Squad Social Credits – Guest Reporter
by guest reporter (for fear of persecution the reporter does not wish to be named)
Are you excited to finally realize that social credit is now implemented in Squad and is being allowed and followed? If so, maybe you should look up the people who have suffered under such harsh actions!
This article is about the Squad Community Ban List, which is one of the leading websites for tracking player behavior if they are not adhering to server guidelines. At face value, the Squad Community Ban List may seem harmless, as it shares a ban list that all servers can use to maintain the integrity of Squad gameplay. However, upon deeper investigation, it becomes clear that it involves rating players and blacklisting individuals that one server may not want, extending this ban to all other servers connected to the list.
In the hands of the wrong servers or admins, this system could lead to issues, where a player banned from one server is automatically banned from all other servers using the list. While the Squad Community Ban List has done a great job of keeping cheaters at bay, some servers have begun using it for their own advantage, punishing players for minor offenses like accidental team kills, political discussions, or even for unclear reasons. As I mentioned before, this ban gets transferred to all servers that run this list!
Want to get removed from the social credit score? Well, good luck appealing, as the application process just redirects you to OWI’s Admin Abuse Reports.
The Squad Community Ban List is overall very dangerous for both you and me! Think about this while reading: as a player, you load into a server, joke around with some friends, and maybe talk politics in local chat. Then, suddenly, the admin bans you for three days. Now, that ban is applied to all servers running the ban list. Congratulations! Now, when you try to appeal, 70% of admins respond with, “Find another server.”
Let’s not forget, the Squad Community Ban List is great for dealing with major infractions, such as banning cheaters. However, they have taken it too far by using it to rate you as a player, whether it’s your first offense or your twelfth.