Sega Commented on Sonic the Hedgehog's Chaotic Discord Server Launch
Profanity, NSFW content, and hate speech flooded the server in no time, resulting in a wave of bans.
Paramount Pictures
Sonic the Hedgehog's fanbase hit a new low after Sega launched the official Sonic Discord server on October 5. It turned into pure chaos a few hours into the launch, despite the server having a short list of fairly reasonable rules:
- Keep it family-friendly
- Protect personal information
- Be excellent to each other
- No politics or religion
- Keep content human-made
- Spoilers are no good
Reportedly, in just 6 hours, around 50,000 members joined the Discord server. Unfortunately, many of them never planned to use it as Sega intended. Instead of having a friendly discussion, many members started using server channels for verbal fights, sharing inappropriate fanart, and hating on each other's nationalities, gender identities, and even interests outside the Sonic universe.
Some members noticed that, alarmingly, there were alleged groomers and fetishists on the server intended to be kid-friendly as well.
The moderators reacted promptly and began banning those who violated the rules. However, as it turned out, many users who did nothing wrong were locked out of the server as a result, while those who were sending death threats and posting disturbing content still roamed free.
Sega's Director of Strategy, Studio & Community Relations for SEGA Japan, Aaron Webber, decided to clear things up on Twitter, saying that the screenshots of disturbing messages from certain server members are "cherry-picked screens". Webber stated that all of them were removed from the server and banned quickly, adding that Sonic's Discord has extremely strict automatic filters.
"As a result, we've noticed a number of users getting incorrectly banned. We've already started unbanning some of those affected and will be fine-tuning this in the days to come. For new users who can't type yet due to the spam restrictions, thank you for being patient – as things calm down, we'll gradually be opening the server so you can send messages too," Webber added.
For now, to control possible spam and rule violations, server moderators enabled Slowmode, allowing users to send 1 message per minute. Plus, new members are restricted to only viewing the messages from other users across all channels.
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