(Bloomberg) -- Virginia Senator Mark Warner sent a letter to video-game company Valve Corp. raising concerns over white-supremacist and hateful content on its popular online store Steam.
The letter, shared exclusively with Bloomberg News and addressed to Valve co-founder and head Gabe Newell, threatened “more intense scrutiny from the federal government” for Steam’s "complicity in allowing hate groups to congregate and engage in activities that undoubtedly puts Americans at risk.”
A report on Thursday from the Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism identified more than 1.83 million pieces of white-supremacist or hateful content on the platform, including tributes to mass shooters, swastikas and comments praising terrorist groups. Valve didn’t respond to a request for comment about the ADL’s findings.
In the wake of that report, Warner, a Democrat, concluded that Steam is “an unsafe place for teens and young adults to purchase and play online games.” If Valve doesn’t change its moderation approach, the letter reads, it’s playing “a clear role in allowing harmful ideologies to spread and take root among the next generation.”
Steam hosts forums and communities for discussion in addition to processing billions of dollars in video-game transactions. Experts have criticized Steam’s relatively lax moderation policies compared to social-media peers. The company’s code of conduct doesn’t reference extremist activities while similar platforms like Roblox or Discord explicitly prohibit the spread or support of extremist ideologies.
As far back as 2018, Steam received public scrutiny over users’ praise of school shooters or terrorists. In 2022, Senator Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, wrote a letter to Newell raising similar concerns over the extremist content on the platform and the company’s moderation policies.
“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,” Warner wrote. The letter requests further information on the famously opaque gaming company’s current moderation practices, complaints made about users’ policy violations and commitments to curbing white-supremacist content.
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