News: You know, offensive words. Like "gay" and "lesbian" and "hello". Wait a minute...
The San Francisco Chronicle has an article detailing some of the road bumps Sony has experienced since launching the PlayStation Home virtual world a few weeks ago.
Chief among these issues appears to be Sony's decision to filter "offensive" words such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, Christ, Jew and hello (because it starts with the word "hell"). Sony's censorship was discovered by Michael Marsh, a Home user who was attempting to create a Gay/Straight Alliance club with the service. Marsh was also a part of Home's private beta and contacted Sony about their filtering policies prior to Home's public launch on December 11, but the company continues to employ the filter.
It gives new meaning to the phrase "zero tolerance", that's for sure.
Microsoft also bans the specific use of the words gay, lesbian and bisexual in Xbox Live profiles. However, words that start with those phrases are not banned, many Xbox Live users identify themselves as "gaymers" to get around Microsoft's filtering.
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