Microsoft, Sony, And More "Fail" To Counter Extremism In Gaming Communities

thegamer.com:

Late last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported an alarming increase in online game communities with white supremacist or extremist views. Of particular concern was how the ADL saw white supremacist rhetoric double between 2021 and 2022. That report, and its troubling findings, made it all the way to the US Congress where Democratic representatives sent a letter to 14 video game companies asking what they planned to combat this rise in extremism.

A few months later, Representative Lori Trahan of Massachusettes says that the answer wasn't very encouraging. In a statement on her official government site, Trahan said that most companies didn't have any specific plans or policies to combat online extremism, and few have any process to collect data on white supremacy on their platforms.

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"Since I sent requests to gaming companies, I’ve heard from parents across the nation about how concerned they are with the increase in harassment and extremism in the games their kids play," said Congresswoman Trahan. "After reading through responses from top gaming companies, I’m disappointed that the majority of companies failed to address some of our most urgent questions, including providing us with their policies around extremism, as well as transparency reporting around these topics."

While most of the 14 game companies had some sort of in-game or platform-wide reporting system for harassment, EA, Epic, Take-Two Interactive, and Tencent all declined to say whether they collected data on harassment or inappropriate behavior. Activision Blizzard, EA, Epic, Take-Two, Tencent, Ubisoft, and Valve all had no policies or procedures to "specifically identify extremism."

"The responses from the gaming