Riot Games, the developer behind the free-to-play first-person shooter (FPS) bravewill begin monitoring player voice communications on July 13 (via computer gamer). The gaming company says this is to help train language models that will eventually be used to evaluate player reports across all of its games.
Riot originally announced the change in April 2021 after updating its privacy policy. The new terms allow Riot to “record and possibly evaluate voice data while using Riot-owned voice communication channels,” with the aim of combating hate speech and harassment in voice chat. Riot says it analyzes the recordings when players report abusive or offensive comments to someone. This, in turn, should help the company determine if a reported player has violated its policies and take action accordingly.
Riot won’t start evaluating player reports against those records yet — it’s using the information gathered to help build a beta version of the system it expects to launch later this year.Currently, Riot will only evaluate English-speaking conversations brave North American players. The only way to opt out of this system is to disable voice chat entirely or use another communication tool like Discord.
“We know that before we consider extending this tool, we must be confident that it is working, and that we have systems in place to ensure that we can correct any false positives (or negative correlations) if errors occur,” Riot noted in its announcement. .
When the system actually rolls out, Riot says it won’t “actively monitor your live in-game communications” and will only “potentially listen and review voice logs” when you’re reported disruptive behavior. It also added that it deletes the information after it resolves the issue, as it reports through its text-based chat system.Even so, it’s sure to raise privacy concerns for some players, like the always-on Vanguard anti-cheat system that monitors your activity and outside brave.
Planned reporting system is not the only way brave is trying to crack down on toxic players.Earlier this year, Riot started making brave Players add specific words or phrases to a “muted word list”, which should help block abusive content in chat.