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US Congress asks games firms for extremism answers

US Congress asks games firms for extremism answers

Seven members of Congress are demanding answers about extremism within the video games audience.

As reported by Axios, Democratic members of Congress – including Reps. Lori Trahan of Massachusetts and Katie Porter of California and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon – have signed a letter to some of the biggest games companies in the world for answers on how they are handling extremism within their titles.

The companies on the receiving end of this letter are Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts, Epic, Innersloth, Microsoft, PUBG Corp, Riot Games, Roblox, Sony, Square, Take-Two Interactive, Tencent, Ubisoft and Valve.

“We are writing to better understand the processes you have in place to handle player reports of harassment and extremism encounters in your online games, and ask for consideration of safety measures pertaining to anti-harassment and anti-extremism,” read the letter.

Trahan added: "When we talk about holding technology companies accountable for what they’re pushing toward our kids, gaming companies must be a part of that conversation."

She continued: “Make no mistake — parents like me with young kids are going to be paying attention to how they respond.”

This comes in the wake of a report from the ADL that shows a steady increase in harassment and white supremacy in online games.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.