Players keep getting banned for ‘racism’ after using harmless non-English words

EA’s guidelines for hate-speech seem to ignore the existence of other languages, as Japanese players keep getting bans for using the word ‘nigero,’ which means ‘run.’

Anti-hate speech guidelines imposed by US-based companies can’t seem to process languages other than English. The Anglo-centric policies result in players from around the world receiving bans for simply using their own language in-game.

A recent post on the KotakuInAction subreddit suggests that back in October a Japanese player had received a ban for using the Japanese word ‘nigero,’ which translates to ‘run/run away/get out of here.’ However, this isn’t the first time such a ban has been issued, and it seems the problem has been persistent for a while now.

Reports of such bans and suspensions have been popping up since March, as several Japanese Apex Legends players have reportedly been punished for “directed hate speech” after using the same word. The players shared emails they received from EA, the owner of Apex Legends, detailing their supposed offense.

An Indonesian player was also reportedly suspended in July for “directed hate speech” after saying ‘ngga’ and ‘nggak,’ both of which translate to ‘no’ in English

However, the problem appears to not only be affecting Asian players. Spanish-speaking players have faced similar bans for using the word ‘negro,’ which is Spanish for the color ‘black.’ The EA guidelines seemingly don’t take the context of the words into consideration, as one Spanish player was reportedly banned from playing Apex Legends after expressing how much he liked a character’s black costume.

Ironically, Octane – one of the Spanish-speaking characters in the Apex Legends game – can actually be heard using the word ‘negro’ himself in some of his voicelines.

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It is understandable why the automated chat filter picks up on these words, as they are similar to the strictly prohibited n-word, and toxic players have been known to try and avoid being detected using the n-word by jumbling it up or hiding it among other words. However, the fact that the system fails to take context into consideration and blindly issues bans and suspensions to people simply using their native language has some players concerned.

The misdirected policing of ‘offensive’ language has not only been rampant in video games. In 2020 a University of Southern California communications professor was suspended for “deeply offending” students he was teaching Chinese to. Unfortunately for the professor, the Mandarin filler word ‘nega,’ similar to the English ‘like’ or ‘um,’ sounded too much like a racial slur to some of his students, who reported him for “offending all the black members of their class.”