Online gaming, fun, enjoyable and for many, a great way of connecting with like minded gamers from around the globe, with people you would never normally have the opportunity to network with. Sounds great doesn't it? And it is; I can be found most nights with a control pad gripped feverishly in my hands blasting unknown enemies into next Thursday. Gives me that warm fuzzy feeling inside. But then there's the flip side of the online gaming craze; the anti-social aspect. Anyone that has spent a lot of time gaming online will have no doubt come across the racist, bigoted, ignorant and abusive individuals that seem to infect the servers. A large majority of it is pretty sickening stuff and not something I am used to being exposed to or comfortable hearing. “But Ste, why don't you just mute them?” This is true and for the most part I do. But sometimes chatting is a necessity, usually to apologise for drilling a team mate in the back in Call of Duty 4 but I digress. Lets look at the bigger picture here; in modern society racial and bigoted abuse, religious intolerance, threatening and abusive behaviour and anything of this ilk is highly punishable and rightly so. Yet this doesn't appear to be applied online. Now I am the last person that wants to see us living in an Orwellian society with our every move monitored but I do think that online play and chat should be subject to regulation and monitoring to prevent this type of behaviour seeming to be accepted. Racist abuse at a football match is rewarded with a swift ejection from the ground, so why not apply the same punishment online? Now I am fully aware of just how difficult regulating the millions upon millions players out there would be so maybe its time us gamers stepped up to the breach and took responsibility for it, that we're no longer willing to accept such behaviour. Most online systems have a report abuse or complain function; it's there so lets use it to highlight these small minded individuals that think its perfectly acceptable to spout their vile abuse from the safety of their own home. If the same names keep cropping up in such complaints, perhaps the leading companies will be forced to take action against them.