In an effort to make the seedy world of online play better, Microsoft and Two Hat, a moderation company started in 2012 by a former Disney employee, Chris Priebe, who saw a growing problem in gaming have teamed up to battle toxicity. The cost of making this duo is undisclosed, but it is something that needed to be done so it is worth every penny if it works that is. Luckily the two have teamed up before, here is hoping this time we get better. “We have partnered with Xbox and the Microsoft team for several years and share the passion and drive to make meaningful change in the advancement of online civility and citizenship,” wrote Priebe, in a post about the acquisition Friday morning.
Sadly, if you play most multiplayer video games you have experienced toxic behavior also known as toxicity. It does not matter if it is racist, sexist, or homophonic messages there is no escaping the feeling that you are no good enough because of something you can not change nor should you. The purchase is said to combine the technology, research capabilities, teams, and cloud infrastructure of both companies to serve both the existing and new customers.
“With an emphasis on surfacing online harms including cyberbullying, abuse, hate speech, violent threats, and child exploitation, we enable clients across a variety of social networks across the globe to foster safe and healthy user experiences for all ages,” Two Hat comments. It is said the merger is going to allow individual users to decide what they are comfortable with or uncomfortable with, so if you are a person whose friend group has dark humor you should not be affected by this merger. There is still hope for a better tomorrow you just have to put in the work and believe that people can truly change.