Microsoft admits it banned more than 7 million Xbox live accounts in 6 months
Since the beginning of 2022, Microsoft has banned over 7 million Xbox accounts for breaching its community guidelines.
It’s not all smooth sailing for those lucky enough to be gaming on the Xbox Series X. As Microsoft released its first Digital Transparency Report(opens in new tab), it turns out that Microsoft may have been a bit trigger-happy.
From January to June 2022, Microsoft banned a total of 7.21 million Xbox accounts. 4.78 million of these bans were proactive, and 2.53 million were reactive. This is more than the total number banned during the entire year of 2021, which was 6.72 million.
The main difference between proactive and reactive is that proactive banning comes before someone has reported an account, and reactive comes post-report. You would think that with the growing number of users on Xbox Live, the statistic for reactive bans would increase. But this isn't the case.
It turns out that proactive bans have increased tenfold since the start of the year. At a first glance, this may seem like an overreaction or even a mistake on Microsoft's part, but actually, it's a good decision. Unfortunately, Xbox Live has garnered a rather unfair reputation over the last decade for being an extremely toxic platform.
In reality, everywhere on the internet is pretty toxic. While Xbox Live is no angel, it’s no different from other platforms that rely on online user interaction. However, this hasn’t stopped the stereotype from spreading.
Whether it be a mass culling of accounts or the implementation of chat filters to combat harassment (opens in new tab). Microsoft is always trying to make its platform a better place for everyone and in doing so combating this unfair stereotype. So this recent turn of events is completely
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