Xbox's latest safety feature lets you filter out offensive trash talk
Players might chose to keep things clean, go completely unfiltered or something in between.
- She received the Renau Writing Scholarship in 2016 from the University of Louisville's communication department.
Xbox has a new community safety feature.
Xbox players will soon have more control over the type of content they see while gaming. Larry Hryb, a programmer at Xbox who's also known as Major Nelson, on Monday announced a new customizable message safety setting for the gaming platform. It'll debut to members of the Xbox Insider program starting today and will roll out to everyone later this fall.
Players will find the feature by selecting General > Network Settings > Online Safety and Family > Messaging Safety. They can adjust settings for the text in received messages and message requests, media in received messages and message requests and web links in received messages. You can also chose whether you want to view hidden content.
"One thing that's important to keep in mind, regardless of the filter selected, is that the feature was not created to limit the type of content you or your friends can post online," Hryb said. "Rather, it gives you as the recipient the ability to customize your gaming experience so that you only see content based on your individual preferences."
Each section can be set to friendly, medium, mature or unfiltered. Friendly, the default setting for children's accounts, detects and hides as much potentially offensive content as possible without interfering with "normal" speech or themes discussed in games, according to Hryb. Mature hides text that Hyrb said was almost always classified as harmful. Medium seeks to find the balance between friendly and mature -- you can see friendly trash talk, but hateful words are hidden. Finally, unfiltered lets everything remain visible.
Hyrb said the setting works across Xbox apps on PC and mobile so your settings stay in place.
