everywhere else. Does XBL catch every single person who violates their policies? Probably not. The truth is that until we get into a Big Brother esq world where our every move is monitored people will get away with plenty and not get caught for it. At least with XBL there are tools at your disposal to avoid these people. Maybe they won’t get punished, but does it really matter if xXKKK_Sn1pahXx gets banned or not if you never have to see him again? Only a “keyboard bully” would worry about whether or not someone got punished for a petty verbal slight like being called a name, no matter how offensive that name may be.
Ryan Gravlin
on January 10, 2008 1:54 pm

Once you realize who is behind that headset, you should not even care what is being said.

You must accept some percentage of the people that use it are ignorant. Beyond that it’s probably mostly kids.

I play many online FPS games and have had it out with many a people who use racial slurs. Mostly when it gets out of hand it’s one or two people perpatrating it, and you must confront them — publicically in front of everyone else on the server. Rational people don’t take kindly to these kinds of personal attacks.

Couple tips:
- Play in the early morning or late at night, an extremely effective youth-fighting tool.

- Learn to mute people that cannot be reasoned with
JOJO
on January 10, 2008 2:00 pm

@HC Nothing will come of this because the guy was black, not Jewish.
Name
on January 10, 2008 2:07 pm

Just what we need the FBI going after emo kiddies playing video games instead of those making REAL threats towards real people and places.

As for Terry he must be a real jerk online if he has that many people constantly flaming him and threatening him. Sure you will from time to time run into jerks who will say things no matter what but to have it on the scale this guy whines about well he must really be an ass online towards other players.
John Tucker
on January 10, 2008 2:09 pm

Dan you couldn’t be more wrong. If MS were to say publicly that they will not tolerate racism on Xbox live and made a public example of these people then others might be less likely to make the same sort of remarks for fear of the same thing happening to them. You are correct when you say that you will never completely stop these sort of comments, but MS can take steps to let people know that this type of abuse will not be tolerated and in effect will deter some but not all comments, making the online experience more enjoyable for everyone. Just because it can’t be stopped is no reason to say that we should just let it go on. Turning a blind eye will only make things worse.
On another note, this guy just might consider not using the head set and muting the other players, this way he could still enjoy Halo 3 without getting harassed. Or maybe MS could just add a feature to block all communications. So you could play in peace. I know I would use that feature.
Alex Brola
on January 10, 2008 2:10 pm

The real problem is this guy has the maturity level of his offenders. 100% of truly mature, logical people would hear it, possibly laugh or totally ignore it, and go on with their business. Some would mute the person(s), other’s would giggle from how ridiculously rude people are. No harm done.

That’s all. This is just a case of two kids (one in adult form).
Bob Bobbinson
on January 10, 2008 2:13 pm

i’ve not played on XBOX live but I am a PC gamer and play similar games like COD4 and other games that are on the xbox. I can’t recal seeing racism (against colour) ever on pc games. Then again I’m from the UK where its not so much of an issue.

like someone said its probably just idiot kids.

Eductaion is the key. We are all the same, and all people came from Africa. If no one came in and out of Australia for 1000 years the whole population would be ‘black’

Peace
GadgetGuy
on January 10, 2008 2:14 pm

“The anonymous nature of the online world makes it easy for people to be jerks. They will never stop, and that’s something Terry, you, me, Dr. Phil, and everyone else in the world needs to accept and deal with if we hope to continue having services like Xbox Live and the Internet.”

That might be true of the Internet, but definitely not XBox live. They could easily keep temporary voice logs to verify racially-motivated harassment and routinely ban users who engage in those practices. People start losing their accounts, and they’ll stop using racist language pretty damn quick.

Worked (decently) for chip modders, right? (to the extent that it could, in this case)

When people use XBox live, they have an absolute right not to be verbally threatened or harassed. If you were in Disney world and someone ran up to you with a noose screaming racial epithets, you wouldn’t stand for it, and XBox live makes it infinitely easier to seek out and ban harassing users.
Casper
on January 10, 2008 2:29 pm

I am a fellow player on xbox live and i must say that i have heard some of the racial slurrs online but i have also never heard an adult that was so bother by a 12yr old kid running their mouth just trying to talk trash. i think terry needs to grow up and get over it. xbox live offers the ability to mute other players for just this reason. its rediciulus for dr.P to contact xbox live to “investigate” they already have a system inplace, as for the involvement of the FBI??? WHAT THE HELL MAN ITS JUST A 13YR OLD TALKING SHIT ON AN XBOX ABOUT A GAMMEEEEE. this just goes to show you that some people need ot learn to not wear their feelings on their sleeves. terry is a nancy oh ant btw terry… instead of punishing your kids and not letting them play here is an idea… TAKE THE HEADSET FROM THEM.
Chris
on January 10, 2008 2:35 pm

The chatter on XBL is inane. To the point that spending my hard earned money seems to be pointless. I have relegated myself to watching movies and playing Arcade Games online soley.

