Currently, as of 3/13/23, voice chat moderation has a pretty major flaw - it does not provide the offending content that led to a ban.
When Roblox detects a voice-chat user violating a community standard, they are promptly banned from voice chat. If they are in-game, they receive a notification dialogue informing them of the ban, as well as the ban’s duration (if non-permanent):
However, this dialogue does not provide the offending sentence(s) that were in violation of the community standards. If Roblox support is contacted, they state that they are “unable to provide any information regarding the ban”, and will instead provide a link to the community standards page. This does not work. If someone is banned from voice chat, they need to be shown what the offending material was so that they do not repeat it again in the future, or so they can prove that the ban was incorrectly given.
When a developer has an asset moderated, they are told what asset is moderated, and the reason for why it was moderated in some text fields. This is helpful because it can:
Inform them of content that is not allowed
Allow them to fix game content that relied on the now-moderated assets
Prove that the asset was incorrectly moderated, and either restore it or re-upload it
When a player gets their account moderated for inappropriate text chat, they are shown the sentence that led to the moderation action against their account. This is helpful because it helps them avoid repeating the same violation again in the future.
For the reasons given above, voice chat moderation needs to have the same feature! If someone is banned from voice chat, they need to be told exactly why the ban was given. By not doing this, the moderation system discourages people from using the voice-chat feature, because there will be fear of arbitrary account bans without any info on why the bans are given! It also makes it impossible to appeal unjust bans, because there is no proof or reasons given for the ban other than a blanket “dont violate community standards” statement, which is not helpful.
This. Roblox says that they record voice chat conversations, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible for them to give you a snippet of what you said that caused you to get banned from VC in the first place. I don’t see why this would be difficult for them to do. If I were banned/warned for anything else unrelated to VC I get told what it is that specifically caused that warning/ban.
Additionally, I’ve heard reports that some people have gotten mass reported in VC only servers of popular games, causing them to lose VC access for no reason. (This has happened to about 5 or so people I know so far in the last week or so, all of which were in pls donate VC only servers. I don’t know if this issue stretches to other VC only servers in other games.)
That, combined with seemingly no way to really appeal VC bans (as you don’t even know what it was that you said which caused said ban) is quite a flawed system.
Very interesting to hear because I know someone who had their voice chat suspended for a day even though they usually don’t talk. And they just so happen to frequent pls donate vc only servers.
Suspending someone’s voice chat without providing them a way to identify what they did wrong is fundamentally wrong. How in the world can someone improve if they aren’t given something specific to improve on? A “violation of our Community Standards” is too broad and vague. People who say stuff they know are against the community standards wouldn’t be confused. However, people who aren’t trying to break the community standards would be heavily confused. In the case of voice chat, providing a clip of what “violated” the community standards and a simple explanation would suffice to eliminate most confusion.
However, something is telling me that people are getting their voice chat suspended without even doing anything wrong, which is just as bad, if not worse.
I can personally confirm this, as I’d been banned from voice chat even though I hadn’t done anything that violates the community standards. I suspect I got mass-reported by some people.
They normally submit to the will of the majority when it comes to moderation. (Mass-reports will usually resort in bans regardless of whether or not you are innocent.)
Not only is this about their moderation action, they should be providing users an option to download all recorded voice chat instances.
Currently, roblox makes it insanely hard or even impossible to retrieve a copy of your personal data they’ve collected. This is a big problem and has been commented on a few times in the past.
Exactly, I got banned multiple times from voice chat, and suspended once, and I believe people are
mass false reporting me for having a very light voice, even though I never said anything wrong.
(the games i got banned in were PLS DONATE (vc only sometimes), and DEFLECT respectively)
I feel like roblox uses voice recognition robots, which are very inaccurate as I got banned like, 2-3 times for “Discrimination” and “Swearing” (both of which I can say confidently I did not do) and it eventually got up to a voice chat suspension. I tried to appeal my suspension but they said I had too many community guideline violations or something like that, (which again, was for stuff I did not do) and even one of my community guideline strikes was revoked, and they still kept the suspension.
