The actual paper.

The title here from PCGamesN is rather bad, in the sense of being misleading:

No, its not really the ‘store’ part of Steam that is plauged with insane harassment of all kinds.

They’ve actually put a good deal of effort into trying to tackle things like review bombing and removing horrendous stuff you’d see on an actual storefront page.

This article somehow completely fails to explain that Steam is basically also a ‘social media’ type of platform, where users have personal pages and can comment on and message each other, form groups, form their own miniforums, etc etc.

Describing all of this in totality as ‘a store’ would be like describing TikTok as a store.

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But, that aside, yes, the ‘Steam community’ has always been an insane shit show where if you just deleted 99.9% of it, nothing of value would be lost.

Why is this the case?

Because Valve does not want to hire an army of tens to hundreds of thousands of offshore, human content moderators, which… is what you would have to do to adequately police all of this, its what Facebook and other large social media platforms do.

Sure, they’ll tell you they use AI or some advanced algorithm.

Even today, that is still mostly a lie.

Its always been somewhere between an army of offshore moderators getting paid slave wages and getting PTSD from their jobs, and something like a mechanical turk.

… But yeah, anyone who’s been using Steam since the early days knows that the Steam community is largely cancer and should generally be avoided.

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Also, this PCGamesN article incorrectly describes the NGOs and the ADL specifically as a ‘target’.

The paper literally never describes the ADL or any other NGO or group as a direct target of these right wing groups.

What the paper actually says is that the ADL has conducted multiple of their own similar studies to try to understand social dynamics and extremism and harassment on Steam, which this paper cites and mentions.

It also says that a commonly identifiable attribute of a right wing extremist group is that they declare themselves as enemies of the ADL… but there is nothing in the paper that describes these groups actually targetting the ADL itself with… some kind of specific threats or harassment or anything directed precisely at, or specifically targetting, the ADL or other NGOs… the paper also at one point mentions that the ATF is also often specifically identified as an enemy of these right wing groups, as well as just Steam Moderators themselves.

Its a way of right wing virtue signalling to say ‘Fuck the ADL’ along with Nazi / Nordic symbology, 9/11 conspiracy theories etc.

The main focus of the paper is actually to describe the mechanics and attributes of what the authors describe as performative infighting amongst right wing extremist groups on Steam.

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The paper specifically notes:

The first systematic review of extremist behavior on Steam was presented in Anti-Defamation League (2024).

…

The publication of this report appears to have induced Valve to more widely ban explicit neo-Nazi and white supremacist behavior, but extremist cliques and groups are still easily discoverable across Steam’s social features.

IE, Valve took the ADL’s report seriously, Valve is moving more heavily against explicit right wing extremism, but the problem still persists, and this paper shows ways of identifying and diagnosing the problem, presumably so as to also convince Valve to maybe consider these methods themselves.

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From the article:

…the study shows that neo-fascist groups are using Valve’s platform to start “wars,” with a focus on recruiting new members and organizing harassment against various opposing groups.

These targets, which include everything from other Steam populations to NGOs like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), are branded as “enemies,” while other affiliated groups are considered “allies.” Bradley-Newhouse and Kowert conclude that neo-fascism is on the rise on Valve’s platform, and that current moderation systems aren’t doing much to stop it.

Phrasing enemy-based identifiers that right wing groups use to instead be “targets” is a significant mischaracterization of what the paper actually says.

The article totally fails to mention that these “wars” are infighting between right wing groups and clusters of right wing groups, fighting amongst themselves.

Literally nowhere in the paper does it describe these right wing groups actually “organizing harassment” directly against their self-identified enemy “targets”.

That is not what the paper is about, but the phrasing in article strongly gives the impression that it is.

It is, again, about virtue signalling and infighting amongst right wing groups on Steam, and how understanding how that works can be helpful in identifying the most dedicated right wing extremeists on Steam.

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In conclusion, this article was written by an illiterate idiot, either that or they are significantly selective with presenting or not presenting context, and are deliberately being overly alarmist.

Please read the actual paper instead.

Anyway, anecdotally, yeah, it does track with my own experience that Garrys Mod and HOI4 players are considerably more likely to be fascist extremists than players of many other games.

