What commitments will Steam make to endure that it has meaningfully curbed white supremacist, antisemitic, terroristic, Nazi, homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, and hateful content by November 15, 2025?
Sorry, is there something actually illegal here?
"Terroristic" sounds like what you call something that's not actually a terrorist threat, but you really wish it was. Everything else is just labels for opinions they don't like.
ME: I am proud of my ancestors who were part of the quaker movement, american revolution, underground rail road, civil war, etc for building a society where all can be included.
Reminder, Elon who is close to Trump and successful in his own right, is a gamer.
He has also had issues with the ADL
The main thing the ADL points to as evidence of 'hate speech' on Steam is use if pepe
Now I didn't care when they were going after Twitch as frankly, they had it coming, but you want to try and mess with Steam for petty shit like this and maybe we should look at any special benefits you get from the government..
Going after steam will probably do the opposite. Itll radicalize a lot of people.. imagine people losing access to a 15 year old account with thousands of dollars of games. Its like if someone murdered your 15 year old child.
Otoya Yamaguchi was 17 years old when he assassinated that Japanese Communist leader guy on stage. It's the exact age-range you don't want to do this kind of thing to someone.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have mechanisms to share and receive domestic violent extremism threat-related information with social media and gaming companies,” the GAO says. The report reveals that the DHS intelligence office meets with gaming companies and that the companies can use these meetings to “share information with I&A [DHS’s intelligence office] about online activities promoting domestic violent extremism,” or even simply “activities that violate the companies’ terms of service.” Through its 56 field offices and hundreds of resident agencies subordinate field offices, the FBI receives tips from gaming companies of potential law-breaking and extremist views for further investigation. The FBI also conducts briefings to gaming companies on purported threats.
Laws vary depending on country you live in. Personal information can be given by Valve to official authorities of your country, according to Steam policy.
In 2014, the Office of Naval Research embarked on a four-year, $3.85 million research program to explore the phenomena it calls premonition and intuition, or “Spidey sense,” for sailors and Marines.
“We have to understand what gives rise to this so-called ‘sixth sense,’ says Peter Squire, a program officer in ONR’s Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism department. Today’s Navy scientists place less emphasis on trying to understand the phenomena theoretically and more on using technology to examine the mysterious process, which Navy scientists assure the public is not based on superstition. “If the researchers understand the process, there may be ways to accelerate it — and possibly spread the powers of intuition throughout military units,” says Dr. Squire. The Pentagon’s focus is to maximize the power of the sixth sense for operational use. “If we can characterize this intuitive decision-making process and model it, then the hope is to accelerate the acquisition of these skills,” says Lieutenant Commander Brent Olde of ONR’s Warfighter Performance Department for Human and Bioengineered Systems. “[Are] there ways to improve premonition through training?” he asks.
What are the chances valve and the government are working together to identify people with strong latent abilities.
I always thought it was strange how the saudi's busted on the scene and bought alot of the top teams and tourneys.
In 2018, the army formed the first military esports team but was accused of unethical recruitment practices in its Twitch stream, including censoring questions about war crimes in its chat and holding a fake Xbox controller giveaway. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed a ban on Twitch recruitment that did not pass. The army stopped streaming on Twitch, but gaming recruitment continued.
Prolly just concidences, I admit.
Katie, the 12-year-old, has watched gaming streams from military accounts “once or twice”, though she has not yet seen recruitment ads. She likes playing first-person shooters like Call of Duty, which let players experience combat through their characters’ eyes: “It’s, like, pretty fun to shoot things,” she says. She acknowledges that compared with real warfare, Call of Duty is probably not “100% realistic”, but she adds: “I’m pretty sure you use real guns like how they actually are, and the healing is pretty realistic.”
Lmao, shooting a gun in a game is nothing like shooting a gun in real life, playing games arent gonna train you in firearms.
However, the mechanics are basically the same, point and shoot. So if your a good shot in a video game, chances are your likely very good in real life too. I remember in college they had a army recruiter set up a space on campus for a week. I went in there and gave the gun simulator a go and the guy running the thing acted like he was super impressed or something. I figured they do that with everyone though.
People will stop using the community sections because 90% of thoughts will be censored more than likely. (Kinda what the cs2 forums are like, versus something like the starfield forums)
I fully expect valve to give in, afterall they have no problem giving the government peoples steam account info.
