Recent Developments of TOS Actions Taken

[Alaray]

My stance is: While yes, action against the behavior is understandable given previous stances the company has with this kind of situation and yes, Square Enix has the right to action offenses anywhere:

It sets a really weird precedence. Since, technically now, the entirety of the TOS applies to third party websites/third party interactions. Which means that, if reported over certain things, like if you just say -- on a 18+ marked stream -- "aw, [expletive]" that can be an actioned offense just as saying an expletive in game can be. And people say expletives (and no, I'm not talking about slurs, I'm talking about the adult frick) because people do get frustrated, or even just excited. No one's going to be an eternal ray of sunshine, everyone gets frustrated. In the same vein, sometimes when you accomplish something that was incredibly difficult, plenty of people do reach for the 18+ "frick yeah" phrase.

If you run ACT on a stream, that'd also become reportable and actionable whereas before they didn't care about it in this off-site context, only if you mentioned it directly in game.

If you're streaming prog, and one player gets heated at another player and the instance is clipped + sent in as a report: that's actionable, even if both involved parties don't really care about the interaction.

People, players, who take an interaction a streamer has and harass on their own are doing just that: A streamer can't control their base anymore than I can, say, control what dumb things my friends end up doing that get them into a bad situation. (Which is to say, is a different context than a streamer advocating for people to go and harass x, y or z person, but that's not something that happened in the highlighted case, nor is it something that happens in any cases I've seen -- every streamer I've seen usually advocates to not do that. But at the end of the day, they don't literally control the individual people watching, nor do they have physical control over their keyboards.)

Even then, going after a streamer who made fun of someone playing poorly is a less important thing to be concerned about than, say, all the advertised Discords in PF that're RMT selling things.

I'll also add: I don't necessarily think SE will action against people who use ACT on streams, because they haven't previously, but they also didn't action people through offsite interactions of this nature before on a platform they don't own/control, so who's to say what of the TOS and what not of the TOS would be applied going forward. Who can report for what, what report of what content has merit to them, there's no set rules for off-site behavior that's consistent with the GM moderation (and the GM moderation isn't consistent to begin with, which is a problem, and this just plays into that inconsistency).

(And while yes they actioned the offsite death threats, that's a bit more extreme of a case that'd warrant that kind of response. And while they actioned the lewd mods situation some people had on twitter, that always came off more to me as a "We don't want sexual content of our game representing us" moreso than a behavioral fix, and even then, those players largely got warnings from what I remember -- not an immediate escalation)

And while we can all guess, assume, and say "probably this is why" and point to specific things... fact is none of us know, exactly, what tripped it over the line. Most I feel should be put out by SE is just... a defined line for these situations, especially when there's people whose livelihoods depend on it. No one ever wants a "well, maybe you'll be fired" floating over their head 24/7.


That said, I've been put on blast on a stream before. It's not fun, no, but it's not really something that's as big a deal as people say it is. Generally, it's forgotten about within the day and no one will generally care going forward.

Personally? I uh, I got over it.

[Tomoebi]

No party involved treat this fabulous drama with a clear head tbh

SE just being stupid as always, and arthas just like any other streamer with stupid screaming and over-reaction over the pettiest thing.
one think i heard is the BLM is the one who talkshit first, however i havent found a receipt for this. but if its true, then it's a "dont hit if you dont want to be slapped" scenario

"Offensive expression" means an expression in general that inflicts emotional distress by being offensive to another person. Offensive expression may include:

TOS was always vague as shit, and its been like that for a long time. but, what if i get offended because a healer not dps-ing/not healing when i Q as a dps? what if i offended because ilvl 400 blm perform worse than ilvl 350 healer??

this fabulous great community always said "just dont be an asshole lol"
but, if you think a little bit. wouldnt people who dont do their job properly and not reading their tooltip also an asshole??
people also said "you dont pay my sub bro"
but, if you think a little bit. wouldnt the deadweight also not paying my sub and the other sub in the party?? (the deadweight also not paying my electricity bill fyi)

So, yoshida i have a proposal for you to end this hostile environemtn called Eorzea.
Lets ban everyone under 99 percentile, ban the stream sniper, ban the erp-er, ban the MB undercutter and ban everyone on r/ShitpostXIV.
Yup, das right, we need to ban all player to end harrasment for once and for all.

[Vnolan]

While I do not believe they will go the route to moderate ALL forms of media, I also am not willing to tolerate cherry picking of what they want to consider ban worthy.

You're free to unsub at any time. It's SE's product so they can do whatever they want with it. If you're unsure what is and isn't allowed you can check with GMs or the ToS.

Not sure what slippery slope people are worried about.

[Tomoebi]

I dunno why you're telling me that I can unsub.

just the usual "consume, dont ask" mentality.

[HyoMinPark]

I would say that I am less concerned about “slippery slope” and more concerned about cherry-picking situations for punishment. In other words: punishments still being as thoroughly inconsistent has they have always seemed, but now expanded to include evidence from third-party media...Except when it’s suddenly “too inconvenient” to take into account third-party evidence for specific reports.

[Driavna]

I would say that I am less concerned about “slippery slope” and more concerned about cherry-picking situations for punishment. In other words: punishments still being as thoroughly inconsistent has they have always seemed, but now expanded to include evidence from third-party media...Except when it’s suddenly “too inconvenient” to take into account third-party evidence for specific reports.

Pretty much and bots are a perfect example. Now they opened the door to anyone breaking the TOS, this includes modding, in a third party website can be reported.

Fun times are coming ahead of us since I'm 100% positive that people are going to use this in order to ban others.

Edit: Oh, I also forgot to mention all those FC selling clears for real money using Discord. Not banned because "outisde the game".

[Vnolan]

Pretty much and bots are a perfect example. Now they opened the door to anyone breaking the TOS, this includes modding, in a third party website can be reported.

Fun times are coming ahead of us since I'm 100% positive that people are going to use this in order to ban others.

Naming a player and shaming their damage on a stream vs visual mods. Will these bans for modding be coming before or after the bans associated with the most recent revision to the ToS?

Edit: Oh, I also forgot to mention all those FC selling clears for real money using Discord. Not banned because "outisde the game".

That's never been stated as the reason they haven't been banned and it will never be, as that would legalize RMT. In fact, SE has never mentioned the PF sales in any capacity.

If you are going to enforce the TOS outside the game you do it for all cases.

Their product and their rules. They can decide which rules they want to enforce and when.

Like with the people selling clears or confessing having bots but since the conversation was on Discord can't be used as valid proof because "third party program"?

STF deals with bots, RMT and third-party programs:

Report a case to the Special Task Force
"You can contact the Special Task Force (STF) to report illegal activity within FINAL FANTASY XIV (such as the use of third-party software or the use of RMT* to sell game data).
The Special Task Force exists for the purpose of dealing with illegal activity in FINAL FANTASY XIV while creating an honest and enjoyable gameplay environment."

If you select "Report use of third-party software", the form you receive has a field to input a URL.

but they need to be consistent with this stuff and also start taking other forms of screenshot/video evidence as proof (I'm not going to go into screenshot/video forgery), as well as finally get crack down on Discord RMT advertisements in PF.

Why? They haven't been consistent before and most didn't have any problems.

just the usual "consume, dont ask" mentality.

Had you asked for a link to the ToS or forum rules, you'd see that use of profanity, being critical of SE and speaking negatively about specific people (the streamer) aren't allowed.

[Tomoebi]

Why? They haven't been consistent before and most didn't have any problems.

bruh momentum

[Driavna]

bruh momentum

Yeah. Recurrent topic from time to time.