> I also have a suspicion that some of these people are literally mentally ill, and online is basically where they live.

Some of it may be because of this. However, I also think that the absence of risk of being mouth-punched contributes a lot. I feel like lots of people are deeply hateful, distrusting and angry in real life, and the risk of social and legal repercussions is the only thing that's keeping a lid on their disregard for others. I think that if this danger of consequences was removed, they would do unspeakable things.

> I also have a suspicion that some of these people are literally mentally ill, and online is basically where they live.

It's certainly reasonable to expect that there are at least some mentally ill people in any decent-sized community, but the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory[0] suggests -- and I agree -- that there are many people who just turn into complete assholes when they are anonymous or semi-anonymous, and can hide behind their computer, tens or hundreds or thousands of miles away from the people they interact with.

I don't know the demographics of your game, but this is especially true of teenagers. (But not exclusively true.)

[0] https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/green-blackboa...

There's a fun little MMO-lite that reminds me of Escape Velocity[0]. Its chat system seems to filter and translate on the fly using some tiny ML models, and I think the guy behind it wrote everything himself.

The interesting thing about his implementation is that seeing e.g. Chinese being replaced in-line as it's translated feels way more amazing than knowing a translation has occurred in the background. He's hidden the time difference between paying for a service or running it yourself behind an animation.

[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1717290/Subspace_Discover...