Banned for 7 days for "Hateful Conduct" -- Inappropriate/Offensive Display Name

Question

Firstly, I am 100% aware that I have agreed to the terms of service and that EA can ban/suspend anybody for any reason. I have already submitted a ban dispute and am currently waiting to hear back from EA regarding this issue.

I am NOT saying in this post that my display name was appropriate nor am I saying I should be able to continue using it.&nbsp; The reason for this post is to get an opinion from the community to determine whether or not a seven-day ban is a fair punishment for the infraction.

[Edited]&nbsp;

This is a blurb from the end of the Rules of Conduct section in the EA user agreement:

"If you or someone using your EA Account violates these rules and fails to remedy this violation after a warning, EA may take action against you, including revoking access to certain or all EA Services, Content or Entitlements, or terminating your EA Account as described in Section 8. In case of severe violations, EA may take these actions without issuing a prior warning. Some examples of severe violations include, but are not limited to: promoting encouraging or engaging in hacking, selling EA accounts or entitlements (including virtual currencies and items) without EA's permission, extreme harassment, or threatening illegal activities. When practical, EA will notify you of the action it will take in response to violations of these rules or breach of this Agreement."

Having read this little blurb from the user agreement, it seems that I should have received a warning before the ban. EA says they will take action against you after one of the two situations: failing to remedy a situation after receiving a warning or committing a "severe violation" without receiving a warning. Considering I never received a warning, the second situation must apply. The examples that EA has given regarding a "severe violation" are not even remotely close to the violation that I committed.

In this scenario, it is worth noting the industry standard. Honestly, EA is not the first platform that I have used that display name on; the name dates back to around 2010 (when I was 10 years old). Other platforms that I used that display name on include Mojang (Minecraft), Supercell, Epic Games, and Blizzard Entertainment. None of those platforms have banned me from the game for using that display name. All of them sent me a warning email or required me to change my name before I could continue playing the game. I also think that it is worth mentioning that I have had my EA account (formerly Origin) since 2016 and I have been playing Apex since 2019 with that display name.

Once again, I am NOT saying that my display name was appropriate or that I should get to continue using it. I am simply wondering what the community thinks about whether the punishment fits the crime.

Considering throughout this entire post I have not outright stated my opinion, I am going to here. This ban was entirely too harsh and should be reversed or shortened by a large amount.

What do you guys think? Am I totally off-base here? Am I on to something? Did I miss something in the user agreement? Do you think I could have been mistakenly banned? If this ban was not a mistake, why do you guys think I am just getting suspended for this display name considering I have used it for the past four years?

Any and all feedback would be appreciated.

CM - I had to remove the attachment since it contained personal information. I removed the name since it violated the rules.&nbsp;

If you wish to appeal your account sanction follow this link.&nbsp;

laughingsharko · Answer

@ren0000144965050First, I'm not sure what version of the TOS you're quoting. The latest one I found says this in section 8:

"When practical, EA will notify you of the termination. You may lose your username and persona as a result of an EA Account termination...

Instead of termination and prior to any termination, EA may issue you a warning, suspend or alter your access to a particular EA Service or your EA Account, remove or revoke Entitlements at an EA Account or device level, remove or delete any Content which is in violation with this Agreement, or ban your device or machine from accessing specific EA Services."

Notice the words "when practical" and "may." In this situation, it appears that EA decided it's not practical to provide a warning before a temporary suspension.

Second, you're supposed to read the TOS before installing the game.

This agreement clearly says that you agree not to:
"Harass, threaten, bully, embarrass, spam or do anything else to another player or any EA employee or representative that is unwanted, such as repeatedly sending unwanted messages or making personal attacks or statements about race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, etc. Hate speech is not tolerated."
"Publish, post, upload or distribute any content, such as a topic, name, screen name, avatar, persona, or other material or information, that EA (acting reasonably and objectively) determines is inappropriate, abusive, hateful, harassing, profane, defamatory, threatening, obscene, sexually explicit, infringing, privacy-invasive, vulgar, offensive, indecent or unlawful."

You broke the terms of this agreement. Being honest, you were probably already aware that your name was infringing on the rules, but you didn't find it personally important.

Without knowing the exact name (don't post it here, lol), it's impossible for any of us to provide any real feedback about how "excessive" EA's response was. Targeting a race group, being demeaning toward a gender or endorsing similar types of hate or abuse is always disgusting.
On the other hand, names like "FartSmeller23" are disgusting in a different sense, lol.

rain5832 · Answer

EA has recently enabled the "EA Positive Play Charter" where anything that can be offensive to other players is an actionable punishment, and it's a very hard stance, even having somewhat harmless usernames where you direct it toward yourself like "I'm stupid" will get you in trouble.

Also calling a squad mate "noob" in chatbox will get you in trouble if they report you (more serious comments like racist or telling them to off themselves can be automatically picked up by the ban system based on keywords)

So it's best to avoid anything like that, just use usernames like "Hello" instead.

