PS5 and PS5 Pro owners have been warned not get banned by PlayStation from PSN over a new issue. Both PlayStation and Xbox have really cracked down on moderation during the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S console generation. To this end, more and more PlayStation and Xbox fans are getting banned from PSN and Xbox Live, respectively. And many of these suspensions or bans are for things that were previously either not an issue or not enforced by moderation. With an increase in AI/automated moderation though this is changing.
The top post on the PS5 Reddit page right now is a post warning that PlayStation is now cracking down on link sharing. This includes sending Google URLs. This has technically been against the Code of Conduct since the release of the PS5, but it appears it is being more heavily enforced now.
The post reveals they received three emails from PlayStation that code had been breached for sending different Google.com URLs in PSN message. The warning specifically read as follows: "Sharing malicious URLs, including those that may harm another player."
As the PS5 points out, normal URLs have never been enforced before, or at least that has been their experience, and the experience of the PS5 users in the comments of the post.
"This is completely automated and happens the instant you send the message. It's also not the first time in the PS5 cycle that this has happened. They've automated the deletion of google/youtube links before, but it never lasted longer than a week, notably they've never sent a breach of conduct email for normal URLs before either. They've either messed up the automation or they're going full scorched-earth on URLs."
"Same thing happened to me. I think the emails are stupid," reads one of the comments. "I sent the Google link to my alt account and the URL was automatically removed for safety upon being sent. Yet they added an automated system to put warnings on your account for a URL that was immediately filtered out. Not only that but I sent it to my ALT account so it automatically sent a report because obviously I didn't report myself."
As alluded to, Xbox does the same exact thing with Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X consoles. There are a few reasons this is a concern for PlayStation and Xbox, including jailbreaking and user safety. Nonetheless, those on PS5 who have never had issues sharing links on PS5 before may find the situation different now.
At the moment of publishing, there has been no official word from PlayStation on the matter, and thus no official word that anything has changed. PS5 users have noticed a change though.
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