EA pledges new reporting tools, periodic Community Reports to combat toxicity

Electronic Arts has outlined some community-facing plans for dealing with toxicity and misbehavior in the communities for its games, taking the time at its EA Play event this past weekend to discuss its current and future efforts on that front.

What’s notable about EA’s approach is that the company is taking deliberate steps to keep the community involved in that process, with this year's plans including quarterly reports on anti-toxicity efforts and a community-led panel to offer feedback on policies.

The company held what it calls the Building Healthy Communities Summit at EA Play, calling in 200 members of its community leadership ‘game changers’ program to have open discussions about toxic behavior and bullying in game communities.

The summit included several discussions of the issue as a whole, something detailed on EA’s blog post about the event, in addition to an outline of the steps EA has planned further positive community growth in mind. Part of those plans is the formation of a player-led council to give EA direct and ongoing feedback on programs, policies, and platforms and the company’s own pledge to explore new anti-toxicity tools and in-game features to “more easily manage and effectively report disruptive behavior.”

On top of those efforts, EA says it plans to release a quarterly report about its efforts on the community front and to keep its players informed about the progress it’s making on existing programs and the new initiatives it kicks off to better mitigate toxic communities.