“Dangerous for adolescents and young adults”: the Steam platform is in the sights of the American authorities, Valve will have to take major measures

Game news “Dangerous for adolescents and young adults”: the Steam platform is in the sights of the American authorities, Valve will have to take major measures

A first warning in 2022

Steam is not just a digital game store, it is also one of the most powerful community platforms on the web and in the video game world. A true titan of entertainment led by Valve, with Gabe Newell at its head, but which also attracts problematic communities. In 2022, Senator Maggie Hassan affirmed in a letter written by her that Steam “a significant presence of users displaying and espousing neo-Nazi, extremist, supremacist, racial, misogynistic and other hateful sentiments.” She therefore requested a detailed report from Valve in order to know what measures the company was taking to limit these communities and moderate them.

Valve back in sight

Two years later, it was the turn of another senator to take over. In a letter to Gabe Newell, Mark Warner in turn asked how the platform moderated these community problems.

It has already been brought to your attention that extremist ideologies appear to be finding refuge on Steam. In 2022, Valve received a letter from the Senate reporting almost identical activity on your platform. However, two years later, it seems that Valve has chosen to maintain a “passive” approach to content moderation, favoring allowing certain users to make disturbing and violent remarks in a prolonged manner, rather than to guarantee all of its users a welcoming and secure environment across the entire platform.

This letter actually comes within the framework of Black Friday on November 28 and the promotional period which encompasses it, during which Steam saw its audience skyrocket.

As Black Friday and the holiday shopping season approach, the American public needs to know that Steam isn't just an unsafe place for teens and young adults to buy and play games online, but without a change in Valve's approach to user moderation and tolerated behavior on its platform, Steam plays a clear role in propagating and entrenching harmful ideologies among of the next generation.

In short, this is a threat: Warner thus asserts that if Valve does not actually moderate these dangers, the company “will face more intense scrutiny from the federal government for its complicity in allowing hate groups to gather and engage in activities that undoubtedly put Americans at risk.” It remains to be seen what this could translate into in practice.

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