Steam is 'an unsafe place for teens and young adults': US senator warns Gabe Newell of 'more intense scrutiny' from the government if Valve doesn't take action against extremist content
Steam is 'an unsafe place for teens and young adults': US senator warns Gabe Newell of 'more intense scrutiny' from the government if Valve doesn't take action against extremist content
US Senator Mark Warner comes less than a week after an ADL report accusing Steam of "normalizing hate and extremism in the gaming community."
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Extremist as defined by who? Valve lets the customer decide what is too extreme for them, which is how it should be.
I've seen people outright call for the extermination of minorities in forums. I think everybody can agree that's pretty heinous. I don't get to decide if that's present or not except that I can report it. It's not just things that can be misinterpreted, there's a real problem.
As defined by Anti Defamation League, an Israeli lobbying group, based on their study on the use of language and emoji around steam forum, and the highest offensive emoji used count is...pepe.
Second is swastika.
Here's the infograph:
Sad that pepe is still on these lists after all the efforts to take it back.
Once you get into the realm of terrorism, threatening real world harm, calling for violence against minorities. It's no longer subjective, it's considered extremist and dangerous. In other words, your rights end where others' begin.
Extremist as defined by who? Valve lets the customer decide what is too extreme for them, which is how it should be.
I think is best also in your interest, as consumer (and human being, if you aren't Zuckeberg or Bezos) if companies are called accountable for the crap they spread just to make investor happy.
You may like Valve for their way of business, but the law doesn't work per persona: what it allow is a allowed to everyone (generally and depending if you're in a theocracy, oligarcy etc.)
No the way the law works is that distributors are not liable for what happens on their platforms by default, otherwise literally any kind of social media would be illegal/impossible unless we hired 6 billion people to moderate the other 2 billion. However if you curate the content you show to the user then you do become liable for that content (again this is the law not just my opinion).
Valve as far as I know do not curate forum content, its just there and you can sort it by date. Facebook and Twitter on the other hand do have algorithms curating their content which does make them legally responsible for that content, especially since their algorithms seem to actually promote extremist content.
There are companies that can operate control by using the money they get from billion of customers, and other companies that prefer to use the money the take from billion of customers to teach citizens how unfair the governments are.
Those who are manipulated in favor of big corps are generally poorly educated individuals, so you can have huge number of that people, which translate in both social, economical and political power.
The point is not Valve, which me or you can respect and enjoy as company, the problem is that laws affect everyone. If the laws favor predatory companies, Valve has either adapt to be predator or being extinguished.
"human being, ...aren't Zuckerberg or Bezos" These are the same.
That doesn't answer the question. This isn't a hypothetical. Some organization or person has called Steam extremist. Who? What short sighted individual can't understand a market place? I need to know so I can more efficiently mock then for what is obviously politics and business being mad at success.