Seriously; if someone said this about Tiktok, nobody would question it, they'd probably applaud it, but because it's Steam, everyone immediately jumps in to defend it without understanding or caring to investigate the details at all.
KoboldCoterie
joined 2 years ago
Jesus, these comments.
- Mark Warner is a Democrat
- He was not up for re-election this year.
Who is in charge of defining what is hate speech and extremist behaviour?
The specific behavior that's being called out here - antisemitic, Nazi, sexuality- or gender-based hate, and white supremacist content - are pretty common definitions of hate speech and extremist behavior. Either way, he calls out Valve's own internally written content policies - which he states aren't being enforced - as the point of contention; he doesn't seem to be imposing outside views on them.
What if it were the people who don’t agree with your definitions is in charge of setting the definitions?
Then Steam becomes X or Truth Social, I guess? I think the chances of that happening are incredibly slim. A more likely negative outcome would be the terms being interpreted to broadly and positive speech being limited along with the negative, but to your point
Slippery slope.
Aren't you the one committing the slippery slope fallacy here? You're seemingly suggesting that a crackdown on hate speech will lead to or open the door to a bunch of negative outcomes.
Free speech is one of those things that is absolute. You are either for it or not, any encroachment is going to be the anti position. Obviously popular speech isn’t something that needs to be protected.
If you're defining 'free speech' as the ability to say whatever you want, wherever you want (including on private platforms), without facing consequences, then no, I don't support (your rigid definition of) free speech. I think that's a ridiculous definition to use, though, and I don't think it should be viewed as black or white. 'Free speech absolutism' is what leads to misinformation on the scale we're currently seeing (in the US). Furthermore, 'free speech' as outlined in the first amendment doesn't apply here at all.
Regardless, I don't like the idea of my kid (or any kids) being exposed to Nazi, white supremacist, or discriminatory rhetoric when he's on a gaming platform. Since that's specifically what Warner claims to be addressing here, I support calling it into question.
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.
Asking Valve to crack down on hate-speech and extremist behavior? Sounds great. There's some really awful shit on there and I'd love it if they'd do something about it before it becomes fully entrenched as a Nazi bar.
Edit: I'd also love to hear why the folks who apparently disagree feel that way. Is it because other platforms are worse? Because they are, but that doesn't mean our platform should be allowed to be bad, too. Is it because it's a gaming platform and you want to keep the politics out of our hobby? I'm with you, but this isn't really political per se, and it's not like he's specifically targeting Steam - as the article notes, he's been drawing attention to this sort of thing on a variety of platforms, so why is it suddenly objectionable to you that he's calling Steam out?
I guess what I'm getting at is, why not engage in a discussion about it? The downvotes here suggest that you have an opinion on the topic, so why not share it?
The only downside is that the participants need to be familiar enough with their chosen game to do a randomizer which means roping in casual players is difficult.
Casual players can be fine with some games. Some actually become easier with Archipelago (e.g. Noita, Risk of Rain 2) since you're getting meta-progression between runs that normally wouldn't be there. Others though are especially punishing for new players (Doom comes to mind - you have to be pretty intimately familiar with the levels. There's keys hidden in secret areas sometimes, for example, and ammo can be very scarce.)
The app I was using was making it look like everything I was replying to was from the same poster, when in fact it was not. I've already apologized for that error.
The only circumstance under which I would support a revolution is if the government simply ceases to function (which it may, now, under Trump - who knows? But I don't wish to bank on that possibility, nor do I wish to cause a non-functioning government simply to justify a revolution; that's no better than Republicans grinding everything to a standstill then claiming that their ability to do so is evidence that the government isn't working.) The pragmatic stance is to vote for the better of the candidates who can reasonably win elections while directing effort towards changing the reasons why we only have two candidates to choose from.
Revolution that isn't supported by the majority of people is simply imposing a viewpoint on people who do not want it, and even if it would ultimately be better for them in the long run, it's no better than Christian Nationalists trying to impose their viewpoint on everyone else.
If it is supported by the majority of people, it should be able to be resolved via the democratic process. What's stopping that right now is the two-party system that we're stuck in, and that can't be resolved without voting reform, so that's where I'm choosing to direct my efforts. It's not that it will single-handedly change society, but it's the first step in a process that will, theoretically, allow new, more progressive and left-leaning parties to rise to relevance.
There have been multiple states that have had ranked-choice voting on their ballots (including mine), but they largely haven't passed, so I would argue that yes, it is feasible to achieve it without revolution, but thus far it seems that people don't understand why it's needed (and therefore it's a matter of getting the word out and raising awareness), or they simply disagree with it and want to maintain the status quo (and if that's honestly the majority opinion, and it's not just a perception or information problem, then so be it - that just means that we're in a minority and we shouldn't be forcing the majority to bend to our viewpoint any more than they should be forcing us to bend to theirs.).
Look, I think we agree on a lot of things. I support many socialist views; capitalism is an awful system, corporate greed and income inequality and money in politics are some of the biggest problems with society and some of the biggest inhibitors to change. However, I don't think communism is a viable solution. In my opinion, the ideal solution would still allow accumulation of personal wealth, but would distribute wealth based on how much good a person has brought to society, rather than on how much of a sociopath they're willing to be to get it. I believe most people are greedy and I believe most people are motivated by personal gain moreso than anything else. Not everyone, obviously, but most people, and I think the only way we're going to get people to abandon the 'Fuck you, got mine' attitude is by rewarding behaviors we want to reinforce, which capitalism obviously does not do.
I said I wasn't going to reply again, and I'm going to mostly stick to that, but I do want to issue a self-correction for one thing.
I was reading this thread on an app that doesn't do a good job of differentiating different posters, and I was replying to a few different people and (incorrectly) attributing some of the more inflammatory things I was reading to you. Now that I'm looking at it on a PC, I can see that it was actually multiple people, so I apologize for that. Of the people I was replying to, you were the least objectionable, but we still have fundamental differences of opinion that we will not be able to resolve here.
Your 'plan' is not a plan so much as a general set of vague guidelines. My 'plan', with the same degree of validity, is to (continue to) support my local community, work towards conversions to better voting systems, and try to weather the next four years while continuing to take a pragmatist's stance on political candidates.
What I find insufferable about you and the majority of the vocal folk who share your views are that you don't seem interested in actually having a conversation about your views. You're all quite ready to put words in other peoples' mouths and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude towards everyone, while not considering that many of us might share a lot of your views if you weren't so damn militant about everything. We probably have quite a lot in common, but painting everyone who isn't a marxist as a capitalist / fascist isn't helping your cause, not in the slightest.
This will be the last thing I say here, so feel free to get your last word in.
This type of rhetoric is why I and many others just cannot take you folks or your views seriously.
From another article talking about this:
The linked Section 230 Reform details
He's targeting all kinds of social media, not just gaming platforms.