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Since online A bullying campaign known as Gamergate. As some sectors of the gaming world harassed female journalists with threats of rape, bombing and death, it is believed that gaming culture is an extreme problem. However, the details of this relationship are clear. How widespread is the problem? How do extremes use games? And, of course, a morbid curiosity: what games do extremes play?
New research published by the publisher Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), an anti-extremist think tank, tries to answer these questions. ISD has researched several far-right gaming platforms by researching far-right online strategies act in the face of extreme activity—Starting from abusive streams of abuse and opening up support for neo-Nazi terrorism.
ISD researched four platforms: Steam, Discord, DLive and Twitch. It surveyed 24 Discord right-wing chat servers, including 45 public groups associated with Steam’s far-right, 100 far-right channels on DLive, and 91 channels and 73 videos on Twitch. These spaces were publicly accessible and the ISD did not look at closed channels, such as groups that required private chats or passwords. The authors believe that there would be more coordinated radical groups.
The rooting of these communities changed across different platforms. Of the four, Steam is that has it the most serious problem. The ISD found an “extensive, well-established network” of far-right communities, some as of 2016. “The content we found on Discord and Steam was more noticeable than what you would easily find on major social networks. Platforms, but they will be found on a smaller scale than expected on high-tech platforms such as Gab and Telegram,” explains Jacob Davey of ISD’s far-right and hate movements. research and policy makers. “I think Steam is particularly noteworthy, as its community has been around for several years, suggesting that the far right is well rooted in the platform.”
The investigation found two Steam groups linked to violent terrorist organizations: one linked to the Nordic Resistance Movement, the bombings in Gothenburg in 2016 and 2017, and the other to the Misanthropic Division, a Russian group active in Ukraine, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The extreme use of the platform varies. Some, such as groups associated with political movements such as Generation Identity or Britain First, were not found to publish content about the players; instead, they used Steam as a social media platform to attract newly recruited propaganda. Others, including podcasts and forums related to neo-Nazis, were created to form gaming clans.
“[Steam] Basically, it acts as a community site for people who are members of the far right in a relatively safe place to meet, socialize, communicate, have fun with friends, but also a far-right ideology and some of these points are then used to go to extremist organizations or other social media pages. , says Davey.
ISD found that in general, extremes do not play extreme games. This is mainly because these games are awesome. Users, for example, can show association around the game Feminazi: The Triggering, is largely merely an honorary distinction. “[Games like] Angry Boy 2 or Ethnic Cleansing“No one plays them, they’re barely available,” says Pierre Vaux, director of research at ISD. “They’re raw 16-bit titles that look awful, poorly designed, and probably full of viruses – no one wants to download them.”
ISD warned, however, that extremists enjoy historical games, for example Hearts of Iron, Europa Universalis, and The Crusaders. In these games, the extremists live out their fantasies: conquering the world like Hitler, for example, or destroying Muslims in the Middle East.
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