As part of a broader effort to end the toxicity on Xbox Live, Microsoft today introduced message safety features to the service.

“We believe that gaming should be inclusive and welcoming for everyone, which means creating experiences and communities that invite everyone to play safely and responsibly,” Microsoft corporate vice president Dave McCarthy writes. “Now, we’re taking the next step in this responsible gaming journey by rolling out player-centric text filters on [Xbox One].”

To give gamers control over the messages they see from others in the Xbox community, Microsoft is instituting new messaging filtering controls. These will start rolling out across Xbox soon, Microsoft says, starting first with private messages and then expanding over time to profiles, Looking For Groups (LFG), Clubs, and gamers’ Activity Feeds.

Basically, Xbox Live members will be able to set customized levels of message filtering—Friendly, Medium, Mature, and Unfiltered—across received messages, message requests, shared media, and more. These filters will be available in Settings > General > Online safety & family > Message safety.

When you receive a message that Xbox believes surpasses the threshold you set, you’ll see a “Potentially offensive message hidden” message instead of the original. You can select that to see the original message. The system will differentiate between friends and others. And parents can, of course, control the feature using Family settings.

“Creating content filters that work for all types of gamers is a journey and our work doesn’t stop here,” McCarthy adds. “We will continue to improve, evolve and expand our work based on your feedback. And even with filters in place, it’s still important that players adhere to our Community Standard for Xbox as well as report any conduct that violates this to Xbox Enforcement.”

You can learn more about this new feature from the Xbox website.

Tagged with Xbox Live