Long ago, games like Call of Duty used to rely on diligent and upset players reporting egregious breaches of voice chat rules, such as racism, sexism or any other ism-suffixed word you can think of. And if you can remember Call of Duty lobbies back in the day, voice chat was pretty much a never-ending tirade of hate speech.
However, in 2023, Activision began utilizing ToxMod, an AI tool made for Call of Duty by startup Modulate, to police its lobbies and ban offending players for breaking rules. The hope was that automated voice moderation would catch far more bad actors than traditional reporting, and a new report from Activision (thanks, PCGames.de) seems to be proving that the system is working better than anyone ever hoped.
Always Listening: Black Ops 7 Sees 50% Less Offenders
Activision’s new figures show that in the first six months since Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 launched, its AI moderation system has helped massively in limiting “disruptive voice behavior” in games and lobbies. Comparing the figures with similar periods within Black Ops 6 and Call of Duty: Warzone, Activision reported that there was a 40% reduction in “players exposed to harmful voice interactions.”
The flagship number in the report is a reportedly huge 50% reduction in “disruptive voice offenders”, meaning far fewer players are coming across hate speech or bad behavior in Black Ops 7 than in previous titles in the long-running FPS franchise. The company also reported a 16% reduction in “repeat voice offenders”, indicating that bans or punitive measures against players who abuse voice chat appear to be working as a strong deterrent.
Activision has made the figures central to their Positive Play initiative, which seeks to encourage players to support each other in-game with enemy callouts, giving thanks for buybacks or revivals and reporting hate speech. The company said: “Harmful behavior can make it harder to coordinate with teammates and reducing those encounters helps more players spend more time playing instead of dealing with disruptive interactions.”
The flagship number in the report is a reportedly huge 50% reduction in “disruptive voice offenders”, meaning far fewer players are coming across hate speech or bad behavior in Black Ops 7.
However, the initiative hasn’t attracted such strong headline figures as disruptive player bans, with only 6% reportedly initiating a positive interaction while playing Call of Duty: Warzone. The gap between love and hate shows there is still a long way for Activision to go to balance out lobbies.
The company has also sought to come down hard on cheaters, too, with a recent story of a cheat seller getting served legal papers on his doorstep going viral earlier this year. It has reportedly “disrupted more than 375 cheat reseller operations” and shut down more than 30 vendors.
Activision Wants to Innovate with Modern Warfare
With Activision sinking more than ever into improving the quality of its matches, all eyes are on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 as the next big step in the franchise’s history. The fourth installment in the most popular CoD subtitle, the title is set to launch in October and fan hype is reaching a fever pitch.
You can best believe that ToxMod will be utilized to the fullest in Modern Warfare 4, so offending players should beware of infractions as Activision champions Positive Play to the fullest. Danish national treasure Mads Mikkelsen is set to star as the game’s villain, with his involvement revealed in a Tokyo Game Show presentation earlier this month.
Modern Warfare 4 will also feature plenty of quality-of-life updates, including operator trait trees, updated bullet trajectory systems, dynamic weather that intensifies over time, and the removal of the pesky update restarts that disrupt the flow of gameplay. New depth of field mechanics will also make kills more satisfying and improve LDS for players.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7
5.5/10
- Released
-
November 14, 2025
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