Just curious, and this isn't at you specifically, but why are people acting like Steam won't cave like everyone else? Heck, they already have a bunch of turbo-progressive faggots all over their community teams, and Steam community mods can give Reddit mods a run for their money.
I like and use Steam, and have for decades, but it's not like they're not already cucked. Why wouldn't they cuck harder? Go along to get along, and all that.
Or do you just mean, like some other comments said, that this nonsense will further radicalize the big bad Gamers? Because yeah, that would be funny.
I don't think anyone expects Steam wouldn't cave. I think the expectation is that attacking Gamers' hobby / platform like this for such a stupid reason is guaranteed to make them notice things they'd otherwise not notice.
I might have an argument for that, and it's based on money.
Most gamers have thousands of dollars in games through steam, even if they only spent hundreds of dollars because they bought them all on sales.
Maybe they could get away with banning someone from their forums, but banning them from the ownership of their property? The first thing it would cause is a major class action lawsuit, but given the money involved it would be a good way to start causing real furor at a company that really hasn't involved itself in a culture war.
On a side note, if they did, it could be really helpful to re-push physical media as a result.
Yesterday I would have agreed with you. But this is now getting the government involved. Steam can "win" in a court of public opinion simply by ignoring it, and it has worked for them pretty much every single time. Steam can even win a legal dispute. But Steam will cave if their native government wants to punish them. It won't matter if it's unfair. It won't matter if they disagree. They'll cave to remain in business.
Steam is a business. A very big business with a lot of directly involved consumers. But it's not immune to the government. It's not untouchable. I would love to believe that this would radicalise people. But if a nationwide 24/7 curfew enforced by the state didn't radicalise people, I'm sceptical that any one thing can radicalise them.
Steam was founded on the concept that piracy was a service problem, not a price one.
Steam had best remember those roots. People are willing to pay, and to pay good money (as proven by Steam itself), for a reasonable gaming platform that shuts up and distributes games. But they're also quite willing to engage in other platforms should that one no longer be a service they may freely enjoy.
The ADL, the SIC, and the CIA can winge all they want about it, there's no illegal content. And if there's nothing illegal, they can fuck off. It's a platform (in the regards of operations as to what they're complaining about), not a publisher. You don't go to the phone company to try to make them curtail "hateful content".
They don't care. They'll twist laws, conjure new ones, use unelected governmental beaurocrats to pass edicts, and use all manner of social pressure to stamp out ideas, words, actions, and people that are dangerous to them and their scheming.
Steam was founded on the concept that piracy was a service problem, not a price one.
Back in the day the main reason was to undercut Sierra and other game publishers, and it was hated because why the fuck would you need an online connection to play Half Life 2.
Nowadays the philosophy behind it is indeed the one you mention, and the 3 letter stooges can fuck off
You're assuming that the government will play by some imaginary set of "rules". They make the laws and if they want to get you, they will change the laws.
The government will never be neutral. It is always an evil. Some argue a necessary evil that we need to shackle and restrict, but it will always still be an evil.
Going to Steam to complain about what it's customers do is like yelling at AT&T because they too have customers who can say whatever they want on their phones.
Technically, yes. In practice, and how people think about it...sadly no. We're so far beyond that "old school" type of thinking, and most people couldn't even tell you what "free speech" is. Perception is, sadly, important, and most people couldn't even grasp your argument. It's sad that this was a largely a talking point liberals agreed with, in even the 90's and 00's, and now most leftists/progressives are staunchly opposed to the concept.
For some reason, a communication carrier isn't a carrier, if it's digital, or does games, or TV, or anime, or VOIP, or what have you. All must be regulated, all must censor "hate speech."
Also, these fuckers would censor you for talking shit over AT&T if they could, and they'd love to get there eventually. Thankfully judges sort of knew what they were doing back then, some of the time, so it's much harder to go after established telecom carriers than new digital "platforms."
It's a shame our government went further to shit, as technology rapidly developed, so we're missing a lot of protections in the digital sphere. And no, I'm not talking regulations on the companies, but regulations on the government being able to censor people online.