I dont know what username you had, but I'm pretty sure that EA/Respawn doesn't use automatic detection for usernames, so you must've killed someone who then reported you for inapprooriate username afterwards.

Steam allows for any username, so I have seen some incredibly heinous usernames that are literal racist or misogynistic, which i then reported and got a thank you email from EA a few days later where they thanked me for helping them take action.

EA/Origin has blocklist for most bad names, so it's harder to make an inappropriate usernames there

As for other companies, Blizzard and Steam issue force rename and give warning first instead of banning, but EA issue ban directly it seems.

here you can read the EA Positive Play Charter:

https://www.ea.com/commitments/positive-play/charter

reconzero · Answer

@ren0000144965050As others have said, it's hard to characterize the punishment as excessive without knowing the exact nature of the offense.That said, I would have thought they would warn you and give you an opportunity to address the issue yourself before stepping up to a ban. I once had an xbox gamertag reported as inappropriate and xbox live asked me to change it. I did. Story over. Why everyone has to make a federal case out things is a mystery to me, but again: without knowing the exactly nature of the infraction it's hard to say.

laughingsharko · Answer

@ren0000144965050 Well, since you asked for my opinion, here it is:

1. I don't think it's reasonable to expect a business with probably millions of customers to give you a warning (that you're more likely than not to even notice in your inbox) for a 7-day suspension due to violating the terms of service.
2. If we were talking about an actual permanent ban, then, yes, I would expect them to give you a warning prior to completely banning your account.
3. Your past experiences with other companies make me think that you enjoy provoking them or choosing names that are either double entendres or likely to offend parents or underage users. Of course, as I mentioned, it's not possible to know for sure without knowing the name (I don't feel comfortable giving out my account info online, sorry).
4. Including a temporary suspension along with the communication about why may also help to stress to the person the seriousness of the TOS. People have been permanently banned after breaking the TOS twice in chat, so it's not a joking matter anymore.
5. As far as the actual moderation of names and offensive terms, I'm on the fence. I am of the opinion that you should treat everyone with respect, so I have little tolerance for messages or names that force others to see things that make them uncomfortable. On the other hand, I have heard, not experienced, mind you, that EA uses customer service agents from countries that don't speak English natively. There have allegedly been instances of people being banned for self-deprecating comments such as "I'm such an idiot," where the intent is obviously not to insult anyone. That doesn't seem fair to me, but it doesn't seem to be the case here, either.

ren000014496505 · Answer

@LaughingSharko&nbsp;I appreciate your reply on this matter and I understand it is a tricky situation to navigate while having to leave a vital piece of the puzzle out. If you would like I can message you the name on a different platform other than the EA Forums (Discord preferably) so we are not in violation of the TOS. Then I would like to see if your opinion sees any changes.There are a few things that I think will be very beneficial to clear up.Firstly, you were wondering which version of the TOS I was quoting. The TOS I am referring to is the one on EA's official website (ea.com/legal/user-agreement). There is no version number on that page specifically but at the very bottom of the agreement there is a line that states "Last Updated: November 7, 2022." I would assume that EA would not have an outdated version of the user agreement as the first link on the legal page of their website. All of the information I quoted in my original post was at the bottom of section 6 (Rules of Conduct). For future reference, you could have gone to the user agreement, pressed CTRL+F, started typing in my quote, and that would have taken you directly to the cited text.&nbsp;Next, I did see the words "when practical" and "may" in your quoted text as well as in my quoted text. Honestly, I did not pay much attention to those words so I appreciate you bringing that up. I know you do not work for EA nor did you write the terms of service so I am strictly asking for your opinion in the upcoming questions. What do you think constitutes practicality in that sense? In other words, when do you think it would have been practical for EA to notify somebody about a violation? Obviously, it would depend on the violation (something that is not a severe violation, see my quoted text in the original post for more details on severe violations), so I am looking for broad, opinionated examples here. Another question I have is, why does it seem as if other gaming platforms thought it was practical to notify me before the ban and EA does not? Again, I am looking for your opinion and I am aware that you do not work for EA or the other gaming platforms that I have mentioned in my original post. If you do not have an opinion on the aforementioned questions, simply replying with a phrase such as "I don't know" or "I don't have an answer for that" is enough.Lastly, believe it or not, I am aware that I should have read the TOS before installing the game. I admittedly made a mistake in that matter and I thought I made it clear in my original post. Apparently, I did not so I will reiterate. I absolutely agree that I broke the terms of service and that I should have to change my name and receive some sort of demerit. The question remains the same as to whether the punishment crime so to speak.A few things that I can say about the display name&nbsp;is that it did not involve race, sexual orientation, religion, heritage, swear/curse words, or hate speech. Just to be clear, the legal definition of hate speech is defined as "speech that is intended to insult, offend, or intimidate a person because of some trait (as race, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability). That definition was found in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.Thank you again for your reply and I look forward to hearing what you have to say next.

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Banned for 7 days for "Hateful Conduct" -- Inappropriate/Offensive Display Name

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