The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) examined the content distributed by users on Steam. They identified a vast amount of unacceptable material on Valve's platform.
In their study, ADL analyzed 1.2 billion unique pieces of content on Steam, including 458 million user profiles, 152 million avatars, and 610 million comments. They utilized an AI-based tool called HateVision for this purpose.
Findings from the ADL study:
▫️ADL found 1.83 million unique pieces of extremist and hate-promoting content on Steam. Notably, there were instances of Nazi symbolism and content supporting terrorist organizations;
▫️1.5 million users and 73.8 thousand groups on Steam have at least once posted such content on the platform;
▫️Various forms of copypasta, including ASCII art, are popular methods for spreading unacceptable content. ADL identified 1.18 million instances of such postings, with 51% being swastika variations;
▫️Extremist and hate-promoting symbols are used in 827.7 thousand user and group avatars on Steam. In some cases, avatars feature photos of criminals involved in mass shootings.
ADL urged Valve to address this issue and tighten moderation on Steam.