TL;DR: Technically speaking, asking Steam to censor its customers is like telling AT&T to police what someone says over the phone, but in practice and perception (i.e. what people expect and ask for), digital platforms don't get that same protection or perceived benefit of the doubt, so vast swathes of people will not see it as the same, and will think it's totally Steam's job and responsibility to police the speech of their users. Woof, that was a sentence.
And never ever learn from history then blame someone else for their own shortcomings. It was so prevalent, I think there was actually a jewish philosopher who compared jewish characteristics to women.
If they start to suspend accounts, meaning loss of entire library, itll be over for gamers. Usually steam doesnt suspend entire accounts unless there is some fraud going on. If you say naughty words, the game bans you from the game, not steam. You would lose access to that game, but not your account/entire library.
I rememebr a friend had a name "boobies" on playstation and he had 2k worth of games on it. They suspended his entire account. He changed it to b00b13s to lift it. Then got suspended again a few weeks later. He had to call playstation to admit he was wrong and grovel. They say that it was his last chance lolololol. Point is, it seems criminal you can lose your account over something so trivial.
Soon to be the FORMER chairman of the Senate Intelligence Community, but given the nature of 'intelligence'... the new one probably won't be any better.
Trumps new anti censorship executive action will instantaneously bury the ADL, CIA and FBI, also YouTube and Google and all attempts to
Censor information in the USA. This is nothing more than a dying struggle from the left.
Now that i think about it.. will they use credit card companies and payment processors to punish steam??? They have been using them to go after japanese hentai stuff and r34.
I'm still puzzling over the timing of it all. Why now? Is it because 2024 was a year of failed projects that tried to push the "modern message?" Was there a straw that broke the camel's back? And why do so many game journos even care about the ADL? (well we know the answer to that one, but surely gamers who don't must be wondering)
The stupid thing is this automatic censorship stuff never actually works as they imagine it. It ends up making things a pain in the ass for regular users, while offering a facade of false security that can be easily circumvented by anyone who actually intends to misuse the platform deliberately. They don't even think, or try to understand the technology at all. They just hate that some people they don't like can talk to each other freely, and reach for the first, simplest, answer that pops into their heads so they can get back to their pizza parties asap.
Steam has already upped the censorship this year. Getting banned for disagreeing is a very common occurrence now. Used to be salty devs did it now its steam support itself even when no rules were broken.
Sorry, is there something actually illegal here?
"Terroristic" sounds like what you call something that's not actually a terrorist threat, but you really wish it was. Everything else is just labels for opinions they don't like.
No. Terrorist threats is what the Senator is doing.
ME: I am proud of my ancestors who were part of the quaker movement, american revolution, underground rail road, civil war, etc for building a society where all can be included.
THEM: You racist white supremacist mother fucker.
Reminder, Elon who is close to Trump and successful in his own right, is a gamer.
He has also had issues with the ADL
The main thing the ADL points to as evidence of 'hate speech' on Steam is use if pepe
Now I didn't care when they were going after Twitch as frankly, they had it coming, but you want to try and mess with Steam for petty shit like this and maybe we should look at any special benefits you get from the government..
Going after steam will probably do the opposite. Itll radicalize a lot of people.. imagine people losing access to a 15 year old account with thousands of dollars of games. Its like if someone murdered your 15 year old child.
Imagine COD players being denied their fix for the day.
I think their messages would have a slur every 3 words in it..
Inb4 Greenblatt gets 360 noscoped by a 14 year old
Otoya Yamaguchi was 17 years old when he assassinated that Japanese Communist leader guy on stage. It's the exact age-range you don't want to do this kind of thing to someone.
Lmao, theyve been censoring xbox for a long time.
They been coming after valve for years.
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/09/fbi-dhs-gamers-extremism-violence/
They will give in too.
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/135512305396600663/
Again, after reading about this.
https://time.com/4721715/phenomena-annie-jacobsen/
What are the chances valve and the government are working together to identify people with strong latent abilities.
I always thought it was strange how the saudi's busted on the scene and bought alot of the top teams and tourneys.
Would be a great way to do it if you ask me!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/14/us-military-recruiting-video-games-targeting-teenagers
Prolly just concidences, I admit.
Lmao, shooting a gun in a game is nothing like shooting a gun in real life, playing games arent gonna train you in firearms.
