New report accuses Valve of proliferating extremism on Steam

Chris Hagan / Digital Trends

Valve hasn’t done enough to moderate its Steam platform against extremism, according to a scathing new report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that found millions of examples of hateful language and images.

ADL looked at over 458 million profiles and over 610 million comments using an AI tool called HateVision, and found millions of instances of white supremacist and anti-Semitic imagery, as well as posts (specifically copypastas with swastikas and slurs), keywords, and avatars, along with thousands of profiles, “that glorify violent extremists.” Pepe the Frog was the most frequently used icon in these posts; it is often depicted in Nazi regalia. Steam Community profiles allow users to use custom images, which has also become a hotbed of imagery detected by the ADL’s analysis.

“Valve needs to make significant changes to their approach to platform governance both in terms of policy and practice to address the ways in which hate and extremism have proliferated on the Steam platform,” the ADL wrote.

Valve has taken heat in the past in regards] to its Steam moderation policies. This came to a head in 2018. Valve started moderating its forums and game hubs in response to developer feedback, but only for user-reported posts. Valve has always had a more hands-off approach when it comes to what kinds of games can be published on Steam, and this became apparent with a Steam game called Active Shooter where players played, as you can guess, asan active mass shooter. It has also faced other controversies surrounding 18+ games. Valve said that it wouldn’t limit what games could be listed on Steam as long as it wasn’t “illegal” or “straight up trolling,” while also clarifying that it wouldn’t take a stance on games’ politics.

“If you’re a player, we shouldn’t be choosing for you what content you can or can’t buy. If you’re a developer, we shouldn’t be choosing what content you’re allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make,” Valve wrote in a blog post announcing the decision.

Other reports throughout the years have identified areas where this approach has caused hate to fester. The Center For Investigative Reporting found 173 Steam groups that glorified mass shooters in 2018, while Motherboard uncovered hate-based curators. Valve hasn’t said anything publicly on the issue, but did start selectively removing groups. It also removed Nazi-related content in 2019. Just a couple years ago, a U.S. senator wrote a letter to Steam owner Gabe Newell that called him out for allowing white supremacy to flourish on the platform.

“This has been largely ad hoc, with Valve failing to systematically address the issue of extremism and hate on the platform,” the ADL’s report said.

Steam’s recent efforts have been about improving game developer experiences and the validity of top comments in reviews. It’s also been ensuring players know when a reviewer has played a game on  Steam Deck versus PC.

Valve has not publicly commented on the report at the time of this writing.