DICE Explains Why ‘DLC’ And ‘White Man’ Were Filtered In Battlefield V Beta


Players of the Battlefield 5 beta realised pretty quickly that the game’s chat feature is censoring out some pretty weird words and it looks like we now know why.

According to the r/LivestreamFail subreddit the chat bans the phrase “white man,” along with things like “Nazi” (bearing in mind the game is actually about Nazis), and “nuts” but not “balls.” 

Like I said, it’s pretty weird.

It’s not just those words that fans are picking up on – “DLC” is banned, even though “Free DLC” isn’t. Oh, and Reddit is reporting that “Titanfall” is banned too. Lol. You can check out the full list of banned words discovered by Reddit users right here, but obviously it’s NSFW. 

Battlefield 5‘s Multiplayer Producer, David Sirland, has now addressed the situation via Twitter, responding to a player who wanted an explanation.

According to Sirland, it’s all down to an EA algorithm.

He tweeted: “[It’s] Because the system is using a dictionary derived from several EA games based on some sort of AI learning algorithm that has tagged certain combinations of words to be escalators to toxic chat (or similar, I don’t claim to understand how it works in detail) – we will change this.”

Sirland then went on to confirm that Battlefield 5 will have the option to turn the chat filter off completely, thought it’s not known when this will be live.

When asked by a player for confirmation that chat filter can be turned off Sirland responded: “Yes. Like in any other game more or less. Let’s stop assuming the worst possible scenario :).

“It’s not censorship – it’s anti-abuse in text form. I mean for example – who’d want an all-team VOIP you can’t turn off? I sure wouldn’t…”

What do you think about Battlefield 5‘s strange censorship, and will you be playing with the chat filter off?

The full game isn’t out just yet but Battlefield 5 will be launching on October 19, 2018 for PC, Xbox One, and PS4. If you purchase the deluxe edition, you will be able to start playing Battlefield 5 three days earlier on October 16.