However, the mechanics are basically the same, point and shoot. So if your a good shot in a video game, chances are your likely very good in real life too. I remember in college they had a army recruiter set up a space on campus for a week. I went in there and gave the gun simulator a go and the guy running the thing acted like he was super impressed or something. I figured they do that with everyone though.
Wont be like that.
People will stop using the community sections because 90% of thoughts will be censored more than likely. (Kinda what the cs2 forums are like, versus something like the starfield forums)
I fully expect valve to give in, afterall they have no problem giving the government peoples steam account info.
Dear ADL,
Please open this can of worms. I beg you.
Just curious, and this isn't at you specifically, but why are people acting like Steam won't cave like everyone else? Heck, they already have a bunch of turbo-progressive faggots all over their community teams, and Steam community mods can give Reddit mods a run for their money.
I like and use Steam, and have for decades, but it's not like they're not already cucked. Why wouldn't they cuck harder? Go along to get along, and all that.
Or do you just mean, like some other comments said, that this nonsense will further radicalize the big bad Gamers? Because yeah, that would be funny.
I don't think anyone expects Steam wouldn't cave. I think the expectation is that attacking Gamers' hobby / platform like this for such a stupid reason is guaranteed to make them notice things they'd otherwise not notice.
Steam will cave, but its user base will radicalize even more, worldwide even. This is a bad move all around.
I might have an argument for that, and it's based on money.
Most gamers have thousands of dollars in games through steam, even if they only spent hundreds of dollars because they bought them all on sales.
Maybe they could get away with banning someone from their forums, but banning them from the ownership of their property? The first thing it would cause is a major class action lawsuit, but given the money involved it would be a good way to start causing real furor at a company that really hasn't involved itself in a culture war.
On a side note, if they did, it could be really helpful to re-push physical media as a result.
I'm talking about increased censorship, not outright banning of accounts, though.
That they can get away with, yes.
Yesterday I would have agreed with you. But this is now getting the government involved. Steam can "win" in a court of public opinion simply by ignoring it, and it has worked for them pretty much every single time. Steam can even win a legal dispute. But Steam will cave if their native government wants to punish them. It won't matter if it's unfair. It won't matter if they disagree. They'll cave to remain in business.
Steam is a business. A very big business with a lot of directly involved consumers. But it's not immune to the government. It's not untouchable. I would love to believe that this would radicalise people. But if a nationwide 24/7 curfew enforced by the state didn't radicalise people, I'm sceptical that any one thing can radicalise them.
Steam was founded on the concept that piracy was a service problem, not a price one.
Steam had best remember those roots. People are willing to pay, and to pay good money (as proven by Steam itself), for a reasonable gaming platform that shuts up and distributes games. But they're also quite willing to engage in other platforms should that one no longer be a service they may freely enjoy.
The ADL, the SIC, and the CIA can winge all they want about it, there's no illegal content. And if there's nothing illegal, they can fuck off. It's a platform (in the regards of operations as to what they're complaining about), not a publisher. You don't go to the phone company to try to make them curtail "hateful content".
They don't care. They'll twist laws, conjure new ones, use unelected governmental beaurocrats to pass edicts, and use all manner of social pressure to stamp out ideas, words, actions, and people that are dangerous to them and their scheming.
That's antisemitic conspiracy theory
Back in the day the main reason was to undercut Sierra and other game publishers, and it was hated because why the fuck would you need an online connection to play Half Life 2.
Nowadays the philosophy behind it is indeed the one you mention, and the 3 letter stooges can fuck off
You're assuming that the government will play by some imaginary set of "rules". They make the laws and if they want to get you, they will change the laws.
The government will never be neutral. It is always an evil. Some argue a necessary evil that we need to shackle and restrict, but it will always still be an evil.
Sounds like a threat. Typical of the leftist mafia.
The ADL blackmailed Iceland into trashing a bill to criminalize male genital mutilations.
Going to Steam to complain about what it's customers do is like yelling at AT&T because they too have customers who can say whatever they want on their phones.
Yes, but also sadly no.
Technically, yes. In practice, and how people think about it...sadly no. We're so far beyond that "old school" type of thinking, and most people couldn't even tell you what "free speech" is. Perception is, sadly, important, and most people couldn't even grasp your argument. It's sad that this was a largely a talking point liberals agreed with, in even the 90's and 00's, and now most leftists/progressives are staunchly opposed to the concept.
