Valve must address swastikas and other hate on Steam, writes US senator in a letter to Gabe Newell - eviltoast

In the letter, Democrat senator Mark Warner argues that Valve’s content moderation doesn’t meet industry standards, and says he wants Valve to “crack down on the rampant proliferation of hate-based content”.

The exact hateful stuff he’s talking about was highlighted in that report by the Anti-Defamation League last week. Its many findings include swastikas in profile pictures, antisemitic images such as the “happy merchant”, and instances of Pepe the frog, a meme appropriated by the far right that - let’s be honest - has never washed the stink off. Steam is “inundated with hate” as a result of these findings, say the anti-discrimination group.

While the simmering bubbles of fascism won’t be news to the average Steam user (or average internet user, to be frank) that doesn’t mean we ought to get complacent about them. It’s proof, says senator Warner, that Valve is lacking good moderation.

  • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
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    1 month ago

    Yeah “uhms” and the dreaded “like” are also an issue for me too. I would like to eliminate it from my vocabulary entirely. I make videos and live stream, and I notice it a lot when I watch playback. It’s pretty terrible. Did you have a hard time ridding them from your speech? I should try fixing that.

    • dubyakay@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      No, it was rather easy. I was only eleven years old though. The consciousness of it and the method to squelch it at first, without saying it out loud, helped a lot. The therapist really only highlighted it once for me. But it didn’t help that to get to this point I got traumatized by a whole class of vicious fifth graders laughing at me while I was reciting something in front of the class. 🙄