!#$%*
Recent of late, there have been some unhappy players in Rainbow Six Siege. Because they were automatically temp-banned for using racist or homophobic slurs in text chat. And Ubisoft says that that’s by design.
Good.
— Rainbow Six Siege (@Rainbow6Game) July 13, 2018
The bans last for 27 minutes on first offense, and prevent play in any aspect of the game, including Terrorist Hunt and custom games. On second and third offense, the ban leaps to two hours. And after the third, an official investigation into the account gets kicked off that could lead to a permanent ban.
When asked about it, they directed everyone to a developer blog:
Our team is working on the creation of an automated system that will censor text chat in game based on a chat filter list. This will replace words that have been identified as offensive and provide players with a notification that their language was found to be unacceptable. We will also be tracking the number of times players trigger this filter and will take action as necessary for players that are intentionally having a negative impact on other player’s gaming experience.
That said, the end result has strayed from the initial proposal, obviously. Regardless, based on video, the system doesn’t censor the word or hide it from players. It simply logs it, and (almost) immediately bans the player afterwards.
https://plays.tv/video/5b48c20b65c1669a81/new-r6s-christian-chat-put-on-a-test
Some have praised the system for dealing with toxic behavior. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon to see such language used colloquially as an erstwhile term of endearment. Lord knows most shock boards on the internet tend to blanket themselves in such terms, both as a means of staving off the easily offended, and as a form of memento mori. Until people realize that this bot doesn’t take context into account, any Rainbow 6 Siege players might want to think twice before typing stuff into the chat.