7 million Xbox accounts banned in 2022

Microsoft has revealed that it suspended 6.9 million Xbox accounts in the first half of 2022, an all-time high for the company.

Microsoft released its biannual Xbox Transparency Report on Monday, and revealed that it had taken enforcement action on more than seven million accounts between January and June of 2022, 6.9 million of which resulted in account suspension. This is despite a general drop in players reporting bad behaviour.

The report goes into detail about Xbox’s two primary methods of moderation, proactive and reactive moderation. Proactive moderation policies are designed to stop problematic behaviours before it affects other players, such as through automated recognition of policy-violating text, images, and video.

Microsoft is currently embroiled in anti-competition investigations across the world as it attempts to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard. Picture: AFP/Johannes Eisele

Reactive moderation, on the other hand, is usually the result of players reporting policy-violating behaviours, and almost always requires human review. Microsoft says of the seven million enforcement actions taken, 4.78 million of those actions were through the result of proactive moderation, a nine-fold increase from the same period last year.

The most common reason for account suspension was reportedly cheating or inauthentic accounts, for which almost 50 per cent of all suspensions arose. Profanity, adult content and harassment or bullying were the next-most common reasons, with hate speech and fraud driving a relatively small amount of account bans.

Microsoft also gave data for suspension appeals, showing that of the 150,000 users who appealed their bans, only 9000 accounts were reinstated, showing that Microsoft’s accuracy rate for proactive and reactive suspensions is 94 per cent.

The Xbox Series S and Series X have been wildly successful for Microsoft, in part due to Game Pass, a subscription service that offers hundreds of games. Picture: AFP/Jung Yeon-je

Not every games company gets it right with its bans, however. Thousands of Call of Duty players say they’ve been falsely banned from the series’ latest game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Emails sent to banned players said they were banned for “using unauthorised software and manipulation of game data”, despite players saying they hadn’t. The bans are thought to have been caused by unrelated software on the players’ computers.

A banned Call of Duty player recently travelled to the developers’ studio to complain about what they say was an unfair ban. In a Reddit post, the player detailed how they allegedly travelled to Activision offices in Austin, Texas in an attempt to “speak with an employee” about the ban. The player was reportedly stopped by a security guard, who is said to have prevented the player from entering the studio.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.