Xbox’s new “8 strikes” mod rollout judges hate speech 3x worse than cheating

Artist interpretation of the creatures talking about your mom on Xbox Live last night. (credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

This week, Microsoft is rolling out a newly standardized strike-based system laying out tiered enforcement plans for violations of the existing Xbox Community Standards. The intent, Microsoft says, is to give players "clarity into how their behavior impacts their experience." But the system's time-based "eight strikes and you're out" system and the relative severity of certain sample infractions are already drawing perplexed comments from some corners.

As outlined in a Tuesday post on Xbox Wire, the new strike enforcement program will impose more stringent penalties for successive infractions, a system Microsoft says is modeled after "demerit strikes used in driver’s license systems in many countries." Successive strikes will lead to suspensions from Xbox Live for one day to a maximum of 365 days, according to the following scale:

• 1 strike: 1-day suspension
• 2 strikes: 1-day suspension
• 3 strikes: 3-day suspension
• 4 strikes: 7-day suspension
• 5 strikes: 14-day suspension
• 6 strikes: 21-day suspension
• 7 strikes: 60-day suspension
• 8 strikes: 365-day suspension

A sample "User Journey" outlining how the new strike-based enforcement system can shake out. (credit: Microsoft)

Not all potential infractions are treated equally under this rubric, though; Microsoft notes that the number of strikes per enforcement action can "range in severity based on inappropriate activity" and are "based on the severity of [the user's] actions." While Microsoft hasn't published a complete list of how many strikes are associated with each different type of infraction, a sample "User Journey" graphic in the blog post includes a list of the following "examples of strikes added for each type of action."