PS4 GAMER LOSES ACCESS TO DIGITAL GAMES FOR VIOLATING SONY’S “HATE SPEECH”
POLICY
https://tinyurl.com/y26qx6er
One of the dangers of an all-digital future is that gamers have no access
rights to their library. What does that mean? It means that for gamers who
still have access to discs or cartridges, they can still play games offline
even if their online account gets penalized. For gamers who purchased their
games digitally, it means that the platform holders can dictate access to
your games by enabling or disabling the licenses as they see fit. This is
what happened to one gamer who lost access to his PS4 games for a week for
violating PlayStation’s “hate speech” policy.
Since he requested anonymity, we’ll call him “Rob” for now. So Rob reached
out to One Angry Gamer, incensed that he had been temporarily suspended from
accessing the PlayStation Network and, much to his dismay, his PS4 gaming
library after violating the “hate speech” policy on April 19th, 2019.
Rob explained via e-mail…
“My account was temp banned for one week for calling people faggots and
niggers. This includes the temp revoking of the licenses for ALL digital
downloads in my library, however a game on a disc still works just fine. You
might not agree with my actions since I know you’re not a racist, but I am
and I don’t care. [It’s] fun to talk shit online and most people are racist
anyway, plus those terms are thrown around like hotcakes, so who gives a
shit. As I know you know, speech restrictions are a slippery slope and tend
to go beyond the initial reasons for their installment.”
Rob shared the e-mail that Sony sent him for violating the code of conduct,
which you can view below.
https://i.imgur.com/d0NFOnd.png
The relevant part of the message reads…
This message is to inform you that your account has been observed violating
the PlayStation Network’s Terms of Service.
[…]
“Reason: Hate speech or other hateful content, including racism, sexism,
xenophobia, or hate directed at religious beliefs, cultural identity, gender
identity, or sexual orientation.
“Location: Community Post”
Rob fears that what may start with restrictions on “hate speech” may expand
into restrictions on “speech” in general; preventing people from talking
about certain current events, politics, etc. We’ve seen how Sony had no
qualms about extending the long arm of censorship to innocuous things like
fan-service and cleavage via their PS4 censorship policies, and so it’s not
hard to see why people might fear that the rules could be expanded in the
future regarding their policies on “hate speech”.
For now, though, Rob had access to his digital games temporarily restricted.
So when he attempted to play said games he was greeted with the following
message.
https://i.imgur.com/gTmcAf3.png
The error prevents him from accessing the digital games in the library until
the suspension is up. He also shared a screenshot of his game library, where
his digital titles have locks on them during the suspension.
https://i.imgur.com/h9v5LgC.png
ob didn’t take the suspension notice lying down, though. He explained that
he fired back at them with a snarky response that may have netted him a
permanent ban, writing…
“[…] it might be possible I’ve been perm banned now because I responded to
Sony’s email with ‘no worries! I’ve already decided not to buy a ps5 d.
White Pride Worldwide,’ so their mods might be getting salty hahaha. that’s
purely speculation though, […]
“To further clarify the reasons for the ban hammer, I already know why as I
stated in my previous email so it’s not a surprise to me that I got banned.
talking about forced ‘migration’ into the West, directing other PSN users
to various chans and White Nationalist content, and calling other players
niggers and faggots, etc.”
Sony lays it out rather clearly over on the PlayStation Code of Conduct page
that using any kind of offensive or inflammatory language will likely result
in a suspension or a ban.
However, what the page fails to clarify is that you will also lose access to
playing digital games. In fact, it doesn’t say anything about game
restrictions. Regarding account suspensions it simply states…
“Account suspension means that you cannot use your account to access
PlayStation Network for a set amount of time. A ban means that you will not
be able to use your account to access PlayStation Network at any point in the
future.
“Other users with their own local accounts on the same system can use their
account as normal.
”If an account has been permanently banned, we will not refund you for any
unused period of subscriptions or any unused wallet funds in line with the
SEN Terms of Service.”
Having community guidelines and rules is standard fare. Enforcing those rules
for those who participate in the community is common practice. However,
barring people from accessing their games for violating those community
guidelines is basically revoking their access to a product they paid for.
While most Left-wing collectivists will say that they’re glad someone who is
“racist” or “sexist” or “transphobic” or a “bigot” was banned from
PSN for violating the terms of service, restricting that person from
accessing their games crosses over into violating their consumer rights. That
’s not to mention that barring someone from playing a game they paid for is
entirely unlikely to change their personal views. In fact, they’re probably
just going to become more entrenched in those beliefs and express those views
even more vehemently elsewhere.
In the case of Rob, he was completely uninhibited in the way he tackled
various subject matter in the PlayStation community. Being temporarily
suspended from PSN for violating the rules is one thing, but preventing
someone from accessing their games is a step too far.
And let’s not forget that this isn’t the first time that Sony has done
this. Previously Sony had to apologize to a user for restricting his access
to his digital library because they were racist and didn’t understand
Mexican culture. They also banned a user for having a PSN ID that was fine
back in 2012 but is now considered politically incorrect, restricting his
access to his digital library in the process. This seems to be a growing
trend with some companies, taking it upon themselves to not only police their
own online communities but also trying to enforce their moral standards on
their users by policing access to gamers’ digital libraries.
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这事很有趣...
这位化名Rob的仁兄表示他喜欢在玩游戏时和人对喷,然后他用了nigger和faggot。
因此违反了SONY的仇恨言论政策而被封了.....
被封就算了,他连自己买的PS4数位游戏库也都被封掉而不能玩这些数位版游戏。
这问题就大了......
先不管嘴不嘴炮问题,人家花钱买的游戏你说封就封?
正常来说不应该是禁言而已吗?