Though the issue has been reported on over a few days now, Microsoft has officially weighed in on an ongoing discussion around Baldur’s Gate 3 players on Xbox who are finding themselves moderated or banned due to captured screenshots or footage of the game’s romance scenes being uploaded to the Xbox network.
The issue, which makes some sense if you consider folks publicly uploading some fairly mature content to the network, is being widely discussed because it’s happening to players who aren’t actually aware of their clips being shared – the default Xbox behaviour is to automatically upload capture to the Xbox Network and users have to opt out of the feature.
For its part, Microsoft has already been working alongside Larian to reverse these actions, but it’s also taken the opportunity to clear up any assumption that these actions are a result of auto-moderation, instead confirming that Xbox employees have been personally reviewing each clip and handing out the enforcements.
“To provide clarity on Baldur’s Gate 3 mature content enforcement actions, Xbox account suspensions are not automatic,” it said in a post on X. “Each clip is reviewed by a moderator and, if found in violation of our safety and content policies, actioned accordingly.
“Our team evaluates appeals and can reverse suspensions if action was taken in error. If this was a first offense, for example, we will remove the suspension and let players know why it happened and how to avoid future issues (e.g. how to turn off auto-upload when sensitive content is being captured).”
To provide clarity on Baldur's Gate 3 mature content enforcement actions, Xbox account suspensions are not automatic. Each clip is reviewed by a moderator and, if found in violation of our safety and content policies, actioned accordingly.
Our team evaluates appeals and can…
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) January 8, 2024
Xbox also provides a link for users to learn how to turn off auto-uploads of captured content, which can be found here. Realistically though, the policies in place here don’t make a lot of sense and there are hopefully considerations in the works to either disable automatic capture uploads by default or give players more warning when they’re about to upload content that might be in breach of guidelines.
