Steam censors LGBTQ+ content on behalf of the Russian Government | Hacker News Reader

Steam censors LGBTQ+ content on behalf of the Russian Government

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59 pointsHelloUsername54 comments

Germany banned Wolfenstein 3D for 30 years because of little icons on flags that reminded them all of that time the whole of Germany was on vacation from 1935-1945.

For all of you who played Wolfenstein 3D in your youth in Germany, here is an update: It is now completely legal since 2019.

Why is Steam even operating in Russia? Isn’t Russia under sanction so rest of the world doesn’t do business there?

Only for very particular and strategic industries

It's video games, not strategic resources. The more video games you pump into Russian teenagers, the less fit for war they'll become. Give them lots of mountain dew and doritos too.

Digital sanctions are long overdue.

They would be necessary just because of the amount of malicious traffic and abuse coming from Russia without any proper recourse. Why should we accept their traffic and play nice if Russia really doesn't.

Human rights are very expensive in russia.

Have you ever been in russia?

Yes, also in Guantanamo Bay, very expensive! And in Abu Ghraib, very very expensive! And these mean "drug transport boats" in the Caribbean, very very expensive to just kill them without charge or trial.

Argument in support: the venn diagram of Steam users and VPN users in Russia approaches a circle, so for the vast majority of Steam users in Russia this is a non-event and for the rest it's a nudge in the right direction.

Assuming that it works based on IP location, not account. I sadly cannot RTFA.

why usually many people trying to defend Russian Government on hacker news? I'm I missing something?

Idk, they are sadly using the same tools Western democracies have been using recently. One cannot throw a stone from a crystal palace.

Russian propaganda is a shockingly large and pervasive component of essentially all online Western media.

Also just generally Americans voted for a Russian sympathiser to install a fascist government so... yeah I'm not surprised in the least

Bit weird he's even applying secondary sanctions to Russian oil so India and China stop buying it, then.

He also copy / pasted Russia's "peace plan" proposition.

And anti-Russian propaganda isn't? We're in the middle of an information war.

I have read all comments (there are not that many as of now) and I have not seen a single one defending the Russian government.

There are many comments comparing this censorship to the censorship that other countries are famous for having applied for a long time, and therefore it seems to me that those comments are decrying all kinds of censorship. This is only an issue for those who think censorship is good when it is applied to things they don’t like.

I think he is mentioning my comment and another one mainly, I personally decry all kinds of censorship, not only the Russian one. Its just one just cannot be taken seriously when defending "hate speech laws" is ok when they protect things I agree with (lgbt rights), but then decry the same thing done with things I dont agree with (lgbt rghts). The main counterargument is the kind of claiming hate speech defend "human rights" as some kind of universal moral good and "protecting vulnerable groups" but these laws dont seem to do any of those, they cynically cloak themselve in such purposes but eventually are used for nefarious purposes and to increase state overreach (see the infamous PATRIOT act).

What would the U.S. do if China builds military infrastructure in Canada (in cooperation with Canada), so that China could destroy major cities and U.S. military infrastructure within seconds? The U.S. would argue that this constitutes an existential threat to the homeland security of the United States. This is a valid argument, but why does this not apply equally to Russia? Isn't it an existential threat to Russia if NATO builds military infrastructure in Ukraine or Georgia? Yes, Russia communicated this clearly since at least 2008 at the Munich Security Conference. The West/NATO didn't listen and here we are...

Except for the fact that none of the above was actually happening in Ukraine. Can you even name the specific military infrastructure in Ukraine you are talking about?

Russia has tried to do that many times over the years..

Remember when Russia agreed[0] to defend Ukraine if they gave up their nuclear weapons?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

Can you quote some of those alleged comments defending the Russian state?

*in Russia

For other examples of censorship: try playing "sleeping dogs" in Germany.

Amazing that we can propagandise people for decades to accept cultural relativism and then expect people to get upset over this.

A videogame had content removed because it doesn't respect a country's laws or mores. The principle is identical everywhere, only the ideological target changes. As an example Germany banned Command & Conquer: Generals in the early 2000s for depicting Iraq warfare during a politically sensitive moment. The EU bans "hate speech" games. China bans games "smearing China's image." Russia bans "extremism". It's the same state backed censorship mechanism, it is only when it is politically beneficial or when it becomes expedient (such as other nations who we treat as the enemy) it is deemed unacceptable.

The rubber law problem is the issue in all these cases: hate speech, extremism or whatever has no fixed definition. It expands when politically convenient, contracts when pressure shifts. Germany 2003: realistic warfare = too political, banned. Germany 2025: same content = acceptable. Russia's "extremism" law stretches to cover LGBTQ+ content, then anti-war speech, then opposition. The principle doesnt change. This article is not a libertarian "lets defend free speech" as much as a Western-centric activist publication.

