Congress Asks Valve, Discord, and Twitch To Testify On 'Radicalization' (polygon.com)
- Reference: 0179329144
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/09/17/1941240/congress-asks-valve-discord-and-twitch-to-testify-on-radicalization
- Source link: https://www.polygon.com/steam-discord-twitch-reddit-congress-politics/
> The CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit have been called to Congress to [1]testify about the "radicalization of online forum users" on those platforms , the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee [2]announced Wednesday. "Congress has a duty to oversee the online platforms that radicals have used to advance political violence," said chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, in a statement. "To prevent future radicalization and violence, the CEOs of Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit must appear before the Oversight Committee and explain what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purposes."
>
> Letters from the House Oversight Committee have been sent to Humam Sakhnini, CEO of Discord; Gabe Newell, president of Steam maker Valve; Dan Clancy, CEO of Twitch; and Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit, requesting their testimony on Oct. 8. "The hearing will examine radicalization of online forum users, including incidents of open incitement to commit violent politically motivated acts," Comer said in a letter to each CEO. [...] Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Reddit execs will have the chance to deliver five-minute opening statements prior to answering questions posed by members of the committee during October's testimony.
[1] https://www.polygon.com/steam-discord-twitch-reddit-congress-politics/
[2] https://oversight.house.gov/release/chairman-comer-invites-ceos-of-discord-steam-twitch-and-reddit-to-testify-on-radicalization-of-online-forum-users/
Not going to work (Score:2)
This is not a problem that can be solved like that. People will find echo chambers wherever they are.
It's like gun violence in the US. You can't fix that with laws or rules. Even if guns were made 100% illegal across the board there are too many and the culture too great to make that go away, it won't ever go away as long as democracy exists (and there is some question about that right now). The problem needs to be approached from a different direction if any progress is to be made.
The core issues need to b
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I don't like that you were modded down. I would like to address your thoughtful response. In my mind the reason that that gun control is not discussed in America, is because of Radical MAGAs who think that gun violence is "Made Up", that people who are killed are "crisis actors". This distorts a whole lot of shit. Simple common sense should dictate that nobody under 21 should have a gun, and I can not make a real case why anybody should have a gun that can commit mass murder, but MAGAs can.
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Something that seems to constantly get lost in this discussion is that violent crime in the US is not particularly high right now by historical standards - e.g. murder:
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
If you were to ask the average "person on the street" to guess the murder rate, it would probably depend hugely on whether a school shooting or racially- or politically-motivated murder was currently a big media story. But that hardly corresponds to your risk as an individual.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_intentional_homicide_rate#/media/File:Timeline_of_U.S._homicide_rate._FBI_and_CDC.png
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> Technology has moved faster than the human mind and society can adapt. It amplifies mental illness and focuses extreme views.
Right. That's why all the cool kids are moving in with a trans roommate and shooting at political influencers. /s
This was an outlier event that even Mr. Kirk himself somewhat ironically pointed out is just the cost of having the second amendment. Every once in awhile, some nut with a gun is going to go postal. Address the mental health, address the guns, or just have your thoughts and prayers and move on.
Re:Not going to work (Score:4, Insightful)
It's nothing like that.
They want to have the narrative that "leftists are violent!!!" because they killed Charlie Kirk. Never mind the other deaths like January 6, George Floyd, etc.
Never mind the fact that when the right spews hate, they claim censorship when platforms start to remove their posts.
The whole point is to say the left needs to be censored and everything. Ever notice how many people are being cancelled because of their less than complimentary comments about Charlie Kirk?
Double standards and all - if it's your speech been censored, then cry free speech. If it's someone you don't like, censor away!
They want Steam, Discord, etc. to start deplatforming all those leftists.
It's gotten so far that some Republicans are trying to back away because they realize that those laws being used to censor "the left" could easily be used to censor them for the exact same reason. The big fun being to see how the Supreme Court will allow the censorship but then twist themselves into knots trying to deny the same rights if a (D) gets to be President.
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> It's gotten so far that some Republicans are trying to back away because they realize that those laws being used to censor "the left" could easily be used to censor them for the exact same reason. The big fun being to see how the Supreme Court will allow the censorship but then twist themselves into knots trying to deny the same rights if a (D) gets to be President.
