BusinessExtremism finds fertile ground in gamer chat rooms

Extremism finds fertile ground in gamer chat rooms

There are rules that people must agree to before joining “Unloved,” a private discussion group on Discord, the messaging service popular with gamers. One of them: “Not respecting women.”

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For those who are a part, “Unloved” serves as a forum for around 150 people who adhere to a misogynistic subculture in which members call themselves “incels”, a term in English that describes those who identify as involuntary celibates. They share some harmless memes, but they also make jokes about school shootings and debate how attractive women of different races are. Users in the group (known as a server on Discord) can join smaller rooms (channels or forum channels) to engage in voice or text chats. The name of one of the rooms refers to rape.

In the vast and expanding world of gaming, it has become common to come across views like these, both within some games and social media services, and on other platforms, such as Discord and Steam, used by many gamers.

The leak of a large set of classified Pentagon documents on Discord by a National Guard airman who held extremist views sparked renewed attention to the peripheries of the $184 billion video game industry. , and how discussions in their online communities can manifest in the physical world.

A report, released Thursday by the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, underscored how deeply misogyny, racism and other extreme ideologies have taken root in some of these chat rooms and offered insights. about why people who play video games or socialize online seem to be more susceptible to such views.

The study argues that people who spread hate speech or extreme views have a far-reaching effect, even if they are far from the majority of users and occupy only niches of some of these services. These users have built virtual communities to spread their harmful views and to recruit impressionable young people online with hateful and sometimes violent content and with less of the public pressure that the media giants have faced. social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Researchers at the center conducted a survey in five of the world’s largest video game markets — the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, France and Germany — and found that 51 percent of online gamers reported encountering statements extremists in multiplayer games over the past year.

“It may be a small number of players, but they are very influential and can have a huge impact on gamer culture and people’s experience of real-world events,” said Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, the report’s author.

The historically male-dominated world of video games has long faced problematic behavior, such as “Gamergate,” a long-running campaign of harassment against women in the industry in 2014 and 2015. In recent years, video game companies they have promised to improve their workplace culture and hiring processes.

The report indicates that gaming platforms and their associated social networking sites are particularly vulnerable to recruitment attempts by extremist groups due to the large number of impressionable young people who play video games, as well as the relative lack of moderation. in some places.

Some of these malicious actors speak directly to other people in multiplayer video games, such as call of duty, Minecraft and platforms like Roblox, through in-game voice or chat features. Other times they turn to social media, like Discord, which first caught on with gamers and has garnered a broader appeal ever since.

Among those surveyed in the report, about 15 to 20 percent of those under the age of 18 said they had seen statements that supported the idea that “the white race is superior to others,” that “one race or ethnicity in should be expelled or eliminated” or that “women are inferior”.

The report notes that on Roblox, a platform that allows users to create virtual worlds, players have recreated Nazi concentration camps and the massive re-education camps that the Chinese communist government has built in Xinjiang, a largely Muslim region.

In the game world of warcraft, online groups (called brotherhoods) have also advertised neo-Nazi affiliations. On Steam, an online video game store that also has discussion forums, one user named himself the namesake of the Holocaust architect, another integrated anti-Semitic language into his account name. The report uncovered similar usernames connected to players from call of duty.

Disboard, a volunteer-run site that displays a list of Discord servers, includes some that openly advertise extremist views. Some are public, while others are private and only accessible by invitation.

A server labels himself Christian, nationalist, and “based” or based, an expression in English that has come to mean that you don’t care what other people think. His profile picture is Pepe the frog, a caricature hijacked by white supremacists.

“Our race is being replaced and rejected by the media. Our schools and media are turning people into degenerates,” reads the group’s invitation for others to join.

Jeff Haynes, a video game expert who until recently worked at Common Sense Media, a company that monitors online entertainment for families, said: “Some of the tools used to connect and foster community, spark creativity, and generate interactions also They can be used to radicalize, manipulate, and spread the same kind of language, theories, and scary tactics to other people.”

Video game companies say they have cracked down on hateful content, placing bans on extremist material and recording or saving audio of in-game conversations for use in potential investigations. Some, like Discord, Twitch, Roblox and Activision Blizzard (creator of call of duty) have implemented automatic detection systems to scan and remove prohibited content before it can be published. In the last few years, Activision has banned access to 500,000 accounts on call of duty for violating their code of conduct.

Discord indicated through a statement that it was “a place where all people can find a space to which they belong and any behavior that violates that is contrary to our mission.” The company stated that it would ban users and disable servers if they exhibited hate or violent extremism.

Will Nevius, a spokesman for Roblox, said in a statement: “We recognize that extremist groups are resorting to a variety of tactics in order to circumvent the rules on all platforms and we are determined to stay one step ahead of them.”

Valve, the company that operates Steam, did not respond to a request for comment.

Experts like Haynes say the fast-paced, real-time nature of video games creates enormous challenges in controlling illegal or inappropriate behavior. Nefarious actors have also been adept at avoiding technological hurdles as quickly as they are implemented.

In any case, with 3 billion players around the world, the task of monitoring what is happening at all times is practically impossible.

“In the next few years there will be more people playing than there are people available to moderate gaming sessions,” Haynes said. “So, in many ways, this is literally trying to put your toes in a dam riddled with holes like a lot of Swiss cheese.”

Steven Lee Myers covers disinformation for The New York Times. He has worked in Washington, Moscow, Baghdad and Beijing, where he contributed to the articles that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for public service. He is also the author of The New Tsar: The Rise and Reign of Vladimir Putin. @stevenleemyers • Facebook

Kellen Browning is a technology journalist in San Francisco, where she covers the platform economy, the gaming industry, and general technology news. @kellen_browning


Source: NYT Espanol

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