Riot Games, the developer behind the free first-person shooter (FPS) Valorant, will begin monitoring players’ voice communications on July 13 (via PCGamer). The gaming company says it is to help train the language models it will eventually use when evaluating player reports in all of its games.
Riot initially announced this change in April 2021, after updating its privacy policy. The new terms allow Riot to “record and potentially evaluate voice data using Riot-owned voice communications channels” to combat hate speech and harassment through voice chat. Riot says he will analyze records when a player reports offensive or offensive comments. In turn, this should help the company determine whether the reported player has violated its policies and take appropriate action.
The only way to get rid of this system is to completely disable voice chat
Riot will not yet begin evaluating players’ reports based on these records – it uses the information it collects to help build the beta version of the system, which it expects to release later this year. For now, Riot will only evaluate conversations between English-speaking Valorant players in North America. The only way to get rid of this system is to completely disable voice chat or use another communication tool, such as Discord.
“We know that before we even think about expanding this tool, we will have to make sure that it is effective and if mistakes happen, we have systems to make sure that we can correct any false positives (or negatives in this meaning) “, Riot notes in his message.
When this system is actually in place, Riot says it will not “actively monitor your live in-game communications” and will only “potentially listen to and review voice registers” if you are reported for destructive behavior. He also added that he would delete this information after resolving the situation, similar to reports made through his text chat systems. Even so, it will certainly raise some players’ concerns about privacy, similar to Vanguard’s always-on anti-fraud system, which monitors your activity both inside and outside Valorant.
The planned reporting system is not the only way Valorant is trying to crack down on toxic players. Earlier this year, Riot began allowing Valorant players to add specific words or phrases to a “muted word list” that should help block offensive chat content.
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