Can’t even buy PC games now without running into Nazis.

Senator Mark Warner’s letter follows an ADL report about extremist content on the platform.

US Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) has sent a letter to Valve CEO Gabe Newell asking if the company intends to take measures to curtail extremist content on Steam. The letter references a report by the Anti-Defamation League that identified a large number of user accounts and user-created groups “that glorified antisemitic, Nazi, white supremacist, gender- and sexuality-based hate, and other extremist ideologies” on the PC gaming platform.

The letter features a high-level view of the kind of hateful content the ADL found on Steam. That includes “40,000 groups with names that included hateful words, with the most prominent being ‘1488,’ ‘shekel,’ and ‘white power’.”

  • whithom@discuss.online
    430·
    5 days ago

    Personally, I think people shouldn’t be communicating in public forums for every service. There’s no reason steam needs forums. That’s what Reddit and Lemmy are for.

    • missingno@fedia.io
      25·
      5 days ago

      Next time I need tech support for an obscure indie game that probably sold less than a thousand copies I’ll be sure to check the Lemmy community for that game.

      • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        4 days ago

        5th most populous country in the world has probably a whopping 10 users on lemmy to represent themselves lmao.

      • Riskable@programming.devEnglish
        13·
        5 days ago

        Yes. Well, it depends on the game. A lot of games know that their users will use the Steam forums to complain or ask questions so they’ll attend them in a formal manner. Others are just chaotic cesspools that are completely ignored by the developers/publishers.

        The Steam forums really are kinda garbage but I don’t think it’s because of lack of moderation. It’s because they’re the most minimal interface with no good search function, no good way to figure out what’s changed, and it’s missing zillions of other features that exist in modern forums.

        • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
          8·
          5 days ago

          So really they are just like any other online forum. Better to have them than not. Reddit or Lemmy is probably a better way to get more useful information however.

          There are some niche games though that won’t have subreddits and that’s where steams forums can be useful

    • BenLeMan@lemmy.world
      1·
      4 days ago

      I think there is some merit to this notion but the Steam Community forums are actually quite helpful sometimes. Yes, having more discussions move to Lemmy (not Reddit!) might be good. But my main point is that Steam has a lot of nooks and crannies for Nazis to hide in, e.g. Steam groups. Those are entirely separate from the actual game discussions and could be easily done away with at no loss to the average gamer.