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Steam has a moderation issue

I had a person tell me in game they hate black people, then left a comment on my profile referring to black people as black monkeys. I reported them. About five times. Steam does nothing. Their comment would be still up if I haven’t removed it manually after one of many reports resulting in nothing. Their profile is full of proof of it being a long term continuous effort. Their account has a high level, which makes me think it may be why Steam seems to be protecting them. I reported people in the past and stuff was done about it. It’s my first time dealing with blatant racism AND no moderation effort from Steam. I even ended up messaging steam support about my concerns and got a generic response which amounted to nothing.

I see people speaking up about poor moderation on other platforms, so I chose to speak up about Steam’s as I’m really tired of this bullshit.

barrbaric ,

A couple of structural and ideological problems at Valve lead to this. First, the company’s “flat” organization where people work on what they want means that unless somebody wants to volunteer to mod Steam communities (which no sane person would), they won’t bother. Further, even if someone wanted to mod Steam, they’d have to consider that it might be damaging to their career because “I remove racists and nazis from Steam” isn’t going to get the same kind of good performance reviews that some big sexy project will (even if it never releases).

Second, the leadership are rich white libertarians. They don’t care what their users say or do because of nonsense freeze-peach beliefs so long as they keep making money. The only thing that might get them to take action would be if this kind of thing became a big scandalous news story, because at that point it might be viewed as a threat to their bottom line, but that never happened with the child gambling so it’s still unlikely.

Secret300 ,

If you removed the comment manually then stop complaining. People suck, shit happens, toughen up buttercup

PowerCrazy ,

Cool, who is that person? Can you link their steam profile here? Perhaps someone from Valve may see your comment and the person will be banned. Otherwise why are you protecting that persons anonymity?

caroline ,

Found the murderer.

lud ,

No, please no witch-hunts. That never leads to anything good. Just report, block and move on. Nothing else that can be done on an individual level.

And I highly doubt anyone from Valve hangs out on here. They absolutely do on r/steam but probably not here.

Sator_is_Tense ,
@Sator_is_Tense@hexbear.net avatar

No, please no witch-hunts.

witch hunts are where you hold horrific racists publicly accountable, and the more you hold them accountable, the more witch-hunty it is up-yours-woke-moralists

lud ,

No, it’s where you go after someone for some perceived wrong. It might be wrong or it might not be.

They won’t be held accountable for this, they will just get abuse from random strangers. That’s not accountability, it’s more like revenge or some shit. And they likely want you to get publicly angry. They are trolls.

Just report and move on. It sucks but nothing we could do would help anyways,

Sator_is_Tense ,
@Sator_is_Tense@hexbear.net avatar

they will just get abuse from random strangers

i mean that seems appropriate considering they’re going around abusing random strangers, doesn’t it?

Just report and move on. It sucks but nothing we could do would help anyways,

liberalism

lud ,

It doesn’t solve anything.

Tachanka ,
@Tachanka@hexbear.net avatar

Also that lib was full of shit. Steam has never actually banned racists, no matter how many times they’re reported.

westyvw ,

First: fuck racism and trolls.

Second: it’s the internet, quit feeding the trolls. Why bother reporting them? They suck, they are going to do it again. Ignore and move on. Internet 101.

Third: profile page? I have looked at that maybe a dozen times in the last 19 years. I really don’t care about it. However: I did review my settings and I do keep mine locked down.

I despise these idiots that are looking for attention. They have been around since the old bbs days and they are not going away. We simply ignore them, block them, and take away what they are asking for: attention.

Kuori ,
@Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

this is an extremely individualized approach that leaves bigots free to spread their filth everywhere, making normal people (particularly marginalized ones) uncomfortable and at worst forcing them out of the space entirely.

bigotry should be opposed at all times in every conceivable way. unfortunately we can’t do violence to shitheads on the internet, so silencing them is the next best thing

westyvw ,

First rule of the internet: everyone is a liar. Therefore nothing anyone says matters. I hate bigotry too, but there is a good chance this is just the leverage a troll is using for attention.

So, we do the same as we do with all trolls, don’t feed them.

We also can recognize that there is racism, bigotry, hatred and marginalization. Otherwise they wouldn’t try and leverage it.

I agree we should denounce it, welcome everyone without expectations, but after being on the net and prior since the 80s, only one thing works: don’t give them the satisfaction or power.

feminalpanda ,
@feminalpanda@lemmings.world avatar

That’s very privileged of you. I try to protect the next person by reporting.

westyvw ,

Privileged? Wtf? More like been on the internet long enough to not let much bother me.

