Following reported “mass bans” of Forza Horizon 6 players, the game’s official Code of Conduct was updated on September 24. Specifically, the section regarding inappropriate user-generated content (UGC) has been expanded to offer more detail regarding Forza’s violation procedures. The updated document states that bans are moderated by humans and are not based on the number of reports received, refuting speculation about recent bans being caused by mass reporting targeting creators of “itasha” (cars decorated with characters from anime, manga, and video games).
Two months ago, our Japanese sister site reported that numerous popular itasha creators were taking down their creations and refusing to upload new designs, indicating that they were banned from sharing their work in Forza Horizon 6. In addition to itasha, designs from car parts manufacturers were also discovered to have been taken down, leading to concerns that creations were being automatically removed based on the number of player reports they received. Though it was not confirmed, some fans speculated that a targeted “reporting campaign” was responsible for the mass banning of player-created content across several Forza titles.
More recently, players from across Japan have been calling out what appears to be a new “banning campaign” that targets players who take photos of itasha designs and share them in-game in addition to creators. There are also reports of players being banned for possessing suggestive work-in-progress content that hasn’t been uploaded.
While there was previously no official information available regarding the correlation between the number of reports received and player bans, the updated Code of Conduct addresses this issue.
According to the inappropriate UGC section of the document, user content that has been flagged by the in-game reporting system is added to a queue, which is reviewed by a human moderator (the number of reports on a piece of content doesn’t affect its prioritization or position in the queue). The moderator determines what course of action to take based on the severity of the flagged content and the creator’s past violations. First-time violators receive a warning message, while additional violations result in suspensions that increase in length.
Permanent bans are issued without prior violations only when an image contains child sexual content, explicit sexual content, explicit nudity, or imagery outlined above in Forza’s Zero Tolerance Policy (which includes hate speech, credible violent threats, child sexual exploitive abusive imagery, terrorism or violent extremism content, sexual/nude imagery, and more). Forza adds that the parameters used to evaluate content will evolve over time, and it will continue to update the code of conduct accordingly.
Despite Forza’s violation procedures being disclosed, there is still the issue of players finding it hard to understand how some user-designed itasha are breaking the regulations set by the code of conduct. The updated code still contains generic criteria, with fans hoping for more specifics so they can create and enjoy content without fear of being insta-banned.
Forza Horizon 6 is available for Windows (Steam/Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series X|S. A PlayStation 5 version is set to release later this year.
