Anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on gaming platforms in UK.

Researchers have found that the mainstream video games and gaming chat platforms are being used by extremists to spread hate against minorities and historically suppressed communities. Studies show that extremist groups spread anti-Semitism, racism and homophobia on chat platforms including DLive and Odysee, which are widely used by the gaming communities of games such as Call of Duty, and Minecraft.

Including extremist narratives in daily life conversations can have cause radicalisation among society. The conversations that start in the gaming platforms continue to spread hate through other spaces like Telegram channels and private chats.

Joe Mulhall, a member of an anti-fascist organisation Hope Not Hate, told the media that once the gamers enter into these conversations, the radicalisation happens. These conversations slowly compel the participants to attend unnecessary private meetings that explicitly talks politics.

As a response to the study findings of BBC Click, Telegram told that it used pro-active monitoring of public spaces to remove the content that breach its terms of service. DLive and Odysee have not yet responded. Both the platforms mention zero tolerance against hate speech and extremism, and claim to be pro-active at removing regulations violating content.

Call of Duty has reported that they have taken strict measures to confront racist behaviour and has implemented technology that bans hate-oriented names and offensive in-game behaviour.

Researchers have found that people are building offensive environments inside user-generated games that let people roleplay custom scenarios. Roblox have been reported to have a driving game that lets people to run over people belonging to ethnic minorities with a car.

The UK authorities have taken up the issue seriously and have started conversations with the industry bodies to discuss steps to be taken to tackle this exploitation. The United Kingdom’s gaming trade body responded that they knew the challenges of digital entertainment media and they were adopting positive and proactive approach to protect the players from those malpractices.