'Less than one percent' of Xbox Live users are 'bad apples'

The head of Xbox Live's Policy and Enforcement team says that less than one percent of the community is made up of "bad apples."

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Has someone ever verbally questioned your sexuality? Has anyone ever yelled lewd insults about your mother, before threatening to kill you? Sadly, the answer is most likely "yes," if you've ever jumped into a match on Xbox Live with your headset on. However, Microsoft's Stephen Toulouse says that the community is improving. Toulouse is in charge of Xbox Live's Policy and Enforcement team, and by his admission, "the cross-section of bad apples we deal with every day is small – typically less than one percent of the overall population."

"If you're playing a game on Xbox Live, and somebody snipes you from across the map and you drop the F-bomb, we're not going to ban you--not for the occasional slip. We focus on the really bad stuff," Boris Erickson, Xbox Live Enforcement Unicorn Ninja said in a press release. "We are not here to be the arbiters of all speech. But there are certainly some kinds of communication on Xbox Live that crosses a line--racism, homophobia, sexism, offensive comments about nationalities, and more."

The service now boasts 35 million users, but according to Toulouse, "the user complaint volume has tended to stay relatively flat compared to the line of new users." He concludes that the efforts of the Enforcement team--such as banning paying members from the service--are having an impact. But could the Xbox's expanding casual audience be having an effect as well? According to Toulouse, the answer is also "yes."

"We're bringing in different people that want to experience different things on Xbox Live, not just gaming, and at the end of the day that's going to improve everything," he added. Good, because it would be even worse if my mom started cursing me out in Halo 4.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    August 3, 2011 4:30 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, 'Less than one percent' of Xbox Live users are 'bad apples'.

    The head of Xbox Live's Policy and Enforcement team says that less than one percent of the community is made up of "bad apples."

    • reply
      August 3, 2011 4:47 PM

      AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That was funny!

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      August 3, 2011 4:50 PM

      Then why am I called names in every match?

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      August 3, 2011 4:51 PM

      The other 99% just call you a faggot.

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      August 3, 2011 4:51 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 3, 2011 4:51 PM

      Somehow I end up playing exclusively with that "one percent".

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      August 3, 2011 4:52 PM

      Aaaahhahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahah

      *breathe*


      aaaahahahahahhahahahahaha

    • reply
      August 3, 2011 4:53 PM

      ahhhhh so THAT'S where the iraqi minister of information ended up

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        August 4, 2011 8:05 AM

        I don't have the lol script installed but LOL

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      August 3, 2011 4:59 PM

      that's the proportion the P&E team bothers to police

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        August 3, 2011 5:11 PM

        I'm willing to bet this is because people don't report anyone since it's par for the course.

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      August 3, 2011 5:02 PM

      Less than one percent were having hardware issues as well.

      Also, LOL.

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      August 3, 2011 5:04 PM

      There is no way this statistic is even close. I quit playing on Xbox Live because I don't want to deal with the rabble.

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        August 3, 2011 5:13 PM

        Why don't you just set voice chat to friends only?

        I can't remember if you can mute all voice through the dash, if you can't and it still comes through the speakers and don't want to hear your friends only chat either you can always plug in your headset and turn the volume down + not wear it as well.

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          August 3, 2011 6:55 PM

          I generally just have voice go through the headset but then don't wear it if I do play it all, but it just bums me out that I feel like I have to do that so then I don't play.

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      August 3, 2011 5:09 PM

      1% of 35 million is still 350,000 "bad apples"

      In all fairness I really haven't had that many issues, perhaps because I stay away from Halo and COD multi :)

      My guess is your experience highly dependent on which game you play...

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        August 3, 2011 5:12 PM

        How many of those 35 million actively play online, anyway?

        It just says the service, and I think that number includes free / silver accounts who can't even play online games.

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          August 3, 2011 5:19 PM

          20 million of those are probably dead 360's

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          August 3, 2011 5:54 PM

          Here's what they fail to tell us. Those bad apples are what makes up a bulk of the community because everyone else becomes so disgusted with hearing them say the n word and everything else that most people only play online on rare occasions.

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        August 4, 2011 10:30 AM

        I play Halo and rarely run into an idiot. I think this is one of the cases where the noise about problem far exceeds the experience with the problem.

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      August 3, 2011 5:10 PM

      Are they counting all those who have a Xbox Live account into those "Xbox Live users"? Only gold accounts?

      I could see it being correct if they include all the silver accounts, especially if they include those that are never connected at all.

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        August 3, 2011 5:19 PM

        Agreed, but if it is all gold, then it just says to me that most people realize that reporting on the whole tends to do very little for getting rid of those players, so most people just don't take the time to do it.

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        August 3, 2011 5:22 PM

        On second thought I think it has to be gold only. The 360 is up to 55 million in sales worldwide.

        So unless 20+ million gamers haven't even bothered to sign up for silver accounts (is that even possible?), I would guess their figures are for paying accounts. There's still a large chunk of those people who just use it for netflix or whatever and rarely play online games.

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      August 3, 2011 5:18 PM

      False!

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      August 3, 2011 5:26 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 3, 2011 6:01 PM

      So 99% don't play on Xbox live?

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      August 3, 2011 6:43 PM

      Define badapple.

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      August 3, 2011 7:10 PM

      I gave up on using my microphone back with my original Xbox. If it's a Shack game, I'll use it, but otherwise, no.

      Weird that Shackers are more civil that the general populace. Who'd of thought?

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        August 3, 2011 7:14 PM

        [deleted]

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        August 3, 2011 7:22 PM

        People are always more civil with people they know and have to put up with.

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        August 3, 2011 7:36 PM

        I don't get this. This is why I have a Friend's list. I play with those people and party chat with them.

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        August 4, 2011 8:59 AM

        Shackers are too busy talking about cocks to be uncivil.

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      August 3, 2011 7:19 PM

      He, and we all wish.

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      August 3, 2011 7:38 PM

      [deleted]

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      August 3, 2011 7:42 PM

      I don't think the percentage of the total population matters much. It's clear that the percentage among active players in online game sessions is much higher than 1%.

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      August 3, 2011 7:49 PM

      What a load of shit.

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      August 3, 2011 11:25 PM

      They just love to pull numbers out of their ass!

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      August 4, 2011 1:00 AM

      99% of people probably don't play online all the time. It's probably sparse. It's a minority of the hardcore crowd that's a major nuisance, so it makes sense. If you were to give an estimate of people who regularly play halo/gears/cod online, then the percentage of douche would go up.

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