Okay, so unwritten rule that you can’t sell games about murdering actual human beings.
I assume those would be illegal, which seems to be the metric Valve uses when deciding whether to ban something. That means you could have different bans based on region, so China will have different bans than the UK, which will have different bans than Russia.
Which is what the steam forums ARE.
Which is why publishers should be able to take over moderation if they don’t like how the community is acting. I don’t know if that’s the case, because the only time I go to the forums is from an internet search looking for a fix to a specific issue. I don’t see 99% of the nonsense here, nor do I know how moderation happens (or doesn’t happen).
Libertarianism isn’t about leaving things alone, it’s about protecting rights. Valve has every right to moderate, but if was a government, it would not, outside of speech likely to directly incite violence (e.g. planning an assassination or terrorist attack) due to the right to free speech. It seems GabeN is holding Valve to theore strict standard of a government than the looser standard of a private company.
If Valve sees the platform as similar to a government, it should see a game-specific forum as a private space controlled by the publisher. If the publisher doesn’t want to take that responsibility, they can leave it up to Valve’s standard.
I think the hands off position is correct, provided the publisher can take over moderation. Players can choose with their wallet and their engagement and decide whether to buy a game or engage with the forums based on its community moderation.
Steam has a lot of value to me partly because there’s a ton of stuff there I find distasteful, which makes me feel like there’s a better chance things I like that others don’t will be allowed on the store. If a game isn’t on the store, that’s because the publisher didn’t publish it there, not because Valve blocked it. Platforms like Steam shouldn’t be opinionated, they should be as inclusive as possible, and that includes criticism of public figures the platform may like.
Which is why publishers should be able to take over moderation if they don’t like how the community is acting.
Mordhau is a game where the official forums had a long standing “show us your kni**a” thread and was full of bigotry and hatred. They only began to moderate after enough articles about it were getting popular at a time people remembered Chivalry 2 existed.
Let alone the Black Myth Wukong dev who was “mistranslated” when talking about all of the long history of misogyny and sexism coming from a studio that outright banned reviewers from talking about “feminism”
At the end of the day, it is Valve’s house. If there is a room full of nazis then clearly they are okay with it. End of story.
Libertarianism isn’t about leaving things alone, it’s about protecting rights.
At the end of the day, it is Valve’s house. If there is a room full of nazis then clearly they are okay with it. End of story.
Would you rather Valve, with their dominant market position, be opinionated about what games and speech they allow? Or would you rather they act more like a public market, where publishers decide what is allowed in their corner of the market? Does this preference change depending on whether they align with you?
If a publisher wants to attract Nazis, let 'em. If they want to attract leftist extremists, let 'em. If a publisher wants to discourage all forms of extremism according to their own opinion of what “acceptable” means, let 'em. But the choice should be for the publisher to make, not the platform, especially if that platform has a dominant position.
I assume those would be illegal, which seems to be the metric Valve uses when deciding whether to ban something. That means you could have different bans based on region, so China will have different bans than the UK, which will have different bans than Russia.
Which is why publishers should be able to take over moderation if they don’t like how the community is acting. I don’t know if that’s the case, because the only time I go to the forums is from an internet search looking for a fix to a specific issue. I don’t see 99% of the nonsense here, nor do I know how moderation happens (or doesn’t happen).
Libertarianism isn’t about leaving things alone, it’s about protecting rights. Valve has every right to moderate, but if was a government, it would not, outside of speech likely to directly incite violence (e.g. planning an assassination or terrorist attack) due to the right to free speech. It seems GabeN is holding Valve to theore strict standard of a government than the looser standard of a private company.
If Valve sees the platform as similar to a government, it should see a game-specific forum as a private space controlled by the publisher. If the publisher doesn’t want to take that responsibility, they can leave it up to Valve’s standard.
I think the hands off position is correct, provided the publisher can take over moderation. Players can choose with their wallet and their engagement and decide whether to buy a game or engage with the forums based on its community moderation.
Steam has a lot of value to me partly because there’s a ton of stuff there I find distasteful, which makes me feel like there’s a better chance things I like that others don’t will be allowed on the store. If a game isn’t on the store, that’s because the publisher didn’t publish it there, not because Valve blocked it. Platforms like Steam shouldn’t be opinionated, they should be as inclusive as possible, and that includes criticism of public figures the platform may like.
Mordhau is a game where the official forums had a long standing “show us your kni**a” thread and was full of bigotry and hatred. They only began to moderate after enough articles about it were getting popular at a time people remembered Chivalry 2 existed.
Let alone the Black Myth Wukong dev who was “mistranslated” when talking about all of the long history of misogyny and sexism coming from a studio that outright banned reviewers from talking about “feminism”
At the end of the day, it is Valve’s house. If there is a room full of nazis then clearly they are okay with it. End of story.
And there we go.
Would you rather Valve, with their dominant market position, be opinionated about what games and speech they allow? Or would you rather they act more like a public market, where publishers decide what is allowed in their corner of the market? Does this preference change depending on whether they align with you?
If a publisher wants to attract Nazis, let 'em. If they want to attract leftist extremists, let 'em. If a publisher wants to discourage all forms of extremism according to their own opinion of what “acceptable” means, let 'em. But the choice should be for the publisher to make, not the platform, especially if that platform has a dominant position.