I would like to personally issue an update on a situation that has escalated over the last 48 hours, concerning a ban imposed on a Zwift community member.
Having been brought up to speed, it is clear to me that this situation could have been better handled by both parties. The performance increasing exploit was until now, relatively unknown both within Zwift and outside, but this is no excuse to not have addressed it. The exploit is detectable, and we have the ability to look back and identify those to have used it. That said, our priority is not to look back, but to look forward, and fix this as a matter of priority in one of the upcoming game releases.
For this reason, we have taken the decision to lift the 30-Day shadow ban issued to Luciano. For clarity, a shadow ban does not prevent a Zwifter from using Zwift, they simply do not show to others.
Neither party had ill intent and I can only apologise to all involved, but in particular to Luciano himself. We have an obligation to the community to address exploits on the platform and will fix this particular exploit as a matter of priority.
It is important for us to uphold our terms of service as they exist to protect the enjoyment of the majority of Zwifters. Rather than share information on how to exploit a performance bug, we would always encourage members of the community to come forward to Zwift with performance exploits they find. The process on how to bring such issues to the attention of Zwift hasn’t always been clear, so in order to improve this, we plan to introduce a bug bounty program that will not only make it easier for Zwifters to highlight issues but will also reward them for doing so. We will need time to develop this program but will share information in due course.
Thanks,
Eric Min
Co-founder & CEO