Call of Duty voice chat to get AI moderation to catch & punish “toxic” players

Modern Warfare 3 will be the first Call of Duty game to feature voice chat AI moderation, in a bid to combat toxicity, including hate speech, discriminatory language, harassment and more.

Voice chat toxicity has long been a problem in Call of Duty titles, dating back to the earliest days of online multiplayer gameplay, with trolls able to hide behind their gamertags and face little to no punishment for using abusive language.

In order to make voice chat less of a safe haven for people who do use abusive language, Activision will be teaming up with Modulate to utilize their AI-powered ToxMod in the future.

An initial beta rollout of the voice chat moderation technology will begin in North America on August 30 in Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone, to be followed by a full worldwide release (excluding Asia) in Modern Warfare 3 on November 10. Support will begin in English with additional languages to follow at a later date

“There’s no place for disruptive behavior or harassment in games ever,” said Michael Vance, Chief Technology Officer at Activision. “Tackling disruptive voice chat particularly has long been an extraordinary challenge across gaming.

“With this collaboration, we are now bringing Modulate’s state-of-the-art machine learning technology that can scale in real-time for a global level of enforcement. This is a critical step forward to creating and maintaining a fun, fair and welcoming experience for all players.”

Activision

Players who do not want their voice chat to be moderated in-game are advised to turn off their voice chat options.

If judged to be using abusive language in voice chat, players can be subject to suspensions or, in extreme cases, permanent bans from playing.

Since the launch of Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty’s existing anti-toxicity moderation has restricted voice and/or text chat to over 1 million accounts detected to have violated the Call of Duty Code of Conduct.

While they say the new ToxMod will allow for “trash talk” and friendly banter, anything that exceeds that will not be tolerated.

This marks a notable step forward for Call of Duty, which has not allowed for voice chat reporting in recent years, and should help to ensure voice chat doesn’t descend into disarray as it often can in COD.