this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 hour ago

Boomers saying and thinking boomer things.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

I would have agreed if they replaced steam with discord.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 hours ago

twitter, facebook, instagram, etc are not a problem. steam is 👍

[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Not to excuse any hate speech of any kind, but looking around at social media and the effect it has especially on young people and saying "steam forums are the problem" seems like missing the forest for the trees

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

who said steam forums are “the” problem?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Me. There's just an irony in pointing out the failure of Steam to effectively moderate (true) when Twitter has a much larger footprint, seems to be actively encouraging hate speech not just tolerating it, and is being rewardered for such behavior. The article points this out too:

There's an aspect of irony to the complaint: Elon Musk turned Twitter into a haven for racism and far-right rhetoric, after all, and he's being rewarded with a high seat in the incoming US government.

Senators only have so much time to pick and choose which issues to raise awareness about, so Steam seems like a weird fight to pick given the wider landscape ¯_(ツ)_/¯ . Could just be there's a much higher chance of getting an actual change from Steam than a larger social media platform.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 hour ago

yeah I think it's fair to argue there are bigger problems that steam.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 hours ago

Worth mentioning that the main US senator supporting this, Mark Warner, received substantial donations from Disney, which also poured 1.5 billion (with a B) dollars into Epic Games.

Wouldn't be surprised if some bigwig at Disney pushed for this investigation, too, especially given how fucking flimsy the results were (55% of all hate symbols were fucking pepe the frog).

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 hours ago

Come back when you can argue without the "but the kids" line of thinking.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago

Crunchyroll removed their comments section recently. They said it was because of all the hateful comments for one show. Sony just didn't want to deal with it, so gone, which is a real shame. If the comments are not part of the product being sold, then they will end up getting dropped if abused.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

If there's one thing I hate about Steam, it's their lack of moderation. There's Nazi shit everywhere, every game who's using "woke" elements like neutral terms for body types or giving people the choice of their pronoun, or having gay characters, or people of color, or women in positions of power, etc. etc. gets the inevitable flood of constant woke crying threads, comments & review bombing. There's many people who glorify the RuZZian invasion of Ukraine as well through their profiles, while I could not even have a freaking avatar depicting a person dangling from a tree, which was graphically maybe a small step ahead of a stick figure from a hangman game. And even outside of politics it's full of trolls and clown farmers (they should really remove that one anyway). You ask for technical help, and everyone tells you basic shit or attacks you. It's a cesspool.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

If you follow the links, they refer to copy pasta's of hatefull stuff including swastikas but no breakdown of what is counted, the use of the happy merchant (a meme with an antisemitic origin used to convey greed) and the use of pepe the frog in profile pics (pepe is a symbol of hate according to the ADL).

The issue I have with the whole here is that I don't subscribe to the premise on which the analysis is based.

IF you assume pepe is a hate symbol, then each case it is used is an expression of hate and furtherance of that hate. I however reject the premise that pepe is a symbol of hate.

The use of the happy merchant is a bit more of a problem, because I see the antisemitic message it has. However I also see a lot of stupid people that don't.. and have seen the image used (probably in antisemitic context referring to greed) but people associate it with greed primarily.. so this one is an issue, I think I refuse part of the premise, namely that the antisemitism part is a dominant factor when the image is used.

These are the 2 main examples, a lot more in the report that have similar caveats.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I love that people are still doubling down on people pepe means Nazi. ADL big ol swing and a miss.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Iirc, when the ADL put out their guidance on Pepe, it was during the 2016 election when Pepe was being actively coopted by alt-rightera and neo Nazis. One of those "take something innocuous and poison it by using it as a pseudo secret signal to other bigots.

I vaguely recall them saying that Pepe was a hate symbol only insofar as it was being used for that purpose. I wonder if that changed, or if this investigation is ignoring that nuance to hamfist a "hate speech" argument.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Pepe to me seems like the opposite of the Confederate flag.

Pepe is an internet meme that is in some cases used by racist and hateful people to carry their message, but the primary function is internet nonsense.

