This issue doesn’t necessarily apply to me, but rather a friend.
I have advised that my friend appeal the ban despite it lasting only three days, despite this, I feel that their ban has been enforced unfairly and totally out of context, and that going forward, due to Tower Unite being multicultural, I would politely request moderation to think carefully and do their research before handing out a chat ban over a word that has more than one context, especially if those contexts are linguistic as well as culturual.
As far as I am aware, my friend does not knowingly use homophobic slurs in chat and is not out to offend anyone.
For context, my friend was discussing British foods, and innocently mentioned f*****s in chat, I being my British myself, am aware and fully understand that f*****s are a type of pork meatball.
I have made my friend aware that he need’s to be extremely careful regarding the use of the word. Again, I’m sure my friend can wait out the three day ban, but most important in this case is that chat bans are not being applied out of context.
Polite reminder that web filters and censorship are examples of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
The word is chat filtered for a very good reason, which is why a ban was issued when the user avoided the chat filter, as that is against the rules.
We do our best to moderate based on multiple cultures and mainly focus on words that are commonly used to harass or demean other users. With this particular word, it has a lot of negative uses here in the U.S.
In the future it is best to not attempt to get around chat filters that we have placed in the game.
An in game chat filter is far different from regular a web filter. Also don’t pretend your friend had absolutely no clue of the word’s other meaning, it’s used in England, just as an “American-ism”
On-top of that, circumnavigating a filter is a whole other beast of a problem than getting banned for the word, accept that the filter is there and you can’t realistically talk about your meatball made from pig guts, which I am sure comes up a lot in conversations.
Also please watch a video before you post it, Tom Scott talks explicitly not just about censoring words by accident, but also how people will bypass these filters and then human moderation is needed, much like this case, it literally is supporting filter bypass punishment.
@TheGuyWithAHat I have watched the video, in fact; I have watched it several times before, and it’s something I always find myself coming back to when I encounter issues like this.
Were it not for the existence of the profanity/slur filter, we would not be having this conversation. Which was the entire point of me posting the video.
I get that the rules say not to evade chat filters because it is a bannable offense, if the chat filters did not exist; then no rule regarding evading chat filters would be hitherto broken in the first place.
Humanity is imperfect by nature. Chat filters are man-made. Therefore chat filters are flawed by default. I much prefer human moderation over filters and algorithms, because humans can understand context and nuance far better.
For the record, my friend is Portuguese and is also on record as being sexually attracted to men. My friend was also not fully aware of the word being the name of a pork product.
@Melonplex Mac already said his piece, so I think the snarky undertone is completely unnecessary. I’m not one to enforce the rules here, but please keep it civil.
