I'm not surprised this is getting investigated, those guys are the worst creeps, especially how they get kids involved.
The DHS has no responsibility to investigate what is most likely an edgy 14 year old saying edgy things in a game. The only thing that will come from this is, indeed people say mean things on the internet, therefore total censorship is the only answer. They will find a few real cases. Things like you pointed out. These will be use for a typical on-brand message about how widespread the phenomenon is. No one wants extremists in their country and all they will have to say is something like "first person shooters are a hot bed for white nationalists" and suddenly we are back to 1991 when we thought that first person shooters caused people to become violent killers. History repeating itself.
This is basically a solution looking for a problem. The particular flavor of radicalization "white nationalism" or whatever is being spammed in the media ahead of an election because it's the current party's boogeyman. It's scary, it sells ad space, and it drives campaign speeches. I'm inclined to believe that the population of these alleged "white nationalists" is a lot smaller. At least until they arbitrarily extend the definition.
I suspect the actual problem is rising inflation, lack of housing, lack of income to afford anything, and the 1000 mile wide chasm between the incomes of congress and the average citizen that are leading to the majority of radicalization. However, this will never be discussed because it implies the government is the problem. When the investigators investigate themselves they always find nothing wrong.
Arbitrary extension of definitions is a big part of it. For instance the way the definition of violence has been extended to include silence. This is particularly chilling since "silence is violence" is a flagrant reformulation of "If you're not with us, you're against us." They also like to talk about hateful statements of opinion being violence too, under theory that hateful remarks cause stochastic terrorism. But by the same standard, "silence is violence" is a call to arms against people who are simply trying to live their lives peacefully and not get swept up in a political movement. If being silent is a form of violence, that suggests a justification of violent "self defense" against those who are merely keeping to themselves. Redefining violence is an implicit modification to the rules of engagement.
It's a simple call to civility. Is that so hard to answer?
I'm not convinced that most of this is anything but the current generation's version of Belsen Was a Gas.
Not saying you're wrong but your experiences don't match my own. I'm open to having my mind changed but the idea of some conspiracy to influence kids by screaming naziisms at them at the end of video game matches just seems... hilariously ineffective.
It sounds stupid as hell because it is, but it's all part of a tactic of normalization. That's all they're after here.
Too bad some people stay mentally this age for most of their lives.
The real issue is that these 12 year olds hold this mentality into their entire adult life.
Many women for instance I know pretend to be men in these online games. Often the only people screaming and utilizing voice online seem to be of a specific demographic.
You can go after the bad apples and hope things will change but racism and all sorts of hate based ideologies are constantly touted by what I presume individuals with a lot of idle time.
I also see lots of talks of depression and mental health issues in the chats. I rather that they just remove the online chat feature and custom banners. Remove voice chat especially.
Really miss the days before voice chat because now its the equivalent of giving a village idiot a megaphone.
The people who are abusive in voice chat know exactly how to be abusive to avoid getting caught / identified.
In one game I play, there are several phases of the game when it is both impossible to mute anyone and you cannot see who is talking.
Guess when people spew racist stuff or otherwise scream into their mics?
It's a minority, and they never have anything useful to say - but it causes a lot of people to shut off voice chat entirely because it's so exhausting/jarring to an otherwise good time. And as a result, you don't get to meet the people who are friendly and good natured.
Essentially, by letting them run wild, we're allowing them to dominate the platform. Kick their asses.
So the option is learn how to deal with trolls or remove voice chat completely from games to protect the delicate sensibilities of players? I guess that's up to the company. I had no problem with this prior to company's controlling the servers for extra MRR. Don't like a server? Leave. Unless the entire game is filled with nazi LARPers you'll probably find a place more amicable to your delicate sensibilities. For me, I've had no problem blocking particular trolls and in particularly infested servers I can find a new one that's better for me. It's like the world has forgotten "don't feed the trolls". I'm willing to wager 99.9% of these people are just doing it to get a rise out of someone because honestly. People are so sensitive these days it's made it incredibly easy to say something and get a rise out of literally anyone.
DHS doesn’t need to be involved but the answer shouldn’t be people who don’t want to be abused are the ones who have limits on what features they can use.