Steam, Discord, Twitch, Reddit to testify before Congress over 'radicalization'

https://www.polygon.com/steam-discord-twitch-reddit-congress-politics/

by sva_ • 10 months ago

39 29 10 months ago

lyu072823• 10 months ago

https://oversight.house.gov/release/chairman-comer-invites-c...

For Context: They plan legislation to censor content creators critical of the regime or Israel, some of those content creators have larger audiences than legacy media (with younger people). Its a bi-partisan issue [1], so likely something is gonna happen and its not looking good.

[1] For instance Ritchie Torres (democrat) called for the ban of hasan due to his pro-Palestine politics: https://ritchietorres.house.gov/congressman-ritchie-torres-w...

amanaplanacanal• 10 months ago

I know these folks swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, but I wonder now if they have even read it.

Perhaps DHS should pull the agents back that they sent over to ICE so that they can go back to working on domestic terrorism again. Sound like a major fuck up on the administration's part.

bigyabai• 10 months ago

The precedent for respecting your first-amendment rights WRT Israel is not good: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws

It would seem we're too late to outweigh the impact of AIPAC...

lyu072823• 10 months ago

Especially now that they target left creators supposedly because of the dangers of left-wing extremism, when in reality the vast majority of political violence comes from the right. Like in a study by the Doj that the regime just removed today from their website:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/17/justice-depa...

add-sub-mul-div• 10 months ago

The 2017 white supremacist rally Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Virginia was planned through Discord, and the platform was used by far-right mass shooters in the 2022 Buffalo shooting and the Highland Park Parade shooting.

With Discord they really need to understand the difference between server level and platform level. A non-private tweet or Reddit post can be casually seen or shared by anyone on the platform, or even not on the platform. But I've been on Discord for a long time and I've never seen this extremism because I haven't gone out of my way to join servers where it's the culture.

craftkiller2• 10 months ago

What is the difference between a discord "server" and a subreddit? Aside from the handful of front-page subreddits, you actually have to explicitly decide to view that subreddit to see its content. I think the only difference is for discord you need to have a discord account to view the content.

ronsor• 10 months ago

You can join most subreddits just by knowing the name. You can't join most Discord servers without an invite; they aren't public.

Fairburn• 10 months ago

The stupid just doesnt stop. A little McCarthyism here, a little there.

bhhaskin• 10 months ago

The government is going to make a play for the Internet. It might not be today or tomorrow, but it will happen. They want to be able to control everything you say, see and do; especially who with.

ncgl• 10 months ago

I no longer succumb to the emotional response opinions or claims like this try to evoke.

Don't we all remember how worked up we were over the russia collusion story, and the special prosecutor Robert muller...and nothing came of it...and we all forgot about it.

I genuinely feel that the constant exposure to a media that fights for your outrage is the single most dividing factor in our country. It's not a president, its not a Charlie Kirk, its not a Nancy Pelosi. Its a news channel that blasts the worst extreme of an interpretation of a quote into a dedicated story, day in and day out.

We no longer have conversations, in person or online, that don't include a whatsaboutism for every single thing.

What about Charlie kirks assassin, what about the January riots, what about blm riots, what about trumps assassination attempts, what about Nancy Pelosis husband, what about ....

Question the media you consume. Really consider the quality of information you're digesting or if its just a play for an emotional reaction.

Braxton19802• 10 months ago

Don't we all remember how worked up we were over the russia collusion story, and the special prosecutor Robert muller...and nothing came of it...and we all forgot about it.

There was a full report and people were convicted of crimes related to the investigation.

Why did you say nothing became of it?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report

Braxton19802• 10 months ago

It's not a president,

Trump has a massive number of followers and constantly posts inflammatory comments on the current political situation.

Karrot_Kream• 10 months ago

The 2017 white supremacist rally Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Virginia was planned through Discord, and the platform was used by far-right mass shooters in the 2022 Buffalo shooting and the Highland Park Parade shooting.

It's just free association untethered from the costs of physically finding your associates. During the 2020 BLM protests I found myself in a large Telegram groupchat of protest organizers. The organizers could have done the same thing in a person's house or a community center but it's cheaper and easier to do this in a groupchat.

I don't know what anyone can do about it without breaking US Constitutional freedoms or the SCOTUS narrowing the freedoms when applied to digital media (which I think would be a dangerous precedent.) It seems like the physical constraints of association used to have a pretty big hand in shaping 'radical' culture in the past.

estimator7292• 10 months ago

I am very explicitly not taking a stance either side, but: it's hard to argue that social media and the echo chambers it inevitably creates are extremely dangerous and make individuals much more susceptible to 'radicalization'. This is something we've been talking about and worrying over for years.

These echo chambers can easily motivate people into violence who otherwise wouldn't. The cheapness and ease of forming mass groups to organize such events is also a huge problem. If it weren't so easy to build a group online and you had to do it in person, how many fewer of these groups would form?

How good or bad it is kind of depends on your perspective. For the current government, activists planning protests and organizing to push for government reform or equality or whatever issue, this is an extremely bad and dangerous thing. For a plurality of citizens it's an extremely good and necessary thing. The same applies to hate groups planning mass shootings or whatever. They think it's just and necessary work and some parts of our government would be thrilled to encourage it.

Either way, the current authoritarian regime has a vested interest in shutting down this and other types of free expression and speech and association. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen. Turns out that human psychology and society are quite complicated and messy.

Nasrudith2• 10 months ago

That is frankly an entirely wrongheaded approach to speech, in seeing the reach of speech and ability as a problem. When the entire point of speech is to reach people and influence them. That is exactly what speech is supposed to do. It isn't a good thing to 'moderate' the reach of speech. It is supposed to allow organization of mass groups. Trying to divide it into good and bad speech makes even less sense than trying to define good and bad gravity.

Control of speech is the One Ring, that governments are always tempted towards, always rationalizing it as the solution to all of their problems, and under no circumstances should be allowed to possess. Of course it is bad in an authoritarian regime! Messy and complicated does not override the overwhelming evidence, it does not in fact remain to be seen.

lm284692• 10 months ago

I don't know what anyone can do about it without breaking US Constitutional freedoms

Well that's the thing, these apps can ban whoever they want they're not run by the government. The government cannot force them by law but I'm sure they can be very persuasive, especially given how many bootlickers execs there are

ChocolateGod3• 10 months ago

If these apps have content that is inciting crime (e.g. on both Reddit and Twitch over the last couple weeks I have seen people promoting violence such as killing JK Rowling) then I think the government can force them to act.

smileybarry• 10 months ago

Twitter -- sorry, "X, the Everything App" -- is suspiciously missing from the list. I wonder what could possibly be the reason.

firesteelrain2• 10 months ago

It was known for radicalization before it was bought by Musk. Now, those forces and many others no longer take X seriously

JumpinJack_Cash• 10 months ago

Given the fact that these are mostly show grilling for publicity (and it negatively affects the company) wouldn't just make sense for the board to reccomend the CEO not to show up?

Contempt of congress is like a 3 month sentence some 2-3 years into the future. Who knows who the CEO is gonna be by then and if it's still the same person it could be seen as an opportuinity to pass the baton or put a temporary CEO in place instead.

Even the CEOs themselves could think about it, 3 months sentence in 2027 maybe better than 3 hours grilling sitting there having to take it without any chance to answer back when attacked

Nasrudith2• 10 months ago

Really this is entirely backwards. Congress should be testifying to us over Steam, Discord, Twitch, and Reddit about their role in promoting radicalization. Not this hypocritical grandstanding.

Steam, Discord, Twitch, Reddit to testify before Congress over 'radicalization'

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