Sony is under criticism from PS5 and PS4 players for excessive censorship on PSN stemming from its deployment of overly strict chat filters. We highlighted this issue last year, when PSN chat filters ended up censoring the Platinum trophy description for PS5 console exclusive Death Stranding 2. The problem has since gotten worse.
PS5, PS4 players annoyed by over-the-top PSN censorship and we can see why
PSN chat filter understandably can’t decipher context, and seems to have been fed an entire dictionary of words it won’t allow players to use. In Death Stranding 2’s case, the word “Homo Liberans” triggered a warning for players who attempted to share their Platinum achievement with their friends via messages, but the latest example we’ve seen is the most egregious one thus far.
Over on Reddit, a frustrated player shared a screenshot of a message they attempted to send a friend, in which they shared a video clip of an in-game boss fight with the message, “Boss is hard on Expert [difficulty].” The user wasn’t allowed to send the message because it contained a “swear word.”
Although clearly spaced out, “hard on” is what presumably triggered the warning.
These filters are making it virtually impossible to share screenshots and video clips with other users over PSN, so we can see why players are frustrated. For a company that talks about connectivity and bringing players together via gaming, Sony apparently loves gutting socialization.
In recent months, we’ve also seen an increasing number of players receive warnings and suspensions over messages sent on PSN that don’t warrant such punishments. We’re all in favor of combating toxicity in online gaming, but not the way Sony is going about it.
