EA Explains Its Anti-racist Measures in FIFA 21
Electronic Arts has to deal with racist behavior among FIFA 21 players on a daily basis. The studio has explained how it deals with this type of misconduct and announces some improvements in relation to catching similar abuse.
- FIFA 21 players have engaged in racist behavior in the Pro Clubs mode, such as coming up with offensive names to non-white players;
- Electronic Arts says it has banned several thousand accounts since the release of the latest FIFA and is working to improve its system for monitoring these such acts.
Racism is still one of the biggest social problems of the 21st century, and for many years many influential companies have been preparing special media campaigns to help combat this harmful phenomenon. Football organizations such as UEFA (#NoToRacism action) or the Premier League, as well as companies responsible for the promotion of digital football, namely Electronic Arts, battle persecution based on skin color.
At the end of February EA published a social media post promoting, together with the aforementioned Premier League, the #NoRoomForRacism action. However, representatives of the company realize that such initiatives are not enough, because racism in FIFA, contrary to appearances, is the order of the day.
And we're not talking about situations such as racist remarks towards another gamers via voice chat, as such anger issues are of a different nature. The gamers find much more complex ways to demean people of color. Just take a look at the Pro Clubs mode in FIFA 21.
Eurogamer did a little journalistic investigation and uncovered some unpleasant examples of abuse of the options available in Pro Clubs. In this mode of gameplay (importantly, online) it is possible to create your own player and give him a name from among those belonging to real-life footballers. Accordingly, the players create afro-american avatars and assign them names such as "banana" or "negro", which are then read out by commentators during virtual matches, and these are played out. Other users have the right to feel offended by this, and for younger gamers, it can be a bad example (FIFA has no age restrictions).
There are more such situations, so the aforementioned website turned to EA to learn how the company deals with such behavior. The company admitted that since the release of FIFA 21 it has banned 9 thousand accounts and sent 25 thousand warnings in connection with inappropriate, offensive behavior.
Electronic Arts also announced that it is currently working on a special, more effective system for monitoring rule violations. These improvements are expected in the coming months.