As a former teacher I understand that impulsivity of youth, but that alone does not warrant the level that the problens that are on XBL.

I myself was a target of the reverse side of this problem. I sat quietly (on mute) playing the game. Since I was on mute I couldn’t hear the inane chatter. Several players must have decided to mess with me by reporting me to XBL CS. I was kicked off XBL and called at home by secuirty asking my side of allegations that I had made sexual advances and off color remarks to players. Luckily I had several people who were in the game back me up that I had become a traget of some idiot teens bent of messing with someone. They were booted (three days later they had new accounts and harrased me to the point I had to change accounts).

So something must be done to control these issues, and it is within MS “domain” and business practice to offer a safe and realitively secure forum to play games in.
Danny
on January 10, 2008 2:36 pm

I know Larry Walters personally, and I find it disappointing to hear that he went on Dr. Phil’s show at all!
Matt
on January 10, 2008 2:37 pm

“They could ban Terry’s specific offenders, but they will quickly and easily be replaced. It will never end.”

Imagine if this was our attitude towards real world racism.

This is not just generic shit talk, these are specific and personal threats. If you think someone should just put up with racism and that nothing can be done about it then you’re as racist as the people threatening Terry.
JUstin
on January 10, 2008 2:48 pm

I’m not going to get into an argument about this.

That being said, here is my counter-argument…
Adam
on January 10, 2008 2:48 pm

All the racism, sexism, homophobia and all-around douchebaggery that exists on online gaming networks is lame as church. Hardcore gamers might be able to put up with it (heck they’re often the source of it) but Sony and Microsoft are going to have to find a way to better control it if they want to win over a larger segment of the public. Repeatedly having to deal with obnoxious, ignorant kids isn’t something I relish.
Amir Akhlaghi
on January 10, 2008 2:51 pm

If the offenders are dealt with then the rampant racism will come to a halt. not all racism will stop but people won’t be so proudly yelling the n word at people and telling them they should be lynched when they know they very well may have their account suspended. these racist gamers care more about the game than being racist.
Bryan
on January 10, 2008 3:18 pm

HC, yeah he needs to grin and bear it. I play on XBL and you can just join a game and be waiting for it to be setup abd before anyone says ANYTHING someone is yelling N***** over and over. At the same time people will always start talking dirty, start flirting with people who have high pitched voices, act homosexual and come on to other players. Thats XBL. they will never be able to ban all the people that do it. There is in fact a mute button. Mute the people that bother you or dont play XBL.
Bryan
on January 10, 2008 3:20 pm

@Adam,

“but Sony and Microsoft are going to have to find a way to better control it if they want to win over a larger segment of the public.”

You obviously dont play on XBL. XBL has so many subscribers that half the time we cant even get into a game cause the XBL network is hammered. I dont think that they are hardup for subscribers.
Gus
on January 10, 2008 3:33 pm

If there were true consequences for this kind of behavior it wouldn’t happen. You don’t see racist crap in WoW because Blizzard bans frequently and without pause. Microsoft needs to develop a reputation for being incredibly tough on this behavior and or it will continue to occur and continue to be a black eye on the gaming community. Part of the fault, I believe, lies in the rest of us. Those who laugh at or dismiss online racism and bigotry rather than act. Gamers should step up reporting of this kind of language.
Matt
on January 10, 2008 3:38 pm

“There is no federal case”

Actually, if people are threatening to lynch him, it very well could be.

“when you sign up for XBL, you agree to the fact that “game experience might change online”.”

so i guess racist attacks (as well as sexist, homophobic and xenophobic attacks) are okay as long as there is no one there to call you on your crap to your face? Nice, dude, glad to see where you stand on equality. Don’t claim to support it unless you’re willing to take a stand.
Voltaire
on January 10, 2008 4:43 pm

Individuals may take their personal battles to Dr. Phil et al and receive special treatment, but whether this is through ignorance or vengeance we cannot know.

