Why is there a Profanity Filter option?

scorpwanna

Other day in a tfo, my weapons were messed up due to the loadout glitches. Some random player got mad because I had to fly out of combat to fix my weapons. So, I used the f word in the game chat just goofing off about his complaining about him not getting his 200 marks. Next thing I know, I'm getting a message from customer service about using profanity in the chat. My question is, in the options, why is there an option to enable and disable the Profanity Filter, if we aren't suppose to use profanity in the game?

inferiority

Somewhere in the EULA/Terms of Use/Code of Conduct that we all agreed to when we signed up to the game, and most recently when Gearbox took over the running, there's a clause about showing respect for other players.
Almost every online game has such a clause, and I don't think I've ever found one that doesn't.

To my mind, and likely a lot of others, this means that we shouldn't be using profanities in chat. Unfortunately, there are occasions when it happens for whatever reason, and having the filter turned on prevents such chat from appearing.
This is especially useful when we have younger players.

It can have amusing anomalies though - the early days of profanity filters had real trouble with the name of the town 'Scunthorpe' here, in the UK.

inferiority

Having the profanity filter on/off shouldn't matter.
If I swear or use vulgarity in the chat, I'm breaching the ToS @ 11.2 and should accept the consequences of my actions should another player report it.
In my time in various games, I've certainly reported other players. I don't make a habit of it and in 25+ years of online gaming, I think I've only felt I had to file these reports a small number of times. At one stage, I worked in Customer Support and had to deal with similar types of reports.
Now, I don't worry too much about what my fellow players say in the chat (unless it's constant & relentlessly disrupting regular chat) but character names, and in the case of STO, ship names, that are outright defiant to the rules are something we each have a responsibility to report.