Policy Update - Real Life Threats & Harassment

This has already been a thing for some time now. RP does not excuse actual harassment and so on, but there’s obviously more leeway there. If memory serves, CCP has considered it more of an ‘opt-in’ kind of thing, where it’s okay if everyone involved have opted in to interacting with each other In Character, within reason. Of course, it’s such a grey area that it’s kind of hard to get any definite rulings on it.

Just being somewhat sensible and not crossing any lines tends to do the trick in these regards.

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CCP is free to restrict speech in their game, that’s fine.

However, given that there is, to this day, no clear definition of hate speech and given the fact that the definition for “Racism” and “Sexism” is expanding on a daily (hourly?) base, how is CCP’s stance on it?

What is the source definition CCP is using to act upon?

With an evergrowing misuse of all the above terms, we need to have a clear definition for them. Maybe CSM can shed some light on this too?

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Sometimes though people use this to there advantage, therefore I don’t think under the current terms it outlines the precise and exact terms of entrapment, for example entrapment is illegal in some countries and is not so in others, is the actual policies in terms of harassment respective of role play going to create an outlier sort of sub culture of role play entrapment harassment where the new type of harassment is to make the other person think they are harassing you in an ok sense only for it to be a trap then you get the speech police knock on your door and arrest you and beat you (depending what country you are in again, they have different ways of doing stuff) please note I am not trolling, trying to make a serious point here…

Eh, this is Eve Online. Both the roleplay community and the devs/GMs are well versed in just how abusive people get when it comes to using the system against other people. It’s not going to become a problem, I can assure you.

Especially when it’s even more easily avoided by simply not being a sexist, racist, harassing arsehole In Character or Out of Character.

… I mean, arsehole is almost a given but those specific kinds anyway.

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@CCP_Falcon @Brisc_Rubal much appreciated, good work.

I’d like to have one clarification though. With “verbal abuse” do you mean cases which clearly cross the border of what would be seen as “normal angry” in a tense situation or can a simple “f*ck you” get someone banned? Because the former seems already implied in the other points (hate speech, threats, abusive messaging) and the latter, while it should not be normalized, seems to be even necessary for many people to cope with being dunked and in many situations wouldn’t pass (for me) as harassment.

Thanks.

One suggestion also: maybe this clarification could be a one-time popup in the Launcher, so that most people will read it. For some it seems completely normal to spit out real life threats and harassment and in order to give them the chance to change that now (and to spare you guys some work banning accounts), it may be good to push it right into their faces. Since in the past these rules were enforced in different ways, it would be good to make it uber visible that it’s zero tolerance now.

Agree, but as a non-American in defense of the US: it is not “say whatever you want”. The constitution clarifies that freedom of expression does not include the freedom to verbally breach the peace, insult with the goal to harm or provoke/entice/suggest crimes. And the whole idea of freedom of speech was meant to support that the government is a proper elected/delegated body of the people and doesn’t start shutting down political critic of others in order to stay in power.

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But they are are not leading by example. take for instance Sniggwaffle. A corporation that is using nazi related imagery.

And this is speech regulation, not that I am objecting to CCP’s right to do it within their game. I am saying that when you take a hard line approach several things happen. Innocent players get caught up. Players find new ways to get around it and then a new harder policy has to come out.

Meh

When has CCP ever enforced their own rules with any consistency?

Not even worth reading the blog until they write one where CCP staff are tasked with setting a good example instead of their current, “I’ll enforce the rule because you pissed me off in the forum but my friends and corpies get a pass because we think harassment is funny when it’s us doing the harassing” way of dealing with things.

The fish rots from the head down, CCP. Fix your behavior first and then we simple subscribers might take you seriously.

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Ethics is to complicated and ambiguous along with the law therein. Just use common sense and you will be fine. If you want to double make sure, send an Eve Mail the next time you get ganked / killed or whatever with a message of love, peace and a hug and a kiss.

Being banned is not the issue. Regulate all you want within you game. I am saying a hardline approach will not fix the issue. You will never fix the issue. It will just increase the number of innocent people caught up by a poor policy. Players will find away around this. Then people will complain about the new meta of harassment. then a new policy will come out making that a nono and the cycle will begin again.

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Common sense is of no particular use in a world where facts are often considered offensive.

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This was my main argument, and its why I play Eve online, people find ways around stuff, the players are challenging to beat on intellect and skill, however you gotta just use your common sense here, don’t be a prick and you will be fine.

This is the exact entrapment I was talking about as per my above comment, the policy does not cover this abuse else I would be reporting you right now.

Being a prick can not be objectively measured. People who get ganked think that the gankers are pricks and they are being harassed.

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Yes it can, it can be sectioned into areas of harm, sexual harassment, sexism and racism this is what not being a prick and having common sense means.

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But it doesn’t really matter if you have 0 clear guidelines and completely interpretable things that may or may not be problematic. I.e. you could have done nothing wrong, but because the guy handling is feeling it’s an offense, you would still be banned. Hence, I was asking for the definitions as per my comment above.

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Exactly what I mean tbh, I meant no offence or aggression towards you, this is the exact areas where it can become some what ambiguous and defy common sense. But doing so can steer in the wrong direction easily.

no offense taken, really, I just use your posts as an excuse to further comment to hopefully get an answer to this very tricky question (that is very often avoided because no sufficient answer can be given :confused: )

Does this new policy work retroactively.

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I guess the law is the law and the ethics is a mess. There policies are there policies. Making this complicated by means of entrapment is the only issue here but it becomes an ethics issue in some countries, a legal issue in some, and in some countries you would probably go missing.

What is common can often be wrong. We live in a world where anything that challenges a persons beliefs is harassment. Any disagreement with a member of the opposite sex is sexual harassment and sexism. Everything is a hate crime today. CCP has never been consistant with their policy enforcement. This policy is just a new system to be abused.

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