You cannot logically claim "Russia's censorship is authoritarian oppression" while defending EU (or funnier, the UK authoritarian) hate speech laws as "democratic protection". Both are state-backed content suppression justified through protective rhetoric. The mechanism is identical. If censorship is legitimate when your preferred values are protected, you've simply chosen your censor, you haven't defended free speech.

>You cannot logically claim "Russia's censorship is authoritarian oppression" while defending EU (or funnier, the UK authoritarian) hate speech laws as "democratic protection".

No, I can. One is a repressive, anti-human law designed to push queer people out of society, while another, at least in spirit, prevents incitement of violence against those vulnerable people. They are not the same and the values are not identical. Good and bad things are different.

You claim EU hate speech laws protect vulnerable groups. But 96% of Jewish respondents in Europe experienced antisemitism in 2024 despite decades of anti-negationism and hate speech laws . Antisemitic content online increased thirteen-fold in German during the pandemic, the laws don't work and the censorship of the information just makes it more attractive. Yet these laws remain, which means they're not actually about protection but as control.

Look at how they're actually used. France criminalized calling for BDS, claiming to protect Jews. Lithuania banned advocating for same-sex partnerships under a law claiming to "protect minors". Patriot act was about "protecting". Same protective language. Different targets. The "vulnerable people" you claim to protect become the prosecuted.

Germany proves it even more, a 74-year-old woman was fined thousands of euros for criticizing Germany's immigration policies on Facebook. Germany's authorities prosecute individuals for online speech, with 17,007 hate crimes recorded in 2023, a significant increase from 8,585 in 2019, and most of them are about political disagreements not true hate. There is a whole NGO-state industry whose work is just to stop "misinformation" which just means non-state approved information. The government claims the NetzDG law protects vulnerable immigrants. Instead, it criminalized criticism of immigration policy. Once you grant the state power to define "harm," it becomes a tool against disfavored politics, not protection. And these same tools will be used by the opposite side another day, just like Trump is doing to protect the Jewish Zionists but instead it is to censor universities and immigrants.

Parent is clear about their point, which is that the two laws have opposite intent, regardless of corruption or abuse like you're focused on.

Laws not being effective as written, not being enforced well, or even being used as weapons are all important, relevant problems that are core to the reality of governing people.

I think this is worth talking about but I don't think this is a refutation of the parent or a valid "both sides" argument.

You are missing that the intent is to censor the scope of acceptable discourse, the justification given can have different paths (protect, kids, protect migrants, protect trans people) but the intent itself is the same. The laws are effective and their objective is to censor speech and behaviour, the fact you agree with the censored speech doesnt take that the state deems some speech deserving to be censored. The issue is that democracies go in a oscillatory manner and the speech you deem bad will some day became part of the institutions, and then they will have the same power to censor what before was allowed.

That's why I said "at least in spirit". Sadly it's true that these laws can, and are misused. But if the spirit of the laws was followed in full - an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society, while an anti-gay law would never be beneficial, that's the difference.

> But if the spirit of the laws was followed in full - an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society

This is magical thinking. Giving the state power over speech is a bad idea in reality. Put functional hate speech laws into that same category as Star Trek post-scarcity and transporters: things that might sound neat, but are currently impossible and have no path towards becoming possible.

>an anti-hate speech law would be beneficial for society

Reading this on Hacker News of all places makes me sick. "Hate" is not illegal and who even defines what is "hate"? Do you also support Chat Control because "it's a good law in spirit"? That's the definition of a "useful idiot".

>"Hate" is not illegal

It is under anti-hate laws. That's the point of the laws.

>Do you also support Chat Control because "it's a good law in spirit"?

I don't support chat control because I don't think the ability of the state to monitor private conversations is good in spirit. However, prosecuting people who spread hatred in public spaces and media is beneficial - this has nothing to do with chat control.

Anti-hate laws are a veiled attack on free speech. If you accept the premise of hate being quantifiable to raid people's homes for sharing their opinion online you're arguing in favor of oligarch-led public partnerships between surveillance capitalism and an authoritarian state.

Anti hate laws are a curb on the genocidal origins of our species. It is atrocious and causes a lot of suffering.

