this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 26 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

for a more recent example, the negative reviews under Relooted are fucking sickening. one of the top ones is a joke making fun of George Floyd’s death.

what does steam do? nothing. valve is one of the most profitable companies per employee out there, and they have no pressure from investors to botch their work, they could absolutely moderate.

they actively choose not to, because despite what bootlickers on lemmy would have you believe, gabe newell is a libertarian dipshit who values "free speech" over the safety of marginalized people.

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Fucking hell. You were not kidding. This was posted five days ago! The comments on that review are even more vile, to the point where I don't even think I can show them here.

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 28 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

There are guidelines on Steam that ban such content, and you can report people for violating them.

So no, Steam does not do "nothing" as you claim. A very basic Internet search can confirm that.

Even better, users can rate reviews as helpful or unhelpful. Which is great for a wider variety of reasons, but is also good for reviews that get into a grey area or use dog whistles to hide their true intentions.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

as the article mentions, if you’d bothered to read it, steam rarely enforces their guidelines, which is the problem here

[–] paultimate14@lemmy.world 16 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

The article is behind a paywall. Do they have any statistics or evidence backing that sentiment or is it just vibes?

You can find articles and reddit posts claiming this same exact thing going back years, and yet personally when I go through the store and look through reviews it's really hard for me to come across hate speech, especially if you don't specifically look at reviews that have been downvoted to hell. It's never going to be perfect, but I encounter less hate speech on Steam than most other platforms.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

i didn't have any paywall, maybe it's a regional thing? here's a version that shouldn't have it.

anyways, here's a screenshot of the Relooted review i talked about. if you check the game's negative reviews and sort by most pertinent, it's the 3rd one. it was here yesterday, and despite me reporting it, it's still here today, and in fact has been here since february 11th. as time of writing, it has 373 people who found it useful, and 115 who found it funny. some of the comments under that review are critical, but most just say "based" and the like.

CW: screenshot of a racist review, makes fun of George Floyd's deathScreenshot of a negative Steam review, with 0.2 hours played. It reads: Ugh, what a game. It stinks. I cant breathe, I caaant breathe!

it's an anecdotal evidence, but as you said, "you can find articles and reddit posts claiming this same exact thing going back years", doesn't that mean it's a recurring problem?

[–] Darkenfolk@sh.itjust.works 5 points 15 hours ago

That's it? I kind of expected something worse with the whole stink your making about it.

It just your typical kiddie hater comment, not worth paying attention to and certainly not worthy of a moderator's time.

[–] ChicoSuave@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

What do you want Steam to do? Be the judge and executioner of what lives and what dies? There is no agreed upon guidelines for what is chud behavior and not so how does Valve make that call?

VALUE PER EMPLOYEE MEANS NOTHING IN THIS CONTEXT. You are saying that fact to imply "rich people need to be the adults if they are going to have that money" and that is absolutely Monarch/Authoritarian enabler thinking. Fuck that.

Valve is not responsible for the shit other people say. Report them if you don't like it. As with democracy, with enough votes things will change. But one person mad at what another person says so they plead to a central authority to shut it down? The Internet has seen this decision turn into legal battles over speech after one trolling shithead decides to use the system against innocent people.

Stop listening to racists and this all goes away.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 6 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

What do you want Steam to do?

Moderate, like every other half-decent platform does.

[–] TalkingFlower@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

They do moderate, threads disappear out of thin air, locked due to specific reasons. I've reported many, from minor insults to racism, and many of the times they take action. And I considered Steam more heavily moderated than both Lemmy and Reddit, unless you are in a beleaguered community.

The review section, though, is a dev problem; it can be a bit of a wildland, and that is true.

[–] doublah@sopuli.xyz 3 points 15 hours ago

Every platform of Steam's size or bigger has mostly replaced human moderation with AI at this point because it's the only way to moderate at that scale.

And I'd rather a few anti-woke weirdos get to post their by default hidden curator reviews than have to start saying "unalive" in Steam forums.

[–] HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth 9 points 20 hours ago

pressure from investors

This unfortunately trades one group of scumbags for another.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 9 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

If you pump enough money into Linux gaming and do regular sales, a lot can be forgiven apparently. Steam Discussions are one of the most miserable places on the internet I go to semi-regularly and I don't understand how Steam just gets a pass for the stuff that's normal there.

[–] doublah@sopuli.xyz 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Steam discussions can be moderated in any way a developer/publisher wants though? Their choice to not do so is weird to blame Valve for.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (2 children)

So devs not only have to give Steam 30% percent of every sale, but they also have to provide the additional labour of keeping hate speech off the platform in perpetuity.

If Valve doesn't want to do moderation, they shouldn't have got into the social media business. It's their platform and they're ultimately responsible for it.

[–] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

they also have to provide the additional labour of keeping hate speech off the platform in perpetuity.

The developers can choose to lock down and effectively disable discussions entirely if they want.

Steam simply provides devs a service, easy access to host a forum for their game w/o having to manage that separately. Using it is completely optional.

[–] doublah@sopuli.xyz 0 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Social media is an apt comparison, as Steam is at the size where human moderation isn't really viable so they'd have to use AI like everyone else in that space.

And I'd rather a few anti-woke weirdos shout into the void than have to type "unalive" in the Steam forums.

Not to mention if Valve moderated every game developers would complain about Valve stepping on their toes and moderating their forum in a way they dislike.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 4 points 14 hours ago

Some dev theoretically might not like a mod decision Valve theoretically makes, so the only logical solution is to expect every single dev that publishes on the platform to commit to moderating Valve's game-specific forums forever.

Yes, good moderation is expensive. Externalising that cost onto devs is, frankly, exploitative. Also, "a few anti-woke weirdos" is a massive understatement. The modern reactionary movement is heavily tied to gaming and Steam plays a major role in that.