There’s STILL a Ton of Slurs in Online Gaming

BY: Lily Shavick

If you game, you already know.

If you live in the world, you won’t be surprised.

Under the anonymous shield of online gamer tags, video game violence is timid and tame compared to the vile, degrading hate speech that is rampant in user interaction.

365Gay.com reports it’s the reason GayGamer.net founder Flynn DeMarco stays away from online gaming. “I don’t play with anybody I don’t already know,” he says, to avoid the constant verbal abuse common in the live gaming forums. His site has consulted with Microsoft and other companies on possible steps to clean up online gaming, but to little avail.

The huge and well-recognized problem has no clear end in sight. Despite numerous and sincere efforts by major gaming networks like Xbox Live and PlayStation network to combat the slurs, they can barely limit the behavior. “A lot of the problem lies within the players themselves,” DeMarco notes.

Most of the responsibility for policing misbehavior falls on users, who must report abuse and block offensive gamers. Eventually reported abusive users can be punished, suspended, or blocked from live voice interactions and even permanently banned. Players whose conduct crosses into criminal behavior are reported to law enforcement, according to experts.

But all an ardent hateful gamer has to do is set up a fresh gaming tag (user name) to begin harassing players all over again.

Another possible step might be making users play under their real names so they are accountable for their online actions. Read more about the seemingly impossible challenges experts and activists face in cleaning up the foul language in gaming here.

Images: TeamSugar