Mijin
54
I remain skeptical, regardless of others’ assertions; even Funcoms. Outsourcing customer service is a prevalent practice among many companies, especially the larger ones. Typically, they’re instructed to deny any outsourcing, and the customer service representatives are directed to assert they work directly for the company they are serving. For instance, I once worked for a large company that used a customer service provider akin to Zendesk. The customer support staff were told to state they worked directly for the company when asked. All calls were recorded, and admitting to their actual employer was grounds for termination. While I acknowledge the possibility of being wrong, as I am merely speculating, I tend to view Funcom’s denial with skepticism, based on my experience in this field. However, this is somewhat beside the point.
There have been instances where people were banned for using derogatory language on officials that aren’t racial in nature too, like the use of the C word for example. But my main point is that such issues tend to escalate in more heavily moderated environments, like the hypothetical one you brough up. In these situations, the problem isn’t always what you say, but rather what you believe. Moderators, who by the nature of their position may lean significantly in a particular direction since they are drawn to roles involving control, may base their actions on whether they perceive that someone shares their worldviews. If a moderator concludes through the course of your conversations that your beliefs differ from theirs, you might become a target for biased moderation. That’s why my favorite type of moderation of language, is none. I’ve only ever had to ban one person who wouldn’t stop spamming racial epithets because he though he was going to teach me a lesson about why free speech shouldn’t be allowed. For the rest of the part, by and large, I don’t ever remember a single issue with that. More or less, it’s the same issue of favoritism you mentioned being an obstacle for you on private servers, I can see it also being a problem on a more heavily moderated official as well.