Microsoft has announced expanded functionality to its user abuse reporting system, which will allow players to reactively capture voice chat clips that identify abusive behaviour, and submit it to Xbox’s moderation team for the judgement and potential punishment of up to three players.
The new process will allow the capture of 60-second video clips – presumably the period of time which just occurred, given the reactive nature of the feature – which also capture in-game voice chat, to be stored on the user’s console for 24 hours.
The user can choose to use the clip to make a report after the fact, negating the urgency or potential disruption to a user’s session, and provide a verbal description of the experience in their own words for consideration. The clip itself cannot be edited, downloaded, or shared, and will be erased after the 24-hour period.
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In addition, the company has said that it’s improving its notifications around user reporting. It will more clearly communicate to people the outcome of any reports they’ve made, and the reasons behind any actions taken.
The voice reporting feature will initially roll out to the Xbox Insiders beta program (which, you would hope would be free of abusive players), and then to English-language regions such as the US, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland.
Microsoft notes that with this update, the platform now has multiple ways to capture abusive behaviour from players and report them to the Xbox Safety Team for action, including text, images, video, and voice.
