350K Call of Duty accounts banned for ‘racist names or toxic behavior’

More than 350,000 Call of Duty accounts have been banned for “racist names or toxic behavior” on Call of Duty: Warzone, Black Ops Cold War, Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty: Mobile, according to a post from the series’ developers on Wednesday.

The bans have taken place over the past 12 months and were based on “player-submitted reports and an extensive review of our player-name database,” the post said.

“We are committed to delivering a fun gameplay experience for all of our players. There’s no place for toxic behavior, hate speech or harassment of any kind in our games or our society,” the report said.

In addition to the bans, the team said that it has implemented new in-game filters to catch “potentially offensive user-names, clan tags or profiles” and to “filter potentially offensive text chat.”

Activision has had to take proactive measures to moderate the Call of Duty community in the past. Previously, the developers targeted accounts in an effort to curb rampant cheating in Warzone — and by Feburary, an update said that over 60,000 accounts had been disciplined. Combined with the most recent moderation, that brings the series to about 300,000 permabans.

“There’s much more to be done, including increasing player reporting capabilities and moderation, as well as addressing voice chat to help combat toxicity,” the developers said.