You think the US is going to keep doing elections?
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I would say to Impeach Trump, but that has been done twice, and the orange one just does not go away. I guess the MAGAs love their Oligarch.
Barking up the wrong tree (Score:2)
If you want to find radicalization, start with AOL users. I'm a member of some gun clubs, all of the weirdo's have AOL email addresses. Then consider looking into the Truth Social Network.
Everybody knows where the pipelines are (Score:5, Insightful)
That are designed to take disaffected young men and convert them into extremists. There's a handful of spaces on Facebook and Twitter, there's a bunch of discord channels and then you've got the chans.
If they're going after valve it's because they're going after video games. They have been wanting to go after video games for years and years and years. There is something about the right wing where they really hate video games. TV and movies too. And they aren't too fond of books.
A big part of it is they want to control your media choices so you don't have any. I don't think they ever really got over the printing press.
And they want you at church. Tithing.
Re:Everybody knows where the pipelines are (Score:4, Interesting)
Dude, nobody is telling young girls that men are evil.
Little girls see the same little boys that you see. The same boys that won't look you in the eye. Don't talk about their feelings. Don't focus on their school work. Pick fights, be rude, roughhouse, disrupt class, etc. Way too fucking online and anti-social. If you're their parent, what are you DOING? You won't put them in Boy Scouts because "it's gAy"? You're part of the problem.
I know you know about those exact issues because you complain about them too, but you blame the school. Now it's the girls. I think maybe you're the problem. Laying those problems at the feet of other well-adjusted kids is just fucking chilling man. Literally everything you said is backwards and wrong just like that one. Young men need help. You can start by helping them instead of blaming everyone else like a lunatic. Everyone wants to complain about the boys, nobody wants to cop to being parents of those same bored, unsocialized, unfit, way too online boys. Build a fucking doghouse with them, take them out for volunteer work, take them dirt biking FFS, and show them how adult men make new friends. The fuck is wrong with you?
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> Everyone wants to complain about the boys, nobody wants to cop to being parents of those same bored, unsocialized, unfit, way too online boys. Build a fucking doghouse with them, take them out for volunteer work, take them dirt biking FFS, and show them how adult men make new friends.
Tyler Robinson's parents seemed to have the whole "make your boy into a man" thing turned up to 11 to the point he fucking snapped. If your adult kid wants to have a trans partner, would it kill you to just accept that they're a different person than you and be happy for them? Maybe they won't feel the need to shoot some political influencer if their parents had accepted them.
Of course, maybe he was just screwed up in the head and nothing could've helped him. Do enough rolls of the genetic dice and you'l
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> That are designed to take disaffected young men and convert them into extremists ...
(...willing to fight and potentially die for their cause.)
The US military hates competition.
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I'm honestly expecting someone to do the political math and back off to avoid offending all the gooners and GamerGate types who's votes they count on. Will definitely be tuning into C-SPAN for this one.
Trump already said it (Score:2)
Vote for me and you'll never have to vote again. Those were his words.
They aren't planning on allowing elections anymore. Maybe they won't pull it off maybe they will.
They just got Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air. They already got Stephen Colbert.
Jimmy Kimmel is responsible for saving the affordable Care act. The Republicans were on the verge of eliminating it during Trump's first term and Kimmel's newborn son needed heart surgery. Kimmel of course could pay for it but he made a heartfelt plea f
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> They just got Jimmy Kimmel pulled off the air.
This is really disturbing. The article I could find came up with the following quotes by Jimmy Kimmel:
> In his Monday night monologue, Kimmel said the "MAGA gang" was trying to score political points off Kirk's killing.
[1]And showing off some embarrassingly bad painting skills, too. [foxnews.com]
> "The Maga Gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."
