Treyarch Promises ‘Zero Tolerance’ Against Racism, Toxicity

Black Ops developer Treyarch has launched an overhaul of its website and, with it, a lengthy letter from the studio, notes on the upcoming Cold War, and a set of new community guidelines.

Treyarch’s New Community Guidelines

If you’ve spent a reasonable amount of time playing Call of Duty in the last five to 10 years, you’ve probably seen some pretty reprehensible clan tags, custom emblems, and so forth. Nazi imagery or references to the Ku Klux Klan have, unfortunately, been all too common in the last several years. Some of the custom emblems in Black Ops 3 were unspeakable.

Treyarch is asking players to take an active role in fighting back against this kind of casual racism and “edgelord” toxicity in the Black Lives Matter era.

“Toxic behavior, abusive conduct, and hateful speech have no place in the community or on our social channels, and we have zero tolerance against such behavior,” the developer said.

“This includes — but is not limited to — personally attacking, bullying, harassing, trolling, cheating, griefing, impersonating, or threatening other players [or Call of Duty developers]. Likewise, hate speech based on race, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, disability, gender identity, or other personal information has no place in the Call of Duty community, period.”

Activision and Treyarch are asking folks to use the in-game mute and report features liberally when encountering harassment, hate speech, misogyny, racism, or other insidious forms of violence.

“As always,” the studio said, “we encourage our players to ‘mute’ and report problematic users in-game and online. Additionally, any individuals looking to make a bad time for others can expect to meet our block button. While constructive criticism of the game and differing opinions are always welcome, personal attacks and toxic behavior are not.”