Microsoft is a business doing what they believe is most profitable, which means that without a fundamental change in the system beyond the control of Microsoft, in my opinion, one should “Grin and bear it, or get out of town.” I emphasize this especially because of the ease in which you can mute racists just as you mute obnoxious, nasally, prepubescent, microphone spammers.

However, if you are threatened (by legal standards), then feel free to contact your federal policing monopoly, the FBI.

What bothers me is that people cannot cope with the existence of racists, sexists, and homophobes and thus would like to distribute the cost of Microsoft’s increased vigilance to all users rather than bear their burdens alone.

In other words, I am not going to pay more for XBox Live so that you do not hear free speech. If that is your aim, then fuck you gay nigger bitch. (Disclaimer: I am one or more of these and/or a stupid kid, so I can say it, Amiright?)
Sjofn
on January 10, 2008 4:45 pm

You know, if XBL is full of asshats shrieking “nigger” and threatening to lynch people, maybe gaming ISN’T getting a worse reputation than it deserves.
David
on January 10, 2008 5:47 pm

I have been on Xbox Live for years and the “African Americans” throw out just as many racial slurs as everyone else. I would have to say that my experience is that they use the “N” word more than most. It is the same with all of society. If a white person uses racial slurs it is a crime against humanity, but if an “African American” uses it, then it’s all good. Why don’t we call a spade a spade. There is no reverse racism. Whether you are black, white, Hispanic, jewish, etc. it is all racism. When I am held to a different standard then the rest because I am Caucasian then the real racist is the one pointing the finger at me. Don’t get me wrong. I am not racist and have fought against a family my whole life that is, but equal treatment is equal treatment.
Deeperkyo
on January 10, 2008 5:52 pm

I’m black and play on Live all the time. Whenever they say N***** I just laugh it off. People ,online at least, need to have thicker skins. Unless the persons in question were talking about a specific threat like “I know where you live and I’m coming.”, it’s just something to be shrugged off IMHO.
Deeperkyo
on January 10, 2008 5:53 pm

Edit:

“I know where you live(insert address)and I’m coming.”,
fandango
on January 10, 2008 6:53 pm

I’m still playing a PS2 offline, but-

Isn’t there a way in XBox Live to flag players so games you’re about to join with people you’ve flagged as abusive show up in red or something?

Alternatively, what about an optional private ‘clean gamer’ flag on accounts, so players who agree to be held to a higher standard can play in both ‘clean’ and non-clean games, and if a complaint against a player is found to be valid he loses his ‘clean gamer’ flag for a day, then a week, etc.

I imagine a lot of players and player’s parents would pay a little extra if it turned out to be expensive to, say, temporarily cache the audio of someone if they get a couple complaints.

Am I crazy, or is the world crazy?
DanceOfD3ath
on January 10, 2008 7:52 pm

If M$ dealt with every racist, every immature kid, every person who has ever been insulting on Xbox live, they would lose a shit ton of money. I am not black so “I wouldn’t understand what that word feel like” but its just a word. I have been called many names in my life, none of which have offended me. Words are a compilation of letters, with meanings that may or may not be offensive to certain people. In my mind, words shouldn’t really hurt anyone, they should never be upset because someone doesn’t like them. People are pricks, better said on Scrubs “People are bastard covered bastards with bastard filling” humanity is not mostly good, its mostly bad just masked by a neutral front.
Rich B.
on January 10, 2008 8:03 pm

You know after all these comments ..NO ONE said that there are TWO sides of a story…
What did if any did Larry call the other guys
HONKY,Cracker,etc I am sure he did..I have heard all the arguments on Live and when someone calls someone the N word they just counter with all the Whitey slang curses …no big deal…don’t read too much into it …
Krispy Demon
on January 10, 2008 8:12 pm

I really want to say that it’s not JUST an XBL problem. I promise you that you would end up experiencing the same thing on any popular online medium,. WoW has the problem also. It’s probably not AS prevalent because you have to type things out, and most racists can’t read or write.