The issue lies with the fact the word "hate" is too vague. If a minority calls someone from the majority "a dirty white pig" it is not considered hate in France, if someone from the majority calls "a dirty brown pig" there is more grounds. This creates an assymetry where depending on your position in society the same action can be considered hate or not. A trans person can be hateful towards hetero-normative people and get away with it, not the other way around according to the law. Both are the same action, same spirit, same "hate" only 1 is truly protected. In this case victims are not being protected by the law and the same hate-speech laws creates an inverted hierarchy dynamic. Another funny fact is due to the anti-hate speech spirit of people like you they keep increasing in scope and purpose, and that feature (not a bug) makes it so eventually ideas you agree with will become forbidden under the banner of 'protection' and only countries who have extreme protections like the US can keep true freedom of speech.

You conflate that one case with all the other thousands as if they are all like hers when you have no evidence of that. They crimes reported increase could also be bc of the rise of militant far right hate groups and certain social media platforms actively pushing their message by tweaking their algorithms..

Ok you have to defend your claim, not only fatal "far right" attacks have decreased in Europe since 2008 but the count is inflated by new laws that count hate speech and online offenses as "far right". Another issue is countries like Germany treat all "anti-semitism" attacks as far right, independent of the origin of the perpetrator. Thus a a Muslim spitting on a Jewish person is treated as far right when an Islamist attack is not counted as such.

Once a certain political spectrum accepted the lie of speech being equal to violence it was predictable that this argument would be raised. Since you brought up UK censorship laws: People are getting visits by cops because they posted online that Israel is committing a genocide. This kind of speech is anti-violence at its core and you're still targeted by the state.

Notice Apple and Google did not comply. Steam DID comply. Shame on Valve contributing to the murder of gay men and women in Russia.

Apple and Google did comply. Apple for example is removing VPN apps from App Store at the request or the Russian government.

This is obviously false. Companies do not become criminal enterprises to provide services.

Either they obey the laws or they leave the country. The idea of Google or Apple operating as a black market tech company in Russia is preposterous.

Not being able to play a game is contributing to murder how exactly?

iirc Steam also removed a Hong Kong game at the behest of the CCP. Which sucks. But as far as game companies go, there are worse.

Really it just makes yet another data point of "If buying means you still are not allowed to access, then pirating is not stealing."

Owning something on someone else's moods as terms is not ownership.

Imagine if Steam was providing food as a service: "Access to honey is no longer allowed in your country."

How could we hope to solve the alignment issue in AI when we're so terribly bad at it as a society?

Eh, if you’re going to outrage-farm over Steam, them following local laws isn’t it. One might instead ask the question why they still operate in Russia in the first place, but that, too, is more of an indictment of the West’s limp-dick economic sanctions. It seems we prefer to stoke the fire and profiteer with military aid. I bet Steam doesn’t censor games in Iran, though.

Alternative title: "Steam obeys the laws of countries it operates in"

>> content moderation policy - which allows “everything” on its store that isn’t defined as “trolling” or “illegal” - is a gift to autocrats who have weaponised the law to achieve their ends.

Well it is illegal as per Russian government.

>> But it won’t block blatantly Russian-backed disinformation games like Squad 22: ZOV, unless a country has passed laws to ban specific propaganda (e.g. two German states banning ‘Z’ as a hate symbol).

Well yes since it's not illegal.

Also: who defines what is disinformation? The author obviously! We can trust him for sure!

>> Time for regulatory action?: As it stands, Steam’s content moderation policies actively strengthen censorship bodies like Roskomnadzor at the expense of its players, its developers, and democracy at large. And with the platform consistently showing that it can’t (and frankly doesn’t want to) get its house in order, it is time for digital content regulators and policy makers to finally bring the Wild West of the global games industry under regulatory control.

Really ironic, since it was the woke people that forced deplatforming of everyone who was not on their woke side and demanded they be banned from work and online platforms.

We all know what woke dictatorial people like the author really want: complete control over store policies under the guise "we are the good guys, and we know what must be banned and what not, so listen to us!".

And it all happens in the Russian part of Steam, so... so what? Steam also IIRC censors such things for UAE, and e.g. swastikas in WW2 games for Germany (or was it Australia?) which is... fine?

Steam also blocks perfectly legal games from their platform based on vague rules; famously they blocked VNs that had no adult content whatsoever using same rules as they use for adult content.

at this point of the comment I wanted to google article on the VN it was about but it turned out they did it again, this time with horror game

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/horror/after-2-years-and-us...

> Really ironic, since it was the woke people that forced deplatforming of everyone who was not on their woke side and demanded they be banned from work and online platforms.

And everyone should've just said "no, fuck you" back then, as they should now but the issue here is not even related to that problem.

If country deems something illegal, the store can't sell it. Valve is not arbitrator of the law and as long as they limit enforcement of russian law to russian store, all is fine.

If you want to be angry about something Valve does, be angry about them still operating in russia in the first place.

Adult content distribution is always under pressure of credit card companies and banks.

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