For some reason, a communication carrier isn't a carrier, if it's digital, or does games, or TV, or anime, or VOIP, or what have you. All must be regulated, all must censor "hate speech."
Also, these fuckers would censor you for talking shit over AT&T if they could, and they'd love to get there eventually. Thankfully judges sort of knew what they were doing back then, some of the time, so it's much harder to go after established telecom carriers than new digital "platforms."
It's a shame our government went further to shit, as technology rapidly developed, so we're missing a lot of protections in the digital sphere. And no, I'm not talking regulations on the companies, but regulations on the government being able to censor people online.
TL;DR: Technically speaking, asking Steam to censor its customers is like telling AT&T to police what someone says over the phone, but in practice and perception (i.e. what people expect and ask for), digital platforms don't get that same protection or perceived benefit of the doubt, so vast swathes of people will not see it as the same, and will think it's totally Steam's job and responsibility to police the speech of their users. Woof, that was a sentence.
Yeah, except AT&T would capitulate instantly and move in lockstep.
I smell desperation. Good. Keep making these stupid mistakes.
And never ever learn from history then blame someone else for their own shortcomings. It was so prevalent, I think there was actually a jewish philosopher who compared jewish characteristics to women.
Comment Reported for: Rule 16 - Identity Attacks
Comment Removed for: Rule 16 - Identity Attacks
Please please PLEASE let the next Gamergate be about the jews. That would be fucking fantastic.
If they start to suspend accounts, meaning loss of entire library, itll be over for gamers. Usually steam doesnt suspend entire accounts unless there is some fraud going on. If you say naughty words, the game bans you from the game, not steam. You would lose access to that game, but not your account/entire library.
I rememebr a friend had a name "boobies" on playstation and he had 2k worth of games on it. They suspended his entire account. He changed it to b00b13s to lift it. Then got suspended again a few weeks later. He had to call playstation to admit he was wrong and grovel. They say that it was his last chance lolololol. Point is, it seems criminal you can lose your account over something so trivial.
Why do they hate blue-feet boobies so much?
Soon to be the FORMER chairman of the Senate Intelligence Community, but given the nature of 'intelligence'... the new one probably won't be any better.
Soon to be replaced by Mister Snrub.
Remember people, ''there is nobody in government violating the First Amendment, telling platforms to censor people''.
Saying otherwise is ''misinformation'', and will get you... censored.
Trumps new anti censorship executive action will instantaneously bury the ADL, CIA and FBI, also YouTube and Google and all attempts to Censor information in the USA. This is nothing more than a dying struggle from the left.
Now that i think about it.. will they use credit card companies and payment processors to punish steam??? They have been using them to go after japanese hentai stuff and r34.
I'm still puzzling over the timing of it all. Why now? Is it because 2024 was a year of failed projects that tried to push the "modern message?" Was there a straw that broke the camel's back? And why do so many game journos even care about the ADL? (well we know the answer to that one, but surely gamers who don't must be wondering)
can't tell if turbo-wokeness or they got emboldened because trump with pro israel stance won now.
Warner..lol. Are the jews losing it or do they think this push will allign with the neocon wing of the incoming Trump administration?
The stupid thing is this automatic censorship stuff never actually works as they imagine it. It ends up making things a pain in the ass for regular users, while offering a facade of false security that can be easily circumvented by anyone who actually intends to misuse the platform deliberately. They don't even think, or try to understand the technology at all. They just hate that some people they don't like can talk to each other freely, and reach for the first, simplest, answer that pops into their heads so they can get back to their pizza parties asap.
Steam has already upped the censorship this year. Getting banned for disagreeing is a very common occurrence now. Used to be salty devs did it now its steam support itself even when no rules were broken.
Steam itself or forums? The forum of the games are modded by the game companies
Steam. It used to say you were banned by a dev. Now it says by steam support every time.
2024: Year of the Salt [shortage, because idiots like this keep giving popcorn moments].
He should be fired for a first amendment violation for sending that letter.
There should certainly be consequences for denying people their rights
Does anyone have an example of what's on steam that they're butthurt over?
Sex with Hitler?
the only response this letter should get is "kys faggot"
*largest