A message from PlayStation’s Global Consumer Experience team.
Hi everyone. I’m Catherine Jensen, and I head up the Global Consumer Experience division here at PlayStation. Our department works every day to create the best possible gaming experience for our community on PlayStation Network. We also manage the @AskPlayStation customer support channel and create troubleshooting guides to help gamers find solutions. Our goal is to help foster a fun and positive experience when you’re playing online with friends and other gamers.
Managing online safety is an important part of ensuring that. We believe that it’s critical that gamers be able to quickly and accurately report abuse or harassment if they experience it while on PlayStation Network. As part of this initiative, we’ve been preparing to roll out a new feature on the PS5 console that enables gamers to report verbal harassment through a new Voice Chat reporting function. Its sole purpose is to help in reporting of inappropriate behavior, including actions that violate our Community Code of Conduct. Please note that this feature will not actively monitor or listen in on your conversations – ever – and it’s strictly reserved for reporting online abuse or harassment.
PlayStation gamers learned about this new function in an unexpected way following the recent PS4 8.00 system update. We didn’t clearly communicate this feature or explain why we were introducing it, and we apologize for that. When the PS5 console launches in November, PS5 users will be able to chat with PS4 users — which is why we needed to include an advisory with the latest PS4 system update.
We should have more clearly explained why this function was being rolled out, along with details on how it will work on the PS5 console, so let me walk you through that now.
Once the PS5 console launches, if a PS5 player needs to file a harassment report, they will be able to include up to a 40 second-long Voice Chat clip in their report — 20 seconds of the main conversation with the other player, plus an additional 10 seconds before and after the conversation selection. Only the most recent five minutes of a Voice Chat will be available for a player to use for this reporting function.
These reports can be submitted directly through the PS5 console, and will be sent to our Consumer Experience team for moderation, who will then listen to the recording and take action, if needed. Some submitted reports won’t be valid, and our team will take this as an opportunity to provide guidance and education. There won’t be an option to opt-out of this Voice Chat recording function because we want all users to feel safe when playing with others online, not just those who choose to enable it.
Thanks for reading, and I’m hoping this gives you a better idea about our goals for this new function. We appreciate your support, and want you to know that our team will always work to create a positive experience on PlayStation so you can focus on playing great games and having fun with your friends.
Hey, I understand that this is something that you clearly think needs to be on the PlayStation, but i’m not sure if its really that great of an idea. At least not the way you are currently planning on implementing it. I think that a feature like this would be best to only apply to children’s accounts who are under 18. There could be some sort of parental control that only lets them talk with other accounts that are categorized as under 18, and yes, i know that would make some adults make an “underage” account to join kids, but what is the difference. Creepy adults have been on the PlayStation systems since they came out, but now, those children can report the strange adults and maybe even other kids their age who are bullying them, and those of us who are above 18 can still have freedom in our parties. Also, one other thing about the new party system in this current update, it makes it much more difficult to get players to join your party as you first need to make a chat with them. This is a pain when playing games like destiny 2 or COD where you don’t want to use the game chat because it is very low quality. Thanks
This isn’t fair if someone is in a party talking to someone and they decide to talk junk to you THEN YOU can mute them or leave the party. Nobody is Obligated to listen to someone else mess.
I like this, but I think it would be illegal in Norway.
Microsoft has been recording people for a while now and banning them, I believe even as far back as the Xbox 360. I suppose it’s inevitable Sony would eventually catch up. All companies are becoming Orwellian and cracking down on free speech. They have abandoned the American principles of freedom and liberty, including the right to offend, in favor of the totalitarian globalist Marxist agenda followed by other Western countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and the European Union, none of which value freedom of expression anymore.
Sony is calling this new feature “Party Safety” as if words cause physical harm, but if someone says something you don’t like, you can already mute or block them. This is obviously an attempt to pander to the intolerant purple-haired pronoun crowd on Twitter—which is only a tiny but extremely loud minority of gamers—who go out of their way to be offended by innocuous things. The Snowflake Generation and the radical Left are busy chipping away at our freedoms one “Terms of Service” update at a time…
Don’t buy it. Gotta resist now b4 its too late forever.