Business

Extremism Finds Fertile Ground in Chat Rooms for Gamers

Before joining Unloved, a private discussion group on Discord, a popular messaging service among video game players, there are rules that people must agree to. One of the rules is “Don’t respect women.”

To those inside, Unloved acts as a forum for a misogynistic subculture of about 150 people, whose members call themselves “incels.” They share some harmless memes, but they also joke about school shootings and discuss the attractiveness of women of different races. A user in the group (known as a server in Discord) can enter a small room for voice or text chat with her. One of the rooms is named for Rape.

In the vast and ever-growing gaming world, it’s easy to see this view not only in some games themselves, but also in social media services and other sites used by many gamers, such as Discord and Steam. Now

The leak of classified Pentagon documents onto Discord by an Air National Guard trooper with extremist views has exposed the fringes of the $184 billion gaming industry and how the discussions in its online communities are becoming more physical. New attention has been focused on what will appear in the world.

a reportThe report, released Thursday by the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, highlights how misogyny, racism, and other extreme ideologies are entrenched in some video game chat rooms, and that video It provided insight into why people playing games and interacting online are perceived as unfair. Especially susceptible to such viewpoints.

Those who spread hate speech and extreme views are far from the majority of users and have far-reaching impact, despite occupying only a fraction of these services, the study argued. . These users have built virtual communities to spread their hurtful opinions and to recruit impressing young people online with hateful and sometimes violent content. and social media giants such as Twitter face relatively little public pressure.

Researchers at the center conducted a survey in five major gaming markets around the world (US, UK, South Korea, France, and Germany) and found that 51% of those who played online said they played multiple players during the game. It turned out that he was reporting that he encountered extreme remarks in a game that appeared. last year.

“The number of participants may be small, but they are highly influential and can have a tremendous impact on gamer culture and people’s experiences of real-world events,” said the report’s authors. said Mariana Olaizola Rosenblatt.

The historically male-dominated world of video games has long grappled with behavioral issues such as GamerGate, a long-running harassment campaign against women in the industry in 2014 and 2015. In recent years, video game companies have promised to improve their workplace culture. and the hiring process.

According to the report, gaming platforms and their adjacent social media sites are dominated by impressionable young people who play games, and the relative lack of moderation on some sites has led to extremist group activity. said to be particularly vulnerable.

Some of these attackers use in-game chat and voice features to talk directly to other people in multiplayer games such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Roblox. We may also use social media platforms like Discord. The platform first caught the attention of gamers before gaining wider appeal.

Between 15 and 20 percent of the under-18s surveyed in the report hold the belief that the white race is superior to other races and that certain races and ethnic groups should be banished. He replied that he had seen statements that backed it up. The idea that they are excluded or that women are inferior.

According to the report, Roblox, a game that lets players create virtual worlds, places players in Nazi concentration camps and large re-education camps built by the Chinese Communist government in the mostly Muslim region of Xinjiang. was reproduced.

In the game World of Warcraft, online groups called guilds also advertise affiliations with neo-Nazis. On his Steam, an online game store that also has discussion forums, a user named himself after the chief architect of the Holocaust Heinrich his Himmler. Another used Gas.Th3.J3ws. The report uncovered similar usernames associated with Call of Duty players.

Disboard is a volunteer-run site that displays a list of Discord servers, some of which openly promote extremist views. Some are public, some are private and invite only.

One of them, called Dissident Lounge 2, tags itself as “grounded” slang, meaning Christian, nationalist, and not caring about what others think. Its profile picture is Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character appropriated by white supremacists.

“Our race has been displaced and eliminated by the media, our schools and media are turning people into depraved,” the group’s invitation to others to join reads. It is written.

Games expert Jeff Haynes, who most recently worked for Common Sense Media, which oversees family-friendly online entertainment, said, “The tools used to connect and foster communities, foster creativity, and foster interaction Part of it is manipulating and spreading the same kind of bad language, theories and tactics to others.”

Gaming companies have said they have crackdowns on hateful content, ban extremist content, and record or save the audio of in-game conversations for use in potential investigations. Companies like Discord, Twitch, Roblox, and Call of Duty makers Activision Blizzard have automated detection systems that scan and remove prohibited content before posting.In recent years, Activision has 500,000 accounts in Call of Duty for violating the Code of Conduct;

Discord said in a statement that Discord “is a place where anyone can find a sense of belonging, and that any activity that goes against this is against our mission,” and that users who display hatred or violent extremism are not allowed to use it. Banned and said they would shut down the server.

“We are aware that extremist groups are turning to a variety of tactics to circumvent the rules on all platforms, and we are determined to stay ahead of them,” Roblox spokesman Will Nebius said in a statement. I am doing it,” he said.

Valve, which owns Steam, did not respond to a request for comment.

Experts like Haynes say the fast, real-time nature of games creates significant challenges in policing illegal or inappropriate behavior. Nefarious actors are also adept at getting around technical obstacles as quickly as possible.

Either way, with 3 billion people playing around the world, it’s virtually impossible to keep an eye on what’s going on all the time.

“In the next few years, there will be more people playing games than moderating game sessions,” Haynes said. “So in many ways, this is literally putting your finger in an embankment that is as full of holes as a ton of Swiss cheese.”

Related Articles

Back to top button