Thank you for the commentary (PCGamesN blocks IPs from Ukraine so I can’t read the article). Will need grab a copy of the paper.

Why is HoI 4 in the background…

Steam needs to shut down their forums. It’s clear they have no intention of moderating them and they are so incredibly toxic, hateful, and disgusting that I feel bad about using the platform at all.

Steam needs to shut down their forums. It’s clear they have no intention of moderating them and they are so incredibly toxic, hateful, and disgusting that I feel bad about using the platform at all.

The conflict of interests is that they are whales that buy games, but never play. This is why Valve doesn’t want to ban them.

Because of the group that they exemplified in the paper, the top 3 games that were common to right wing social circles on Steam were:

Counterstrike 2

HOI 4

Garry’s Mod

Now, this isn’t the same as saying ‘everyone who plays this game is a right wing extremeist’, its not that kind of analysis, but it is saying that if you are a right wing extremeist, these games are games you probably play.

You could however do some napkin math based on daily player counts and realize that CS2 has way, waaay more players than HOI4 or Gmod, and then realize that there likely are a disproportionate number of HOI4 and Gmod players who are right wing extremists, as compared to many other games.

The paper specifically says:

While most of these games are commonly played among all types of users, Hearts of Iron IV (HOI4) is an important exception. HOI4 is a strategy game developed by Paradox Interactive in 2016, and it was originally played primarily by hardcore strategy gamers.

However, since its launch, neo-Nazi and neo-fascist communities have increasingly adopted it as a symbol. Far-right communities have embraced the ability to play as Nazis and fascists in HOI4, and they have particularly celebrated the ability to create speculative fiction via the built-in story and user-created mods (White and Lamphere-Englund, 2024; Newhouse and Kowert, 2024).

Frankly, as a HOI4 enjoyer myself… they’re not wrong, go try to follow all the drama behind the New Order mod, and you will probably see what I mean.

And also, as a former Gmod player, I can absolutely personally tell you all about Nazis and grooming in roleplay servers, as I am unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with Spartan5150/ParadymShyft many times, to the point that I could easily doxx him and tell you his real name, just off the top of my head.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about: He’s a Nazi pedophile with a penchant for grooming underage girls and sending them pics of his oddly shaped cock, and then baiting them into sending him their nudes, and then him holding those over their heads to force them to keep doing weird RP shit… who then went on to be the lead community manager for “The Isle”, ostensibly an attempt to make some kind of ‘live as a dinosaur’ multiplayer simulation type game.

Anyway, here’s the full table from the study, the paper this article is clumsily based on:

You don’t need to ban whales on steam who have tons of games.

Just get rid of or massively downsize steam community forums and group discussions.

They don’t need to exist.

Whales can still be whales and write an angry game review or whatever, but we don’t need discussion forums on Steam for every possible fucking thing.

Because of the group that they exemplified in the paper, the top 3 games that were common to right wing social circles on Steam were:

Counterstrike 2

HOI 4

Garry’s Mod

Now, this isn’t the same as saying ‘everyone who plays this game is a right wing extremeist’, its not that kind of analysis, but it is saying that if you are a right wing extremeist, these games are games you probably play.

You could however do some napkin math based on daily player counts and realize that CS2 has way, waaay more players than HOI4 or Gmod, and then realize that there likely are a disproportionate number of HOI4 and Gmod players who are right wing extremists, as compared to many other games.

The paper specifically says:

While most of these games are commonly played among all types of users, Hearts of Iron IV (HOI4) is an important exception. HOI4 is a strategy game developed by Paradox Interactive in 2016, and it was originally played primarily by hardcore strategy gamers.

However, since its launch, neo-Nazi and neo-fascist communities have increasingly adopted it as a symbol. Far-right communities have embraced the ability to play as Nazis and fascists in HOI4, and they have particularly celebrated the ability to create speculative fiction via the built-in story and user-created mods (White and Lamphere-Englund, 2024; Newhouse and Kowert, 2024).

Frankly, as a HOI4 enjoyer myself… they’re not wrong, go try to follow all the drama behind the New Order mod, and you will probably see what I mean.

