Chat filter has gotten noticeably worse in the past week

Help and Feedback Platform Usage Support
#1

As many people have noticed, the chat filter has become not only more strict, but also more unreliable. In the past week the filter has gotten not only much more annoying but unnecessary and unfair in some places.

Certain 13+ words that were previously allowed, such as “Damn”, “Oh crap”, tag about half of the time. These words would obviously be censored for people younger, but, it makes no sense for it to be in effect for those older than thirteen; especially when they were previously allowed. I find myself having to re-word entire sentences and phrases just to avoid a filter that thinks I’m trying to say something naughty.

Furthermore, 17+ people aren’t allowed to say “bar”. Some games have bars in them, which gets pretty difficult to play or reference, especially in roleplay games. “Drink”, is also unfairly censored too many times, in the context of drinking beverages. “Smoke” is also not allowed under any circumstance, which could be referring to fire, a smoke grenade, or any of the hundreds of non-tobacco related applications of the word. It’s hard being a firefighter in games like Zaibatsu with these restrictions in place.

Many of us, myself included, have submitted our identification to the ROBLOX corporation to prove our maturity, and for us to be given the same filter sensitivity as an under-13 account seems quite ridiculous and unnecessary. I additionally find it quite baffling that 17+ experiences such as On Tap allow extreme vulgarities, but do not allow us to reference the names of the drinks presented.

Finally, words that make no sense at all are often tagged, such as “section”. I attempted to type “The devforum has a feedback section.”, which didn’t go through. There are countless other examples of the filter spazzing out in ways such as this. The last time I can remember the filter being this bad was during 2017.

I believe this may be due to a new algorithm quietly introduced that features GPT-4 technology, or artificial intelligence that is adjacent to it. I do not have any proof, but the inconsistency and context of it certainly makes me think so.

This is my feedback and complaint. Perhaps the rules have changed and I was not made aware of the new changes. Let me know your thoughts. Do you think that it may be because of GPT-4 technology?

32 Likes
#2

I believe Roblox uses a different site or service for their filter and doesn’t use their own. So it’d possible that the service they use might’ve updated and started filtering s lot more stuff.

#3

From what I remember, Roblox uses CommunitySift for text filtering, but it was never as strict as it is today.

I do agree with the assumption that nowadays, it may be powered by AI, since I have also been the victim of unnecessary text filtering. Not only does it think that everything that I try to say is inappropriate, but it has the audacity to block out the entire message. One time, one of my friends had their entire harmless message blocked out and they later received a warning for spamming hashtags despite it not even being their fault.

The text filter’s absurd strictness is why I rarely chat in-game at all, which unfortunately interferes with my interest in “heavy” role-playing games such as After The Flash.

2 Likes
#4

I only noticed it this week, I can’t even have simple conversations or even say sentences which completely adhere to Roblox’s TOS, it makes it almost impossible to chat in game for me

edit: lol
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edit2: 3 gentlemen having a great conversation

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#5

It has caused me severe pain in the last couple of weeks. Sometimes, I can’t even get the filter to release its grasp on me (often when you write a message that gets filtered, the filter is stricter on the following messages, so I usually spam “a” a couple of times to avoid that), but even those were getting filtered at some point…

In a game, you can write on signs and stuff, and the text I wrote often gets filtered when I join (the game refilters the text I think), so I have to write it again. I pasted it somewhere so I can copy paste it back when that happens. However, last time I played, it didn’t accept my text and I just quit…

Also can’t ask people if they have youtube, or yt, or any of that. It gets filtered… So I have to ask if they are “video creators” or “make videos”, and people are often confused about what I am talking about

#6

Freedom of speech doesn’t seem to exist in any online platform

3 Likes
#7

You can’t even search for audios named “ride”. You can’t say the sme thing more than ocne or it tags.

2 Likes
#8

currently i cannot, under any circumstance, say the word “backpack” in chat. no matter the context. in the same server, another user was spamming “i like kids” with absolutely no filtering whatsoever. i have verified my age, i expect to be able to say the name of the ugc item i’m wearing!

5 Likes
#9

this may be a bit late to reply to you, but me and my friends figured it out. We believe it has words with the letter ‘c’ and ‘k’ next to them. Its ridiculous and very frustrating.

3 Likes
#10

The filter really needs fixing, I’ve had the following get tagged:
“having a crappy day”, “oof ouch oof ouch” “y’all being weird” even “hahahaha” got tagged.

3 Likes
#11

It won’t let you say “drinks” in almost any situation. I was referring to a pocari sweat and mountain dew in my conversation. Nor will it let you say “bar” in about half of any context, ever. It’s godawful, and insulting that I gave these people my personal info only for them to not give me any of the privileges that were supposed to come with it.

3 Likes
#12

Roblox chat filters in the last week alone has significantly gotten worst. It almost feels like you can’t even have a conversation with someone. #rip1stamendment

1 Like
#13

The filter is still garbage today, I tried to say “stop” on the site and it blocked me from posting for 5 minutes

#14

Update: It’s still broken. I tried to say I’m drinking WATER and it was tagged.

#15

This needs a desperate fix, it’s absurd. No comment from roblox either.

2 Likes
#16

Roblox needs to see the community’s thoughts on the filter. Its not like the censorship doesn’t allow you to say anything at all but it blocks so many specific words, even with context, that its been getting really annoying.

1 Like