In the aftermath of the shocking shooting of former US President Donald Trump, a disturbing new trend emerged on the popular gaming platform Fortnite. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) uncovered a troubling array of games that promote antisemitism, political violence, and other forms of hate. Despite Fortnite's policies prohibiting such content, these games remained accessible to millions of users, raising serious concerns about the platform's ability to effectively moderate its user-generated content.
Uncovering the Hate: Fortnite's Troubling Underbelly
Hateful Games Slip Through the Cracks
The GPAHE's investigation revealed a concerning number of games on Fortnite's platform that glorify violence, promote extremist ideologies, and even recreate historical sites of atrocity. One game, for example, allowed players to take on the role of the Ustaša, a Croatian nationalist group responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of Jews, Romani, and Serbs during World War II. Another game, called "Trump vs Biden," pitted players against each other in a virtual battle between the two US political parties, with the winning team determined by the number of opponents killed.These games, which were built using Fortnite's Creative mode, managed to evade the platform's moderation efforts, potentially reaching a vast audience of players. Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, acknowledged the removal of two games that violated their policies, but the fact that such content was able to proliferate in the first place raises serious questions about the effectiveness of their content moderation strategies.
The Blurred Lines of Moderation
Moderating the content on a platform as vast and user-driven as Fortnite is undoubtedly a complex challenge. Mariana Olaizola Rosenblat, a policy adviser on technology and law at the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University, points out the difficulty in distinguishing between fiction and reality in the context of gaming."In the case of gaming, it's hard, because you're not talking about the real world, necessarily," Rosenblat explains. "Players can always say 'We're doing a historical account of what happened, and this is our belief of what happened' or 'We're just playing around with a counterfactual, and we don't mean that in reality.'"This blurred line between fantasy and reality can make it challenging for platforms like Fortnite to determine where to draw the line when it comes to content moderation. The company's spokesperson, Alan Cooper, acknowledges this challenge, stating that Epic Games' moderation team is instructed to "assume good intent on behalf of the creators if they're unsure about a content violation" in an effort to avoid over-censorship.
The Dangers of Normalization
However, the presence of these hateful games on Fortnite, even if they are a small fraction of the platform's vast content, poses a significant risk. Garrison Wells, a researcher at UC Irvine who studies digital games and extremism, warns that extremists are more likely to gravitate toward games where users can create their own content and environments, which then become hostile to players who might not be comfortable with hateful speech or content."The trend that we see is that players who are targeted more often are leaving these spaces," Wells says. "So it's leaving anyone who's less inclined to report or less offended or just numb to that sort of rhetoric to continue in the games."This normalization of hate and violence within gaming communities can have far-reaching consequences, especially for young and impressionable players. Rosenblat emphasizes the danger, stating that "a lot of gamers are children, very young children, impressionable children. Over time, they may just consider these narratives normal."
The Responsibility of Platform Owners
While the challenges of content moderation in the gaming industry are well-documented, the GPAHE's findings raise questions about the priorities and incentives of platform owners like Epic Games. Wendy Via, the CEO and president of the GPAHE, suggests that the company's reluctance to remove certain games may be driven by financial considerations."Whatever amount of money these games are bringing in, [Epic] doesn't need," says Via. "What is the incentive to keep them up other than just not wanting to have to deal with it, not wanting to have to make a political statement of some sort?"The gaming industry's struggle to keep hateful groups and content off their platforms is not a new phenomenon. In 2022, US Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire sent a letter to Valve Corporation, the company behind the popular gaming platform Steam, after reports of neo-Nazi content flourishing on the service's community spaces.As the gaming industry continues to grapple with these challenges, the onus is on platform owners to prioritize the safety and well-being of their users, particularly the vulnerable and impressionable. The normalization of hate and violence within gaming communities must be addressed head-on, with a renewed commitment to effective content moderation and a clear stance against the proliferation of extremist ideologies.
