SE Please start caring about your players privacy.

My thread about this stalking problem was just deleted by moderators at 13 pages long? What?
Did somebody post something sensitive in it, or what?
I hope the deletion means that the information has reached the ears of those who should hear it, at least...

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ture-to-stalk/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

My thread about this stalking problem was just deleted by moderators at 13 pages long? What?
Did somebody post something sensitive in it, or what?
I hope the deletion means that the information has reached the ears of those who should hear it, at least...

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ture-to-stalk/

---

More like it reached the ears of those who didn't wanna hear about it.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

My thread about this stalking problem was just deleted by moderators at 13 pages long? What?
Did somebody post something sensitive in it, or what?
I hope the deletion means that the information has reached the ears of those who should hear it, at least...

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ture-to-stalk/

---

Out of sight - out of mind I guess.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/final-...ck-their-alts/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ow_be_tracked/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ch_for_plugin/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxivdiscus...ans_to_remove/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rueby

I'm telling you how it works. The current blacklist implementation is something I find pretty disruptive, this is supposed to be something that gives you peace of mind, but instead it brings to your attention that you have someone blacklisted, everytime they type in chat (This message is from a blacklisted character.) pops up. It happened to me in frontlines actually, I didn't recognize the person's name at all (likely an alt) so I wanted to unblock them to see what they're saying but spent the match abit confused.

You could ask 'why not just mute them', well, previously blacklisted people to my knowledge moved to the blacklist rather than mute list. Sometimes the option to mute someone isn't there and the only option is to blacklist them (which is extreme imo), this is all blacklist/mute list jank that existed prior to this implementation.

---

you can temporarily display messages

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DiaDeem

I have no idea why seeing some stranger blacklisted you affects you.

In any case, your issue is with the mute functionality and the chat, not the blacklist, which should go both ways.

The Unknown01 thing is dumb and yet another example of SE's archaic social features, but it's besides the point of someone deciding they don't want to see you or you to see them for whatever reason they may have.

Chat shouldn't display anything once someone's blacklisted tho. But we're asking this of a company that runs its main community on a php forum with 30 year old technology, so...

---

So either
- I was wrong and misunderstood the blacklist and/or you understand it (in that case I apologize for being snide, but it feels like you're trying to twist something I said)
You went out of your way to try and twist what I said into something else while claiming that I care, which I said I don't. I only care if I'm being negatively affected by it.

- I was right and you went out of your way to claim I care, which I said I didn't and explained what I didn't like in a later post, but still you insist that you 'have no idea'.

I don't really have the means to double check it and I'm going off of memory to tell you which is which, so I could be misinformed which makes you doubling down on 'I have no idea' really weird considering I explained it in an earlier post.

I'm under the assumption that the current blacklist renames players on it to Unknown01 etc and puts a message in chat (This message is from a blacklisted character.), so to my understanding (be it wrong or right), I'd be seeing random unknown01, unknown02s etc pop in my party and (This message is from a character that blacklisted you.), sorry. I don't want to know.

I can see a use for this (the current blacklist/mutelist or whatever) to give someone the choice/agency to do something about being in a party with someone they blacklisted (leave, stay, unblock). While if it went both ways then there's nothing I can do and if I get notified it'd be useless, why should I know ANY of this?

I don't want to know that information but I can see a use for someone who needs it since it gives them agency.

Edit : Lmao.

Did they really delete the previous thread? Really? Is Square Enix, like, okay? Just in general. I mean, we’ve seen their financial statements and we already know the company is struggling. Dawntrail wasn’t too well-received and now they’re fumbling at so many things at once. This is being covered in the mainstream gaming press, and yet they want to pretend like it doesn’t exist? What’s next, are they going to arrest us like that letter says? No wonder Sony doesn’t want to buy this company.

I said this on the last thread so I'm posting here to say it again. I want CBU3 to give a statement addressing the concerns of players who pointed out there was a significant flaw in the blacklist feature that was added for Dawntrail that allows the unique account ID to be trackable and exposes other player characters as well as character data under the same account. Preferably with an action plan or at least what long-term plans they have to address the problem.

If the previous thread was taken down because it broke the ToS or because it broke the forum rules, that's within the community team's right to remove. It does not change the fact that this is a valid concern about a privacy and potential security risk that has not been addressed even when there were players who pointed out this flaw immediately after Dawntrail's release over half a year ago. As it stands right now, the blacklist changes that were supposed to mitigate player privacy issues have made player privacy worse.

I do not appreciate that the team seems to be willing/able to address concerns about poor implementation of hairstyle contest designs enough to have Community Managers post responses about it but not this. Dawntrail has not been a good expansion for community goodwill. Failing to address this issue is just going to add another mark to the list.

Hm. That's worrisome to have the other thread get deleted, but I understand why and will move on.

Just some questions to ask the devs, in the tiny, tiny chance they read this:

I don't see anywhere in their policies and terms of service that our character data is protected. Why? Should they not be? I get that we all agreed that we don't "own" our characters, but in the wake of recent events, we gotta question if anyone, with the right tools and/or methods, should be entitled to our character's whereabouts and what retainers we have?

Why allow anyone in your blacklist be able to join a instance party with you? Like, there might be a good reason why that person was put there in the first place, and it puts us in a awkward situation of "just play nice and don't talk to each other," like we're in grade school, just so the system can move the queue along.

I get that the blacklisted player should be entitled to not have their gameplay impeded, but there are other players out there in the queue and the party finder exists if said queue is too slow.

--

Also, while I'm also on the boat of "hey, this doesn't affect me," please have some empathy for those who are going through it. You never know if and when that shoe is on the other foot and suddenly you gotta deal with it, too.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Rin_Sato

My thread about this stalking problem was just deleted by moderators at 13 pages long? What?
Did somebody post something sensitive in it, or what?
I hope the deletion means that the information has reached the ears of those who should hear it, at least...

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...ture-to-stalk/

---

Of course it was deleted, it's talk about the bad and mods don't care whether it's a serious security breach or not, they just have to delete it without letting anybody know about its contents. Someone started a JP thread about it.