[2]That checks out, too. [aljazeera.com]
> "This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a gold fish,"
[3]When asked about Charlie Kirk, Trump responded by talking about his new ballroom. [thedailybeast.com] [4]He's really excited to host some big balls. [youtube.com]
Recently on X, I'd seen some right-wingers doing mental gymnastics to defend their version of cancel culture by saying they get cancelled for speaking facts, while the left is being cancelled for s
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sen-ted-cruz-paints-over-profane-anti-charlie-kirk-graffiti-erasing-evil
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2025/9/13/one-of-us-utah-governors-remark-on-charlie-kirk-suspect-criticised
[3] https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-79-ignores-charlie-kirk-question-to-hype-wh-ballroom/
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WwJ6OVSwkM
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Fuck off you sick peace of shit.
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Sometimes I think the general gist of Republican philosophy is to extract the maximum amount of wealth possible from ordinary people. For men, that means maximally exploiting their labor, even to the detriment of health and safety. For women, that means usurping their reproductive autonomy (to ensure a ready supply of future workers) and subordinating them to their husbands (to redirect man's resentment at being exploited). To them, a young man playing video games is a tragedy because that time could be spe
Elite gaslighting (Score:2)
How do we know that there are radical political postings on these forums? Well, we called a congressional hearing on this, so by definition, there's a problem. If there weren't a problem, we wouldn't have called for the hearing.
The goal is not to establish that there is a problem. The goal is to push the hearings onto the news so that the headlines talk about the problems being discussed at the hearing. This is elite-level gaslighting.
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Or, they could just be going back to the old 1990's playbook of blaming violent video games for school shootings.
I'm sure that that are still a few senators serving that are old and naive enough to think that Doom was the reason that the Columbine shootings happened.
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I didn't understand the term "gaslighting" until I was in my 40's, or so. I was innocent, and did not think it existed. I simply tried to keep myself away from liars and assholes. But, it is a real thing, and people deliberately do it for their own sick reasons. There is an old movie that has a similar name, and I think it should be a "must watch" for people. There are sick and evil people out there. I tried for many years to think that people are basically good, but.....
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The telling part is that they're giving known right-wing cesspools a free pass. Just the other day I saw some old MAGA dude post on X a picture of himself strapped with some big ass gun because he was heading to a Kirk memorial and was just itchin' for some gosh durn libruls to try somethin'.
But that's not inciting violence because it's a good guy with a gun , according to their logic.
Theatre. (Score:2)
Their slavish adherence to toxic individualism means nothing significant will be done. Casting blame is all they've got. Nothing will be done, so they can at least extract some performative political value out of it. Meaningless, but cynically useful.
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I think that Adolph Hitler would disagree that casting blame is useless, and nothing will be done. The self proclaimed MAGAs who declare themselves and are real, are blaming ANTIFA who is a made up group with no leader. Now the MAGAs want to round up Americans who believe in the Constitution of the United States and throw them/us in Jail.
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MAGA, Hitler and ANTIFA in just two sentences. You sir, are an expert at this.
Re:Theatre. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you, I do believe that many years of experience reading history, and a few years of listening to right wing nut jobs like Trump saying "ANTIFA" over and over again qualifies me to give an opinion. I keep on asking MAGA's, asking you to define who is ANTIFA? Where is their headquarters? Who are their leaders? It is just a vague term for people that they hate. The people that MAGAs hate are the people who believe in the Constitution of the United States of America.
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I wouldn't worry about the constitution. It's doing a dead cat bounce. A great many Americans are perfectly happy to see the backside of values that are stereotypically American.
Freedom of speech unless we don't like what you're saying.
Freedom of religion so long as it's Christian.
A thin veil of democracy is permitted so long as we can gerrymander or otherwise circumvent the will of the majority. And voting can go fuck itself if our guy doesn't win.
Due process? Please.
It's all falling apart. And it's going
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Antifa headquarters is where they store all the "woke". It's like those WMDs W. Bush could never find, updated for a new generation.
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[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
As they say, if it shits like a duck.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel
I'm not sure you need the scare quotes ... (Score:2)
... when your acolytes are literally engaging in political shootings.
I mean, that actually is pretty radical, ya know?
