One of the biggest issues in online games is cyberbullying and toxicity. Microsoft is aware of that and it has been looking for new ways to combat this issue for this past couple of years with lots of new features that give users control over their gaming experience. Not all of them worked but now, Microsoft has announced that it is rolling out new filters that make it possible for players to manage what words and phrases that can be shown in Xbox Live private messages.
New Xbox Filters
The new filters have started rolling out on Monday and they come in four stages: unfiltered, mature, medium and friendly. The strongest stage is the friendly one and even though it still allows words such as “noob” and “destroy”, it blocks many aggressive words and phrases that are used by toxic players.
“With this update, you will set your own specific levels of automated filtration so you can decide what’s acceptable and what isn’t in the text-based messages you receive across Xbox Live. Filter levels can be customized based on four tiers of filtration – Friendly, Medium, Mature and Unfiltered. And as always, if you receive a message that violates our Community Standards for Xbox, even with filters in place, you can still report this conduct to Xbox Enforcement for follow up,” said Microsoft.
How to Use the New Feature
If you are wondering how the new filters can be accessed, then you should be pleased to find out that Microsoft has explained this process in great detail in a recent blog post.
“On your console, you can configure your message safety by going to Settings > General > Online safety & family > Message safety. Whenever you receive a message that’s beyond your safety setting, it’ll be replaced with a [Potentially offensive message hidden] placeholder,” said Microsoft.
“You can click on that placeholder to learn more about the settings, and there’s a handy shortcut to go change those settings. Adult accounts will have the ability to choose whether to see what content has been filtered based on the filter they choose,” added Microsoft.