And also, as a former Gmod player, I can absolutely personally tell you all about Nazis and grooming in roleplay servers, as I am unfortunate enough to have crossed paths with Spartan5150/ParadymShyft many times, to the point that I could easily doxx him and tell you his real name, just off the top of my head.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about: He’s a Nazi pedophile with a penchant for grooming underage girls and sending them pics of his oddly shaped cock, and then baiting them into sending him their nudes, and then him holding those over their heads to force them to keep doing weird RP shit… who then went on to be the lead community manager for “The Isle”, ostensibly an attempt to make some kind of ‘live as a dinosaur’ multiplayer simulation type game.

Anyway, here’s the full table from the study, the paper this article is clumsily based on:

Sure, but they’ll congregate on 8chan, discord, kiwifarms, their websites, etc… You’ll also need to tackle Steam groups too. Too many of them.

Nazis are worse than roaches, you need to eradicate everywhere lest you suffer their mob campaigns.

It literally is not Valve’s problem to handle what goes on off their platform.

If somebody wants to attempt that, uh, good luck? The US is currently run by fascists, all the fascists in government probably are not going to prioritize policing younger, dumber fascists.

If you just put all this burden on Steam, what you end up with is Steam gets massively censored in way more ways than just discussion forums.

But yes, I agree, I say, also just get rid of Steam Groups, entirely.

Just, boink, gone, don’t need em.

Nobody ever uses them for anything serious, they are basically always shit post zones, at best.

Thats what I meant where I elsewhere more or less said ‘nuke everything that isn’t your personal profile and stuff you publish personally’.

Sure, keep some ability for commenting on like, user’s screenshots, stuff people upload to the workshop, mods, comprehensive guides.

But, its the uploader’s job to moderate them, just offer something like ‘hold all comments for personal vetting or keyword filter scan’ before they appear.

Pretty sure those options already exist in other contexts on Steam, but yeah, I am fully down with Steam just cleaning house on almost everything.

I also think that asking for more serious moderation on more platforms is a good idea, but the problem is always going to be having the resources to do that, as well as uh, facsists aren’t going to investigate themselves.

Only other paradigm is to basically require a kind of NetID that either is your government ID or is tied directly to it, for all kinds of public discussion software, and once you do that, well, again, the government is fascists, so now if you criticize them, off to jail for you.

The US is currently run by fascists

Valve Headquarters: PO Box 1688, Bellevue, Washington 98009

Yeah, that’s the precise whale I’m talking about. Imagine upsetting your landlord and despot.

Steam?

You mean the platform with critically acclaimed titles such as ‘Hitler My Friend’ ‘Heal Hitler’ ‘Hitler is my crush’ ?

I would never have guessed that the platform had a problem with far right communities. Surely the Sniper Elite folks have something to say.

I pretty much agree, I literally cannot think of a single time me engaging with the Steam forums has resulted in anything good at all.

Best case scenario you get absolute idiots who know nothing about how games work acting like they do, worst case scenario you run into something akin to Terrorgram.

EDIT:

I was completely serious in my other post when I said 99.9% of steam forums are worse than worthless.

Just say, hey, everything in any steam forum, discussion group, basically anything other than comments on steam workshop stuff and guides and your own posted screenshots and your own profile… yep, in 90 days, it all goes away, make your backups now, if you want to, here’s a tool thingy to do that.

We have other platforms for lengthier discussions now, if a game wants to run its own community, fucking buy a domain, set up some forums, set up a discord, a reddit, a lemmy, whatever, do it yourself, its not worth steam potentially getting nuked or massively censored because it allows basicslly auto generated forums for every half baked idiot that makes some game.

I don’t go there for discussions but have found useful fixes from it that wasn’t on pcgamingwiki, which I’ve added to pcgamingwiki linking back to the steam forum. So it has its uses.

Despite the terrible discussions which I don’t use it for it is still at the end of the day place people do ask for help and do receive it when that’s the topic of the thread.

I’m glad its helped you, but every time I am so desperate as to end up at the Steam Comm pages looking for help, I am met by a bunch of overconfident idiots explaining solutions to problems I did not describe, or just people telling me it isn’t a problem, it can be fixed by uninstslling my soul from my body, etc.

Can’t believe you havent included my all time favourite game - sex with hitler