It’s a dilemma, if you give them the attention they continue. If you don’t appeal to authority they also will continue.

I will agree that Valve should stand behind their terms of service though. I just never see it as much of a community because I am only their to buy and play games.

If this was happening on my servers, my linux group, or my makerspace they would be out on their ass so fast…

UlyssesT , (edited )

First rule of the internet: everyone is a liar.

“It’s the internet” is a failed and ruinous attitude that permits bad people (yes, some people are worse than other people in spite of your thought-terminating platitudes). And for what? To feel smug and superior? smuglord

Also, false equivalencies that condemn everyone just so you can dismiss individual concerns are old tired shit that should have been retired in the early 2000s.

https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/1f6c1f76-78a5-4eb5-97b4-eb0a86474e43.jpeg

Kuori ,
@Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

i’m saying i disagree with this approach. people have been preaching “not to feed the trolls” for decades and the internet has only gotten more bigoted and terrible. forcing those people out of any non-nazi space should be priority #1. we do this on hexbear and as a result the site culture there is significantly more welcoming to minorities than just about anywhere else on the internet. i’ve been on the internet for like 25 years now (admittedly not as long as you) and it’s the only site i have ever seen where people bandying about slurs and abusive language are not only not tolerated, but are actively rejected by the community en mass

it works. if you build it, they will come. if you ban the shitheads, good people will stay. if you don’t, you end up with 4chan.

Rom ,
@Rom@hexbear.net avatar

unfortunately we can’t do violence to shitheads on the internet

Yet. Muskrats are lining up to get their brain chips, so it won’t be too long before someone manages to hack one and kill somebody (assuming the brain chip itself doesn’t do it first).

Kuori ,
@Kuori@hexbear.net avatar

brb learning how to be a 90s era hacker so i can make people’s heads pop like in scanners

booty ,
@booty@hexbear.net avatar

Why bother reporting them? They suck, they are going to do it again.

They might think twice if they got banned from Steam and lost their tens of thousands of hours and thousands of dollars worth of stuff on their steam profile.

scrubbles ,
@scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech avatar

Yeah I’m all for not feeding the trolls but for sure imma report them. Doesn’t mean I need to tell them I’m reporting them

Pika ,
@Pika@sh.itjust.works avatar

that’s saying that they just don’t restrict community access, which steam defo has the capability of doing. I’ve seen some profiles marked removed and the acct exists just can’t access community services

Rom ,
@Rom@hexbear.net avatar

Why bother reporting them? They suck, they are going to do it again. Ignore and move on. Internet 101.

I’d still report them. Worst case the platform is shitty and nothing happens to them, best case they get banned. Definitely block and don’t engage them, for sure.

UlyssesT , (edited )

Second: it’s the internet, quit feeding the trolls. Why bother reporting them? They suck, they are going to do it again. Ignore and move on. Internet 101.

That ignorant and failed doctrine is seen as “internet 101” in a way that was such a failure that it lead to the “containment theory” that gradually permitted all of 4chan to become extensions of /pol/ and made it the nazi hive that it is now.

Demonetization works. Look at how relevant Milo Yianopulos is now.

Ashyr ,

I’m sorry you went through that, but I want to thank you for having the courage to speak up. It may be worth speaking to some game journalists and sharing your story.

Many journalists care deeply about holding truth to power and would love to help pressure for Valve to better moderate the community they run.

ZILtoid1991 ,
@ZILtoid1991@kbin.social avatar

We need a federated game launcher platform!

Some guy on Mastodon already made some framework for achievements, so it's not undoable. Issue would be a copy protection, which depending on your standpoint, either is completely malicious, a necessary evil, or a mandatory thing for anything other than a free game made as an experiment. Having an open source copy protection method would immediately guarantee a workaround, the best we could achieve is to disable some official servers, achievements, etc.

kryllic ,
@kryllic@programming.dev avatar

Link to the project? I’d like to follow the repo if possible!

ZILtoid1991 ,
@ZILtoid1991@kbin.social avatar

It's called , and the dev's at is @dulsi

dulsi ,
@dulsi@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@kryllic @ZILtoid1991 There are several repos for as it has the server implementation, the C library to add it to games and several other libraries for various languages.
https://identicalsoftware.com/gamerzilla/

Facebones ,

They’re gonna protect their whales. It’s like Facebook, I report outright calls to violence, doing, and hate speech all the time to be told it “doesn’t violate TOS” but I make one comment that “hiding behind Christianity to justify your hate is bullshit” got me a hate speech ding on my account in under 5 minutes.

dangblingus ,

No idea how high their level is, but $20 and a handful of games is roughly what it takes to get an account to lvl 25 or so.

