Home's zero tolerance chat censorship policy criticized

December 29th, 2008, 23:27 Posted By: wraggster

We trust the collective PlayStation Home-playing community about as far as we can throw them, but we can't help but agree with a recent San Francisco Chronicle article that criticizes the "game's" ridiculously strict chat censorship policy. The article explores the case of Michael Marsh, who attempted to start a gay/straight alliance club, only to find that the words gay, lesbian and bisexual (all "preferred terms" in the gay community) were being blocked by the profanity filter; a policy Marsh worries could encourage players to think of them as pejorative terms.

The filter doesn't just apply an unflinching amount of restriction to terms describing sexual preference -- "Christ" and "Jew" are also given the asterisk treatment, and even "Hello" gets blocked for its implementation of the dreaded "h-e-double-hockey-sticks". An SCEA spokesperson responded by saying that "user behavior and feedback" will help guide their changes during the beta process.

What do you guys think? Can Home users be trusted to utter the names of religious figures and issue polite salutations to one another?

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/12/28/ho...cy-criticized/

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