Infinity Ward Pledges to Crack Down on Racism From 'Call of Duty' Players
Racism has been a problem in online multiplayer titles for years.
Infinity Ward plans to crack down on the racist and hateful content Call of Duty players bring to its games. The developer tweeted its pledge to “do more” to monitor and remove racism from one or both of the current Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone titles, which include improving its report system and increasing the number and severity of bans:
“There is no place for racist content in our game. This is an effort we began with launch and we need to do a better job. We’re issuing thousands of daily bans of racist and hate-oriented names. But we know we have to do more – and we are:
Adding additional resources to monitor and ID racist content
Adding additional in-game reporting systems to increase the number of bans by hour
Adding filters and greater restrictions on name changes
Evaluating in-game improvements to make it easier to report offenses
Increasing permanent bans to root out repeat offenders
“We apologize to our players. This is our commitment to you, our fans, thank you.”
Its announcement comes during various #BlackLivesMatter protests happening worldwide and serves as a stand in solidarity with protesters fighting against systemic racism and police brutality. Multiplayer games, especially Call of Duty titles, have been mired with racial and discriminatory comments and online handles for as far back as the original Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in 2007. Although Call of Duty has made efforts to build filters and restrictions to combat these offensive players, hate speech still runs rampant in its online modes. Unfortunately, a Reddit user posted a video showing several active racist usernames that can be found in Call of Duty before Infinity Ward released its statement. Although it is unclear what titles the developer is looking to crack down on, Activision has also delayed its upcoming fourth season of Warzone, citing that “now is not the time.”
In related gaming news, Sony has decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event, stating it wants “to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.”
They should just remove the option to have custom Activision ID display names.
There have been offensive, racial and disgusting display names since the game transitioned to that.
— Dexb0t 🦾 (@DEXB0T) June 3, 2020
— Call of Duty (@CallofDuty) June 2, 2020