EssentialCoffee ,

Do you mean putting $20 in your steam wallet? I know someone with 197 games whose only lvl 11.

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

Can’t you just block them and move along?

You’ve done all you can do

ExcursionInversion ,
@ExcursionInversion@lemmy.world avatar

Also can mute in game or turn comms to friends only. Can set profile comments to friends only I believe as well.

Hope they never play COD or Counter Strike. Any games with edge lords I usually just mute all comms.

Outtatime ,
@Outtatime@sh.itjust.works avatar

😂 right? People are all about censorship in gaming but it’s literally a few button clicks and they’re gone.

MycoBro ,

Who gives a fuck? Ignore him and play some games. Quit being a pussy and letting strangers on the internet hurt your feelings. Fuck Mods. Fuck racist trolls. Fuck whiny bitches.

PlasticExistence ,

That’s infuriating. In the past a public tweet would normally get some movement, but since Twitter isn’t Twitter anymore, I’m not sure that method still works (or works as well).

I think this is worth making some public noise over. Whoever processed your initial report either did a garage job of it or was sympathetic to the user’s racism. Either way, it’s not acceptable.

Lamb OP ,

I don’t use social media outside of Lemmy and will leave Lemmy once I’m back to health and can bike again (I use Lemmy for commuting boredom). My first idea was the person might be working for Steam or knows someone who does and they’re sheltering them as I find it too hard to believe Steam is fine with blatant, frequent racism.

TragicNotCute ,
@TragicNotCute@lemmy.world avatar

I’d email Gabe personally.

PlasticExistence ,

I’ll just stop by his place on the way home

TragicNotCute ,
@TragicNotCute@lemmy.world avatar

Definitely an option.

This might be easier: www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact?contact-person=G…

tdawg ,

Isn’t this an issue with the game not steam?

Lamb OP ,

No, comments were on Steam.

Infamousblt ,
@Infamousblt@hexbear.net avatar

Valve doesn’t care one whit about good moderation. I got kicked from a CS game recently because I wouldn’t say the n word. The team agreed that only racists are allowed on the team and since I wouldn’t say the n word they kicked me. Of course I reported all of them but I have no doubt that report falls into a black hole and the 4 people proud of their racism just get to keep playing as if nothing happened.

Riot does a ton of things very very wrong but one thing they do a decent job of is actually punishing people for bad behavior like that and then notifying the reporters that hey, you helped us get those guys. Valve needs to take that kind of approach or their games and services will just continue to be overrun by this shit

booty ,
@booty@hexbear.net avatar

ne thing they do a decent job of is actually punishing people for bad behavior

Way too little, way too late. But yeah it does always feel good seeing the report feedback.

hakstc ,

I’m so sorry to hear that happened to you. I reported a racist game I saw on Steam and I don’t think anything ever came of it. You can turn off non-friends leaving comments on your profile, it’s not a great solution but at least it’ll prevent shitty comments on your profile in the future.

schmidtster ,

I wonder if the amount of reports a user has previously accounts into anything?

If a user has a high ratio of reporting and low issue rates it would make sense to investigate each report fully instead of quick initial decisions.

You may not be meaning to be abusing the system, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Steam has anti abused measures in place that could be a factor here.

Zacryon ,

That’s not cool. How long did you wait for them to act? I guess it can take some time until they went through all reports. Moderating is a time-intensive process. But if that’s not the case here, then I agree with you that this sucks and there should be consequences.

Lamb OP ,

You can tell a profile report was dismissed when you can report the person again. If you try to report again and it’s not dismissed, it will tell you you’ve reported the person already.

WarTowel ,

How do you know for sure that it means the report was dismissed? Maybe it’s just time based to stop report spam.

schmidtster ,

Just to figure that out would likely flag their account for report spamming.

I don’t know why this person is reporting so much, and I don’t want to victim blame, but at what point does someone need to look at their own actions to see why so many people are feeling the need to lash out and them the need to report.

It also seems like they are baiting people to have this many reportable incidences. People are assholes, but a lot of time people also aren’t innocent in these exchanges. Which of course matter to the end result when reporting as well.

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