@Adam
I don’t think it’s Microsoft’s job to clean up society. They do what they can on their service but it really comes down to parents doing their god damned job for a change instead of expecting everyone else to do it for them or blaming something else for their kids being stupid assholes. If their parents were there to see what was happening, it shouldn’t happen. At the very least, the parents shouldn’t be raising a racist piece of crap anyway. I guess Microsoft should send over a counselor to ever subscribers house and make them take sensitivity courses before they can play online? I mean, what do you want them to do, and don’t just say “Kick off bad people” because if it was that easy there wouldn’t be any crime in the world at all. I again want to point out how extraordinarily easy it is to file a complaint against someone whether they actually did something or not, which hogs up the system with false charges and slows the process.

I also want to point this out:

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/guide/gamerzone.htm

Now, I don’t think that works 100%, but it’s a start, and it helps me illustrate my next point, what I enjoy doing in a game and what you enjoy doing may be polar opposites. Maybe I like playing games with a lot of trash talk. “Man, you aim is worse than my Grandmothers, and she has palsy!”. I certainly don’t mind swear words having spent a number of years in the army. Some people may have a problem with that. If you go to the gym to play basketball, do you blame the gym if the other team talks trash? Probably not. I guess it depends on your gym’s policies, but chances are you just don’t play that team anymore. If I’m annoyed by someone in a game, at the very least I mute them. If it’s more than one person I leave the game and go find another server to play on. If I’m getting annoying messages I block the player sending them. It’s the equivalent of walking away and ignoring them, which is much easier to do on something like XBL than it is in real life.

I also think it depends on what game you’re playing. I mean, if you’re playing something like Gears of War, I don’t know what is wrong with your brain. Somehow it’s perfectly okay to explode someone into bloody chunks but god forbid someone says The “N” word. I’m not trying to say it’s perfectly fine, because it isn’t, but how can you be so sensitive about that when you are cutting people in half with a chainsaw? I’m not saying you should be okay with it, it’s still offensive, but to cry about it like it’s some kind of punch in the face? Mute the jerk! Go out of your way to make his face explode (in the game). If you have the ability, kick him out, or ask whoever does have the ability to kick him out. If he’s the host or for some reason can’t be kicked out, leave the game yourself. Now, if you’re playing Uno or something then yeah, it’s a little different, but not that much.

I really REALLY don’t know what more Microsoft is supposed to do about people being dick heads. I don’t mean to be insensitive, but stop crying about it. Microsoft kicks people off XBL all the time, but as their policy CLEARLY states, they don’t tell people about the results of complaints. File your complaint, mute, block, avoid or leave or whatever, and get on with your life.

@Bryan
I don’t think he should grin and bear it. That implies he do nothing. File his complaint and then mute, block, and avoid the offensive player. If he runs into a new guy every week it will take up 2 minutes of his time every month.
Krispy Demon
on January 10, 2008 8:51 pm

“That might be true of the Internet, but definitely not XBox live. They could easily keep temporary voice logs to verify racially-motivated harassment and routinely ban users who engage in those practices. People start losing their accounts, and they’ll stop using racist language pretty damn quick.”

Yeah, I’m sure that’s real cost effective. You know, hey, let’s just stop making games and start recording every single conversation so we can stop thirteen year olds from being thirteen year olds. I mean, why don’t cops do this if it’s so easy. I mean, just record everyone’s conversation so if anyone commits a crime and talks about it, we can catch them.

As far as Blizzard swinging the ban hammer, we’re talking about two different systems here. WoW is TEXT BASED. If you file a report, it sends a teeny tiny 5kb file, if that, of your chat log. Much easier to prosecute than anything on XBL. If you’re playing WoW on Teamspeak, I don’t think there is a thing Blizzard will do about you’re complaint. They certainly don’t tell you the results of an individual complaint. They just say “We banned 3000 people today.” forgetting to mention that 2000 more copies of the game got sold the next day. At least with XBL they can ban an actual system and not just an email address or account number.

Also, just because Blizzard flaunts their banning numbers around, most of the time it has nothing to do with racism, it’s for gold farming or using third party software. If anything, ask WoW players and there is a running sentiment that they ban too quickly.

As far as banning players for using a mod chip, that is something that can be scanned for. It can be automated. It’s not like you can have a mod chip for fifteen minutes and then not. You wanted an automated system to determine whether or not a person gets banned? I sure don’t want Max figuring out whether I’m finding a good restaurant on Zagats or if I’m calling people Fagots.

As far as these people relating to actual threats on XBL to threats in real life, I couldn’t agree more. If I’m threatened in real life, I call the cops. I don’t see what MS did here. If Terry, or anyone else, feels threatened they should call the police. What is MS going to do? They could ban the guy, that how is that protecting Terry. CALL THE FUCKING COPS. I don’t see how that is up for debate. If the cops show up maybe they would have called MS and MS might have taken it seriously.

