Sony struggles with creation of its virtual world

Michael Marsh, an 18-year-old gamer from Norwalk, Conn., wanted to set up a gay/straight alliance club in PlayStation Home, Sony's new free 3-D virtual world component for the PlayStation 3.

The problem was that the words he was using - "gay," "lesbian" and "bisexual" - were being filtered from text chats and were not being allowed in the naming of clubs or in postings in club forums. Marsh, who is straight but supports gay rights, said he raised the issue with Home community managers during the private beta test, but the problems persisted after the public beta introduction of Home on Dec. 11.

"I can understand if they're filtering out profanity, but if feel like it's discrimination," Marsh said. "By blocking a word like 'gay,' which is a preferred term by the gay community, you're encouraging it as a bad word."

Read the whole article @ SF Gate

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