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Is there a crisis of Holocaust revisionism in video games? ADL certainly thinks so and publicly calls out Fortnite along with Call of Duty for being insufficiently tough on their gamers. While I generally speaking have a low opinion of mass-market video games, I'm surprised how politicised games are these days. When I was young, there was total freedom to name yourself whatever and say anything you wanted. I want kids' innocent hobbies to remain that way, without getting the ADL-sponsored Holocaust triggers and censorships baked into games. Is that too much to ask?
It reminds me of the brouhaha over transexuals in the latest Harry Potter game. JK Rowling's stance is well-known but the devs couldn't resist smacking gamers over the head with pro-trans content. If Holocaust denial is a concern, will we soon see Anne Frank adventure games for kids to play (whether they want it or not)?
Based on their report card, they seem to want the following.
Explicitly don't allow anyone to deny genocides (they mention Youtube's policy as an example, which is not centered on the Holocaust)
Have faster responses on flagged content (tweet, video, etc.)
Inform the user why they were banned w.r.t genocide denial.
Respond to even non-trusted flaggers faster and more often.
I'm tempted to say that this isn't necessarily new, most explicit anti-Semitism falls under existing enforcement against bad behavior anyways. I 100% support those rules, I don't care if someone calls another person a kike or a nigger, you get the boot to your face regardless.
But the ADL is, unsurprisingly, trying to wall off any discussion of the Holocaust or genocides altogether, unless you're explicitly condemning people who question the official narrative. I have no new comments to say, this argument between freedom of speech and creating safer online platforms/communities has been hashed out and litigated so often that it's just boring.
If anything, the ADL has no idea just how expensive moderation is. They're certainly not offering money to get it done, just demanding it so. There's a reason algorithms are used, and one of them is that paying humans to moderate your stuff is slow and expensive compared to algorithms that sift through data.
You're sure? If denial of any genocide is against the rules, a lot of accounts with names like NaggerStomper1488 are going to make sure people are aware that saying White Genocide isn't happening is a banworthy offence.
I support the rules against the use of slurs as insults directed at people, yes. It's certainly possible for the context to vindicate an accusation of bigotry (maybe people really are on the mention side of the use-mention distinction), but people can, if they act in good-faith, distinguish between the two.
As for the point about genocide, it's probably not going to happen the way you think. Progressives aren't rules-lawyer bots, and they can correctly determine that in almost every case, the person making a White Genocide argument is not some philosopher making a point about the meaning of those words, but an anti-progressive at the least and outright racist at worse. Both of those tend to have similar rhetoric on this topic.
It's a video game chat, not themotte, and the quality and motivations likewise differ in predictable ways.
I don't actually think this is true. Outside of the Motte and 4chan most of my internet posting is harassment and trolling, and only the most nakedly obvious and unsubtle trolls get identified or pointed out. If you decide to troll by being obnoxiously left-wing/woke then you can get away with murder most of the time.
That said I think I misunderstood your post - when you said "I 100% support those rules", did you mean the rules proposed by the ADL or "existing enforcement against bad behavior anyways"?
The existing rules.
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