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

Improve moderation now, says politician, or face "intense scrutiny"

A senator for the US government has urged Valve to answer complaints about the amount of racist, sexist and otherwise hateful posts and imagery shared by users on Steam. The digital store was the subject of a report by the Anti-Defamation League last week, which claimed to find millions of examples of "hateful or extremist" language and images hosted on Steam's community. These include things like Nazi symbols in profile pictures, white supremacist slogans in group names, and yet more discriminatory spew in user posts. The senator has noticed this report, and now writes directly to Gabe Newell, demanding that Valve "bring its content moderation practices in line with industry standards" or risk "intense scrutiny" from the government.

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.

"Until now, Steam has largely not received its due attention as a de facto major social network where its users engage in many of the same activities expected of a social media platform,” said Warner. "It is reasonable to question how committed Valve is to effectively implement and enforce Valve’s own, self-created Conduct Policy for its users," said the senator.

It's true that Steam does have a conduct policy but (as the original report from the ADL notes) it's limited to things like unlawful behaviour, sexually explicit content, copyright violations, and threatening or abusive language. The ADL make clear their desires, saying they want Steam to adopt an explicit anti-extremist and anti-hate policy of some kind, and to enforce that policy properly.

"The wide breadth and sheer volume of hateful and antisemitic content on Steam is mind-boggling," said Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League. "Steam’s parent company, Valve, needs to make significant changes in terms of policy and practice to address this shocking proliferation of hate."

The searching for hateful content was done using help from an AI tool called "HateVision", which scanned the groups and user profiles on Steam for specific hatestuff, including "39 key potentially extremist and antisemitic symbols". The ADL has written up a methodology for how the findings were compiled, if you like to read that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, the senator's letter claims that the US Senate has previously complained about this back in 2022, but says that Valve didn't respond adequately back then. According to Warner, the games company has continued with "a ‘hands off’-type approach to content moderation that favors allowing some users to engage in sustained bouts of disturbing and violent rhetoric..."

"As Black Friday and the holiday buying season approaches, the American public should know that not only is Steam an unsafe place for teens and young adults to purchase and play online games, but also that, absent a change in Valve’s approach to user moderation and the type of behavior that it welcomes on its platform, Steam is playing a clear role in allowing harmful ideologies to spread and take root among the next generation," says Warner.

His letter also includes a set of questions designed to hold Valve's feet to the fire about all this. He asks how many human content moderators work on the Steam community, for example. He also asks how many complaints Valve have received over the last ten years which fall under a breach of the conduct policy. And what the company intends to do over the next year to improve their moderation. He wants an answer by December 13th.