I really don’t think that XBL is nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. I mean, I hardly ever hear this kind of language EVER, certainly not on a regular basis. What games are people playing that you run into this kind of thing all the time?
psychic readings
on January 10, 2008 8:55 pm

thanks for the information..!
Me
on January 10, 2008 10:33 pm

FBI!!! Are you serious!!! I know that the people can get a little rough, but the FBI!!! and krispy, calm down.
matt
on January 10, 2008 10:33 pm

My solution, don’t say your black
Armin Hammer
on January 11, 2008 5:41 am

It should also be noted that if you don’t want your kids talking to people over XBL, it is fairly simple to configure an accounts Family Settings so that all voice, text, image, and video communication is blocked.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/...
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/...

Any parent who lets young children talk to random strangers online is completely negligent (Terry especially, turning a 5 year old loose on XBL!?).
GET
on January 11, 2008 10:03 am

MAYBE IF BLACK PEOPLE WOULD STOP CALLING EACH OTHER THAT AND TELLING WHITE PEOPLE IT WAS A NO NO THIS WOULDN’T HAPPEN. OBVIOUSLY WHITE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO SAY “NIGGA” AND “NIGGER” BECAUSE IT PISSES THEM OFF THAT SOMEONE IS TELLING THEM WHAT TO DO WHEN THE PEOPLE THAT TELL THEM NOT TO DO IT DO IT THEMSELVES. IT’S ALSO FREEDOM OF SPEECH WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT (SURE, IT’S MEAN, BUT IT’S STILL AMERICA)
Andrew
on March 13, 2008 1:56 pm

I am on Xbox Live almost everyday playing Call of Duty 4. I hear casual racism every day (n-word) and extreme racism every other day. What I refer to as extreme racism are instances in which a group of clan (online clan mind you) members discuss in extended detail their “lynching” plans for later that evening, diatribes on how black people are monkeys, a litany of anti-Hispanic comments, and other discussions that go FAR beyond dropping the n word here and there. This is not something I encounter once a week or once a month, but pretty much once every couple of hours. It is not just squeaky 10 year olds, but beer guzzling college kids as well. I’m a 28 year old white guy and this stuff is absolutely intolerable to me. I can only imagine how brutal and incessant it would be if I was black or hispanic. Turning the microphone down or hoping a broken reporting system deprives the offender of a day of Xbox Live are hardly solutions. Microsoft claims a zero tolerance policy. They should start enforcing it.
Ross
on August 9, 2008 6:24 am

XBox LIVE has always been like that for the mouthing-off 10 year olds. They can act big and nobody can beat crap out of them, that’s why they do it. The thing I don’t like is when an “African-American” can call any Caucasian whatever they want, but when we say one thing, we are racist etc.
Trust me, they give as good as they get.
I’m Scottish, I put up with getting told I wear a skirt all the time (Kilt actually ;P) and that I have to go eat Lucky Charms (Ermm, I’m not Irish) by the big “Gangstas”, then when I say one thing It’s all “Oooo yo gettin reported” and all that rubbish, they can give it out but they can’t take it back.
Tr0ubleguy
on August 31, 2008 7:02 am

yeah I think we should all turn our backs on racism and hope it goes away. As a black man, who plays for hours on xbl, I must say that the 5 to 18 year old gamers are the worst, its kind of trippy to hear a lil kid bearly able to form complete sentences go on a racist rant, it makes me wonder where does all the hate come from? Grin and bear it you say, you must of never been called out of your name for no reason while just trying to play a simple game of call of duty. I wonder if parents know that there kids are junior klans men. I’m more than sure that anyone who can say grin and bear it is also guilty of spreading the hate, as they say if you not part of the solution your the dam problem. All I have to say is look me up in Cleveland and call me a name to my face, I’m only 6′3 and 200 lbs. Your mama, cyber tuff guys.
Tr0ubleguy
on August 31, 2008 7:11 am

Ross, you are going to tell me a black guy on xbl said you wear skirts, lol. I highly doubt it.
You come off as someone who’s trying to justify name calling (I can tell by the “big gangtas” in your post). I’ve made alot of friends on xbl young, old, white, red, black, tan, short, tall, fact is it does not matter when it comes to race only skill, quit being petty and play.

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