A US court has ruled that being muted in a video game does not violate your human rights.
A Runescape player sued UK developer Jagex after he was muted in-game, claiming Jagex and its Chinese owners violated his right to free speech.
Jagex is able to perform “account mutes”, which prevents players from chatting normally in Runescape or post on its forums, while still letting people play the game itself. “Mutes can be avoided by following the RuneScape rules and Terms and Conditions and are associated to the Jagex account, so will be active in all products for that account,” reads the Runescape website.
Pennsylvanian Amro Elansari suffered an account mute around March 2019 and, according to PennLive.com, Jagex denied his appeal without telling him why.
Elansari, who claims to be a streamer with 2000 hours “invested” in the fantasy MMO, then issued a hand-written lawsuit against Jagex, which a district court judge promptly dismissed “for failure to state plausible claims”. Now, the US Court of Appeals has shut down the lawsuit for good.