Activision’s enforcement teams continue to innovate and find ways to reduce the levels of ‘online toxicity’ across the Call of Duty ecosystem. Most recently, the platform saw the introduction of ToxMod, an AI-driven digital moderation engine that automatically detects abusing comms and reports it.
It was recently revealed that since ToxMod was rolled out in June 2024, ‘disruptive voice chat’ has dropped by 43% since the start of the year.
The Old Ways
Any Call of Duty veteran will baulk at the idea of having an AI representative moderate their voice and text chats. It can be argued that toxicity and trash-talking are woven into the very fabric of Call of Duty. It doesn’t take much to get a veteran to rant about ‘today’s players not surviving in MW2 Search lobbies’.
Activision’s ToxMod technology has reportedly brought about a decrease of a whopping 67% in repeat offenders using the game’s voice chat function to abuse other users. It was referenced that in July 2024, one month after the deployment of ToxMod, 80% of players who were issued an enforcement did not re-offend.
ToxMod works silently in the background to monitor all communications running through Call of Duty, acting on them and reporting any malfeasance to a centralised body of human representatives. If needed, action will then be taken.
It has been claimed that ToxMod is so intelligent that it can figure out the difference between friendly and edgy banter and genuine insults, identifying the difference by analysing the tone and sentiment of what someone is saying. It’s clever enough to identify the severity of a comment based on the response from other users.
It’s not a bad thing that it exists, but it’s going to slow down those hot-headed Call of Duty players with a penchant for slamming other players midway through an intense Search and Destroy series.
Will Black Ops 6, which is due to hit the market on October 25, be the first toxicity-free Call of Duty game ever?
Do you think this is a necessary feature in Call of Duty? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.
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