Sadly, I think it is easy to see that XBL has a greater problem with offensive language on it service the other services have so far.. There are many reasons for that and maybe if the tools to speak in more game more easily were supplied on PSN their problem would be the same. But for better or worse more XB360 have been sold, more people play online with that service and in each box MS provides a headset.
I’ll step on some toes by saying this, but XBOX Live and what is said on it is everyone’s fault who particaptes in the community. On once or on every day, it hardly matter; what si said on it is each members fault shared equally. A community that accepts racist, bigoted and infamitory language shares the blame equally on some level. If some people throw around offensive terms it because so many others accept it in silence.
That may seems like blaming everyone for a few bad apples, but there is no other way a community can work. A community by it very definition is a group that shares some common things. Given XBL members are not based in one locality, then the definition of community is based on other shared elements.. It would be one thing if people said, “Well in this these three or four games, at this time of night, if your in a game called this you might hear such offensive language” because then you could equate it to the ‘skid-row’ of some city. But offensive language that is in every game at any time is a community gone bade from core to skin.
When crude offensive language is that pervasive it cannot a ‘just a few’ bad apples. Its like bullying in a schools, it not the bullies they get you down it everyone else’s lack of backbone to stand up for others. One of the biggest and silliest arguments I have heard about the issue of language is that anonmynity is too blame. Anonymous people are unstoppable. But, you know, it works both way; if you think anonmynity allows idiots to say what they want then why are people not using the same anonymity top stand up for others. Why does the bully feel protected and they people standing around watching people get victimized not use the same protection. Also, everyon has a user name, and everyone has access to tools to report inflamitoiry language. People are no more anonymous on XBL then they are in life. It not the jerks who are anonymous it is the silent cowards who stand by saying nothing to a bully miles away and who fail to report bad behavior from a person who is identified by name on a screen.
There are only three roles to be played on XBL when it comes to what it is and what is said: perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. But let’s call the bystanders by their real name ‘collaborators’. Turning off your headset is just saying, “Sure people are being victimized but my solution is turning my back.”
Turning you back turning off the headset isn’t a solution it is collaboration and consent to what occurs.
Sorry to say it, but XBLs problem isn’t the jerks, racists, and bigots. The problem is everyone else that watches and listens and doesn’t speak up. Each members cowardice is a crime and their silence is there own indictment of their own actions.