Charlie Kirk's killer wasn't radicalized. (Score:4, Insightful)
Killing Charlie Kirk makes you a murderer not a radical. Charlie said some hateful things about a lot of people, and for them it's personal. Fox News and New York Post are happy to report that the alleged shooter is a member of or adjacent to one or more groups we know for a fact Charlie has said some very hateful things about. Do to them what we did in the 1950s, stoning gays is god's perfect law, etc. That's not politics, it's not policy, it's not political theory, it's just hateful. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the possible motives here, and it wasn't disagreement over universal healthcare or college debt or size of government.
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MAGAs take one example, and generalize it to groups of people. To me it is like they can not think, that they almost de-humanize themselves. I am sorry, but in this moment, I am having a hard time to think that MAGAs are "people". They just seem like emotional animals. Perhaps a civil war is possible, and I know I am not on the side of the MAGAs, I am on the side of rational human beings.
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This is the example of a typical MAGA. They call you names, say that you are the "problem", and out of all political deaths in the USA, MAGAs kill 6 of their so called "enemies", to one from the so called "left". The MAGAs are the sick ones, but they live fact free, talk over you, they lie. They think they "own you". That is just bullshit.
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Charlie said some hateful things about a lot of people
Instead of shooting someone, why not go to your safe-room and play with your bubble-wrap /s
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> Instead of shooting someone, why not go to your safe-room and play with your bubble-wrap /s
Well, for a few people, they feel more empowered by taking other people's lives. It's the ultimate sense of control. A sense of power that is enabled by access to firearms without necessary background checks and ongoing certification and training.
Are their campaigns on how to recognize when you aren't able to use a firearm safely because of your emotional state? Mental health resources to call to help you de-escalate and manage your emotions better? Laws that would allow people to report their concerns to a
Yeah he was (Score:3)
You may not like it but yes he was.
The stuff written on his bullets comes from memes from a right-wing extremist group headed by a white supremacist called Nick Fuentes. They are pseudo anti-fascist phrases said ironically and as dog whistles.
I doubt that the kid was fully radicalized though. He was in the pipeline to be radicalized until right-wing extremism. Which is hardly a surprise because his family are Maga
Not that it really matters. You won man. You got your victory. Jimmy Kimmel just got
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What's so completely hypocritical is that just a few months ago, Baby Vance and Elmo Musk were foaming at the mouth about how Europe lacks freedom of expression.
But unless you publicly state that Charlie Kirk crapped nuggets of sunshine and was the most brilliant person on Earth... you now get canceled in the USA.
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> The stuff written on his bullets comes from memes from a right-wing extremist group headed by a white supremacist called Nick Fuentes. They are pseudo anti-fascist phrases said ironically and as dog whistles.
Gen Z uses each others' memes under so many layers of irony it's almost impossible to tell if they're for or against something. Seriously, go on X and try to figure out if someone in that demographic is pro or anti something based on their memes. They're so obtuse it will give you a fucking headache.
[1]A message exchange between the suspect and his roommate has been released. [cnn.com] It reads like AI generated slop, which has the conspiracy theorist wheels spinning, but if it's genuine, does make a strong case that
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/16/us/text-message-tyler-robinson-roomate-vis
Typical right winger (Score:2)
You always keep a layer of plausible deniability. It's easy enough if somebody spends a little time to pull back that layer but it's not there for people who spend the time it's there to fool the normies.
The Nazis did the exact same thing before they were in power. Every single right winger follows the exact same playbook the Nazis did because it works.
We're not talking about exchanges here what we are talking about are the memes and online spaces that radicalized him into violence. We're talking ab
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No, he didn't deserve it. Political violence is always wrong.
But come on. You have to admit there's a huge amount of irony in the fact that a guy who says a certain number of gun deaths per year are acceptable was the victim of gun violence. Doesn't mean he deserved it, but does cast his words in a new light.
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That irony was not lost on me. To "transition" the discussion into gun rights. I think common sense gun laws should be put into place. When I talk about it on other forums, I seem to get drowned out by bots. But, under 21? no mass murder weapons for you. Should anybody in the USA have mass murder weapons? I think it should be debated. Should a person be allowed to buy 1000 bullets in a three month time span? Why? These thoughts may not have prevented Kirks murder by a nutcase, but it would preven
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> All I'm seeing is "Charlie deserved it" comments.