The Confederate flag is a symbol or hate and oppression that in some situations is used to express country & westerns ideals of freedom and roaming the country with not a care in the world.. without the racist subtext... however you cannot deny the basis of its use and thus should not use it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

was going to say the same thing, pepe is internet nonsense, but didn't have the words.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 53 minutes ago

That's why these conversations are so cool. It helps all of us give words to some of the things we cannot express properly. Why I also enjoy reading co tributuins by others.. especially if they challenge my preconceptions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Some cases is an understatement. Ever since The_Donald and Kekistan, Pepe has become a hate symbol due to the wide adoption by far right trolls. Pepe might've never meant to be that, but neither was the Swastika or the roman salute, or other symbols that the Nazis adopted for themselves. The more pressing issue is that you should really not give people on Steam the benefit of the doubt of arguing in good faith. The whole gamergate movement is alive and well there.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 46 minutes ago (1 children)

As I said before I reject your premise about pepe and it's use. And the swatsticka is a false equivalence.

I have seen zero substantiation of this overly broad statement except for some ADL fundametalists making claims and the alt-right whacos making claims. I consider both camps equally fringe.

Also keep telling all these people they are racist loonatics.. at some point they might start to believe you are make it a self fulfilling prophecy. The alt right does the same.. we co-opt the meme and tell people they are one of us.. because we meme the same we must be the same.. or something..

[–] [email protected] 1 points 39 minutes ago

I have seen zero substantiation of this overly broad statement except for some ADL fundametalists making claims and the alt-right whacos making claims.

I don't care for American institutions, I simply speak out of personal experience on that matter of what I experienced and seen firsthand in many places.

Also keep telling all these people they are racist loonatics.. at some point they might start to believe you are make it a self fulfilling prophecy.

Ah, yes. They're only racist because I called them racist. That's the typical bullshit excuse racists use, claiming that the other side pushed them to become racist.

Here we see that you are also arguing in bad faith, and not just out of ignorance.

[–] [email protected] 73 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Civilization as we know it is an unsafe space for most humans

[–] [email protected] 54 points 8 hours ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago

It is dangerous indeed, I have lost hours without noticing

[–] [email protected] 45 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

I mean yeah, no shit. The steam forums could be removed at no loss to the human race, in fact it'd remove a non-negligible percentage of all really shitty talk on the internet if they deleted everything entirely.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

The steam forums are fucking cancer. I was looking for info about a bug I was having with a newly released game. I instead saw an entire thread about how the game is woke and you shouldn't buy it. The game has an implied lesbian character. Who gives a fuck? The game was pretty good btw.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

There’s the “this is too woke” gang, and then there’s the “this doesn’t have enough representation” gang. You can’t win.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

But like, are there people that read it and get an existential crises? People need to learn to read and let go. There will always be dickheads and trolls.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

While I agree with you that some people are too thin skinned to handle some conversation online... Steam forums or YouTube comment sections are really the very worst of the worst.

If all you read is trash tier content on a platform even if you understand it, it still sucks and remain quite infuriating.

Basically, steam forums are mostly trolling so at this point it's not about the sensitivity of people but rather that these platform are particularly bad.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 hours ago (7 children)

I've seen whole threads in game forums dedicated to Nazism, and I myself have been called a "groomer" and the t-slur because people knew be as a boy before I transitioned. Legitimately horrible place, they absolutely need to take more action against this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

I don't use steam forums. But I have questions. Do the steam forums have any moderation at all? Is there a report button? Can you report comments or forum threads?

I want to know because I feel like a lot of social media has the same problem as steam forums and these tools exist on the majority of those. They rely on the moderation of fellow users.

I also question whether or not steam actually has an automod or anything like that. Or human moderators.

Please keep in mind that I don't use the forums so I really have no idea. This is the first time I'm hearing about this, and I'm interested in knowing more.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (7 children)

For anyone who wants an example, go to the Helldiver's 2 patch logs on the Steam Community Hub.

No matter which one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

can you link one? I'm on community hub looking for hate and can't find it.

found someone spamming for LGBT stuff but most people just ignored it

https://steamcommunity.com/app/553850/eventcomments/4635986512580739894?snr=2_9_100003_

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 hours ago

Jesus, that's a lot of people afraid of gay people.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Steam forums and groups have become a place to organize far right raiding groups that have harassing people and bullying women and minorities or straight up nazism glorification as their sole objective and Steam just does not care.

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