As of early 2022, Microsoft has banned over 7 million Xbox accounts for violating community guidelines.
The lucky ones who play on the computer don’t always sail smoothly Xbox Series X. When Microsoft released its first Digital Transparency Report (opens in a new tab)it turns out that Microsoft may have been a bit happy with the trigger.
From January to June 2022, Microsoft banned a total of 7.21 million Xbox accounts. Of these bans, 4.78 million were proactive and 2.53 million were reactive. This is more than the total number of bans for the entire year of 2021, which was 6.72 million.
The main difference between proactive and reactive is that a proactive ban occurs before an account is reported and a reactive ban occurs after an account is reported. You’d think that with the increasing number of users on Xbox Live, reactive ban statistics would increase. But it’s not like that.
Disrepute
It turns out that proactive bans have increased tenfold since the beginning of the year. At first glance, this may seem like an overreaction or even a mistake on Microsoft’s part, but it’s actually a good decision. Unfortunately, over the past decade, Xbox Live has gained a rather unfair reputation as an extremely toxic platform.
In fact, it’s pretty toxic everywhere on the internet. While Xbox Live is no angel, it is no different from other platforms that rely on online user interaction. However, this did not stop the spread of the stereotype.
Whether it be mass deletion of accounts or deployment chat filters to combat harassment (opens in a new tab). Microsoft is always trying to make its platform a better place for everyone, thus fighting this unfair stereotype. So this latest turn of events is entirely consistent with previous attempts to refresh the platform.
Good news
It turns out that many of the accounts proactively blocked were clearly disrupting the platform. A further breakdown of Microsoft’s report shows 199,000 proactive bans for sexual content, 54,000 for intimidation or harassment, and 87,000 for fraud. Even if no one reported these accounts, no one will miss them any time soon.
Any attempt to make the platform more pleasant to interact with is a step in the right direction. While you may view proactive bans as unfair because they are not reported against them, Microsoft may actually need to step up this mindset in the future.
Apparently, the accounts blocked for phishing, piracy, and account manipulation were 100% the result of proactive work by Microsoft, not responding to player concerns.
With fewer players reporting account issues, Microsoft needs to step up its game to stay clean. Otherwise, the platform will slowly fester and become more toxic. Just because players don’t report issues doesn’t mean there aren’t any.