Valve risks fines of up to AU$825,000 a day if it fails to respond to a transparency notice issued to it by the Australian government’s eSafety Commissioner. According to a statement released by the regulator, Steam is “reportedly a hub for a number of extreme-right communities”, and must explain to Australia how it is “identifying, preventing and responding to these harms”.
Valve isn’t the only gaming organisation under fire: Roblox, Microsoft (for Minecraft), and Epic Games (for Fortnite) have all been served transparency notices as well.
“We’ve seen numerous media reports about grooming taking place on all four of these platforms as well as terrorist and violent extremist-themed gameplay,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said. “This includes Islamic State-inspired games and recreations of mass shootings on Roblox, as well as far right groups recreating fascist imagery in Minecraft.
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Sony is using Yoti for its age verification checks; other platforms, like Roblox but also Substack, use Persona, which has ties to Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel. As I’ve written before, keeping children from accessing adult material is important, but surrendering personal information—including photo ID—to third-party companies is a legitimate privacy concern.
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