I don’t know why they don’t even provide resources for you to prove yourself against the support team, and prove that you didn’t say anything wrong. It’s literally just your word against theirs, and thats what I feel is unfair with this system.
I also feel an option to preview your voice is needed to test if your mic sounds bad, buggy, or if someone else’s voice is echoing through your mic, because I wasnt swearing, and I don’t know if it was someone else swearing echoing through my mic or what. And I can’t appeal stuff like this because of past guideline strikes I got false reported for.
(sometimes I even get banned for reporting others or for conversations I didnt even have)
Along with this, if you report people on voice chat, YOU will get reviewed. I feel like the only times I get banned is when I report someone for BREAKING THE ACTUAL RULES. And I’m the one that gets banned for something, every time.
I got warned for directing someone to DISCORD. The person who I directed to discord was an EXPLOITER who I reported multiple times for swearing, using slurs, Inappropriate behavior, exploiting, etc.
And out of all that, I’m the one who gets warned. Warn Reason: Directing users Off-Platform.
Here’s the fun part though, directing users to discord is allowed by the Community Standards, so essentially they are just finding ways to warn/ban players who report other players. (i know people that this exact thing happens to) This ruins my voice chat experience to the point of me not wanting to even use it anymore.
Don’t report anyone swearing in voice chat. It’s not worth it.
Oh yeah, here’s the reason that I try to appeal warns and not only bans, as an appeal I made stated; Consequences are applied to accounts based on the severity of the most recent violation as well as any previous moderation incidents on record. You may review the Roblox [Terms of Use] for more information about moderation policies.
This just furthers everything said here about the unfairness of voice chat bans, false reports, and things mentioned here
I can’t take this anymore. I rarely, if ever, speak on voice chat, however I received a ban today. Someone reported me in game (because they were mad at me- I wasn’t even using voicechat) and I instantly got banned, most likely from a bot.
I immediately appealed, and Roblox immediately responded with one of their copypasted messages, also claiming that my belief that I was false reported is impossible (even though I got instantly banned)
I can see this becoming a problem when people who are respectful are reported. They don’t like to provide proof, I even asked for it one time; they said they couldn’t provide it and they even deleted their reply afterwards, but I digress.
I got reported by someone who admitted to me they did so out of spite. The fact that Roblox just auto bans (there is no way a real person reviewed audio in mere seconds) and then refuses to provide any reason or proof, only saying you “violated community standards” is simply not okay by any standards.
I got these SAME, EXACT, MESSAGES. I am too scared to share them here on a forum created by roblox in fear I might recieve further moderation for “slander” or something like that.
From evidence collected from me and others who have had the same scenario as I, I have come to the conclusion that Roblox likely is auto banning users from Voice Chat if they receive one or more reports, no matter their accuracy. This is a major flaw, resulting in rule following users receiving voice chat suspensions, allowing bad actors to send in fake reports to effectively ban anyone from voice chat. Of course I cannot confirm this, but it seems the most likely explanation given the fact that I and many others received a ban instantly after the person sent in the fake report.
What makes matters worse is the appeals team refuses to review voice chat suspensions.
This is a major issue. I can’t stand having false moderation history on my account while Roblox insists I am breaking community guidelines when not providing any reason or evidence to what I did wrong.
The moderation system on this platform has an inexcusable complete and utter lack of respect for the people who get caught in it. We want to know the reason why Roblox cannot show 18+ year-old developers (who may have even verified their age) the content they posted that got them kicked off a feature, or even banned from the platform. This is a ridiculous standard of treatment for a user that does not need to be protected, and being a developer, has higher stakes than a regular player.
“ahaaaa we caught you violating roblox’s T.O.S VIA voice chat and we have your voice clips, but we wont show you nor will we tell you what exactly you violated. have you thought of reading the T.O.S again despite never breaking it? k thx”
I assume they also use fake names because Roblox wants to hide the fact they use underpayed, outsourced moderators from countries such as India, many of which might not even be fluent in English.