Pointing out that the right-wing is using his death as justification to potentially violate the 1A is not saying "Charlie deserved it". Based on what I've actually seen Charlie say when he was still alive, I think he'd actually hate the idea that his death became a catalyst to further dismantle freedom of speech.
I absolutely will give Charlie Kirk credit for this: unlike many on the right, he absolutely was willing to listen to opposing viewpoints. He might condescendingly mock your viewpoints while his M
Why is it these community sites responsibility? (Score:2)
No one demands AT&T, Version and Pac Bell to testify in congress about people using their networks to communicate for the purposes of committing crimes, why is it Discord, Twitch and Steam's responsibility to manage it also?
These platforms allow users to create private instances for their own private purposes. Why is it the platforms responsibility to police every abuse by their users?
Propaganda (Score:3)
Congress isn't interviewing the CEOs of Twitter/Truth Social/4chan: I wonder why?
These networks have proven, highly-abusive posters: Still a small proportion of the population but the racists on these platforms make a point of glorifying their cruelty.
Other posters are correct: This is 'something I don't like, happened', 'I'm the victim', and 'somebody else, do something' propaganda: Whatever the results, Fox News/the GOP/Trump/Miller/Voight will re-write history (memory-hole facts) to decrease the power of the people truly suffering, AKA gaslighting.
While he's under oath (Score:2)
Someone ask Gaben where Half Life 3 is
Ignore them (Score:2)
The MAGArats just want a clip of them ranting about liberals.
they just want to know who's left and right (Score:1)
purpose is to build up a list of people that disagree with the government.
No elephants in the room? (Score:2)
So they're not asking the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook, or Truth Social? Huh. I wonder why...
OMFG. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't these assholes ask the actual experts on the subject matter? Oh wait, you did and you didn't like the answers [1]so you had them deleted. [thehill.com]
Well... I guess it's time to hassle some unrelated companies until they give us the sound bytes we want instead of addressing the actual problem of lax gun control.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507682-doj-removes-far-right-extremism-study/
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> Why don't these assholes ask the actual experts on the subject matter? Oh wait, you did and you didn't like the answers [1]so you had them deleted. [thehill.com]
> Well... I guess it's time to hassle some unrelated companies until they give us the sound bytes we want instead of addressing the actual problem of lax gun control.
It's all about putting on a show to justify the suppression of political dissent via military means.
And there is more data out there than can be easily suppressed. Like:
[2]https://www.gelliottmorris.com... [gelliottmorris.com]
Which looks at percentage of population that actually supports violence and how they are triggered.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5507682-doj-removes-far-right-extremism-study/
[2] https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/americas-reichstag-moment
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> Funny how nobody is burning down cities over a straight-up assassination.
I think you misunderstand people's motivations and lack a sense of scale.
A HUGE amount of people care about police violence in their own cities, and they were out in the streets in every major city and a lot of smaller ones. When you have tens of millions of people in the streets you get a few crazies. 15-26 million engaged people, feet on the ground.
I'm going to be honest, I don't think many conservatives liked Charlie Kirk in particular. He's like an uneducated Rush Limbaugh and drug religion into odd cor
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> I'm going to be honest, I don't think many conservatives liked Charlie Kirk in particular. He's like an uneducated Rush Limbaugh and drug religion into odd corners. Few million followers on xitter, for the entertainment? There were more feet on the ground for blue lives matter than Charlie Kirk's vigils, just saying.
A couple hours before my post here Kimmel just got drummed off the air for saying roughly this and neither of you are wrong. Even a lot of conservatives knew the guy was shitty, that's why he was out in the boons doing pep rallies for small crowds. Their hyper sensitivity to anything even remotely negatively about him is absurd and is just an excuse to silence critics.
In a world where I see major conservatives saying awful things almost every day with virtually no consequence [1]https://www.politico.com/news/. [politico.com]
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/14/fox-host-apologizes-for-saying-mentally-ill-homeless-people-should-be-executed-00563440
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Ironically, he probably was radicalized through Steam, just not in any of the games. That many hours in VRChat is... telling.