Microsoft is adding content filters to Xbox Live messages to help combat trolls and block nasty messages.

The company has had Community Standards for Xbox for a long time and the ability for gamers to report inappropriate behaviour whenever necessary. This system has required players to manually report other players, now Microsoft is making moves to proactively protect you from seeing messages in the first place. 

This new system for message safety should ensure that inappropriate messages are filtered in the right way for you. 

This includes "levels" of message filtering that you can customise yourself. This means you can tweak your account to block rude messages from people you don't know, while still seeing banter from friends that an automated system might mistake for trolling. 

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Microsoft

The filter levels include Friendly, Medium, Mature and Unfiltered and can be applied across different messages including message requests, images and videos in messages and more. You can also opt to turn message filtering off for friends while keeping stricter blocking rules on for people you don't know. 

This system is also designed to account for families too. Giving parents the ability to tweak filtering settings on a child's account, while also automatically aggressively filtering messages destined for young eyes. 

Microsoft has explained how to access these settings:

"On your console, you can configure your message safety by going to Settings > General > Online safety & family > Message safety. Whenever you receive a message that’s beyond your safety setting, it’ll be replaced with a [Potentially offensive message hidden] placeholder. You can click on that placeholder to learn more about the settings, and there’s a handy shortcut to go change those settings."

This new system is rolling out to Xbox Insiders first, then to everyone later this year. You can find out more about it here.