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I was comm banned for 1 week in VALORANT, including a ban on playing any team mode which includes unrated, competitive, swift play and any other mode involving another player.
I sent an appeal and while the decision wasn’t reversed, I got insight on exactly what was said that caused the ban. In my opinion, this ban is completely unjustified. Just to be clear, I'm not asking for support or trying to get the ban reversed.
There were 2 flagged messages in question (both said by me).
“Why are you guys picking on Phoenix so much? The only reason you’re not picking on Iso is because he’s your fucking duo and your fucking little boyfriend.“
“I let both of you guys die”.
I’ve included the screenshot showing that this is basically what got me banned. The voice to text has some spelling errors and misheard articles and prepositions.
Here are the problems I have with this.
Regarding 1, this was right after my two teammates Reyna (who I was talking to) and Iso, were calling Phoenix extremely derogatory things including making racial remarks about Indians, saying the n word with hard r, and other sorts of insults. I got a message saying someone was punished that I reported after this game, so they most likely got punished but I’m not sure it was both of them.
What about what I said warranted such a long ban? The fact that I said ‘fucking’ twice? If that can get you banned, I’m genuinely confused about the criterion they use to determine this since there have been much worse things said without punishment in my games before.
Obviously, Riot expects you to sit back and report people for cyberbullying while staying quiet but I’ve always held the position that being a bystander and not standing up to people directly helps cyberbullying be more common. If you’re going to punish people for this, then the situation where a kid under 13 who isn’t aware of all the mute/report tools available to them is relentlessly bullied by two older guys with nobody to defend them. The offenders may or may not be punished, but the damage to the victim will be unforgettable to them. Once again, I could understand this if I said slurs in retaliation but if this is in the realm of getting banned then why haven’t the people calling others actual slurs walked away untouched?
As for 2, I have no idea why this is even close to being a problem. “I let you guys both die” happens all the time when someone takes accountability for making a play that results in two teammates dead. Riot is essentially punishing people for taking any sort of accountability, since apparently it can be reported and used as a consideration for a ban.
