Following his trial for defamation of the families of the children and school staff killed in the Sandy Hook massacre, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is using Valve Corp.’s Steam, the world’s largest digital distribution platform for PC games, to sell an Infowars-themed video game. Jones claims to have earned hundreds of thousands in revenue from the video game, yet he has refused to pay the Sandy Hook families. Alex Jones: NWO Wars also mirrors and cartoonishly repackages the conspiracy theorist’s regularly violent, hateful rhetoric despite the platform’s policies against hate speech.
Anyone know if it would it be worth reporting this as Defamatory on Steam? There are options for Legal Violation, Harmful, Fraud, Defamatory…without having played it it’s hard to throw it in any of those specific categories, because they mostly have to do with the software itself, though Defamation might work since I’d be surprised if the content doesn’t contain defamatory statements (even if they’re wrapped in attempted irony for legal wiggle room).
I flagged it as harmful because it isn’t directly related to the defamation case. But I’m sure either gets your point across, and if Valve gets enough complaints maybe they’ll actually realize they don’t need a man criminally liable for misusing media, to benefit spreading media on their platform.
I flagged it as Child Exploitation for the simple fact one of the screenshots says Epstein Island…
Please do explain how showing a picture of Epstein Island is child exploitation. I would love to have that make sense. If there was a daycare that hurt children and I had a picture of the outside of the daycare how in the fuck is that Child exploitation? Its a game about conspiracy theories and political events. That dude who ran that island mysteriously died with no cameras on him and some new guards that were asleep. A lot of people know he did not kill himself so that being unprovable makes it a conspiracy theory which is no surprise it would make it to a game about conspiracy theories. Fuck Alex Jones but also fuck a bunch of dumbasses wasting Valves time and reasources reporting shit that isnt happening. God you people are STUPID I dont understand how people can be so out of touch with the reality around them. Also harmful reportings? Go take a look at the top games on steam especially the Hentai ones where the thousand year old characters look like children THATS child exploitation but showing a picture of espstein island is not child exploitation. You can google pictures of Epstein Island right now, pages upon pages should I report Google for child exploitation? Common sense is dead
M O N E T I Z A T I O N
(And yes Japanese anime pedo culture is gross too but that’s just a red herring regarding this)
Also, “wasting valves time” gtfo… They made a billion dollars off skins in loot crates, they have plenty of fucking “time.”
Dont forget to report Google too they have the gall to host this on their servers!1!1 man I bet if any realtor tries to list it for sale we can get them too!! We should never see anything about it existing ever again so people forget about it! /S if it isnt painfully obvious.
Shit, better report me too! I shared a picture of Epstein Island from google search!!
I’d report you just for not removing everything after the ? in your dumb link
Jesus you and everyone who commented on this comment is dumb fuck I hate the dude too and he should pay his debts but my god dude how is it anymore harmful than like a million other games that exist? Pirate the shit. But reporting it for child exploitation like that one dude said because it showed Epstein Island is moronic as fuck its a game about conspiracy theories and it isnt any more harmful or defaming than a million other games that exist right now on steam. It doesnt show children being exploited. One thing I notice on Lemmy a lot is people who are like “well I dont like this so other people shouldnt get to like it either.” Fucking christ just pirate the damn game so you dont give him money or dont play it if the courts dont get bought off then their should be no problem with them seizing the money he made off the game. But to report it for child exploitation and defamation is mega fucking stupid my god
Jesus you and everyone who commented on this comment is dumb fuck
You said, in your comment to my comment…
Look: you’re putting so many words in my mouth, it’s probably not worth replying, so…
You’re reporting a game youve never even played for made up reasons because you dont like the guy who made it. I read your comment and didnt put any words in your mouth
Read my comment again then, because I didn’t say I had reported it, or even that i would. I still haven’t.
I was specifically asking if it’s even worth reporting, since it would be mostly because he’s a grifter and this seems shady. Again though, I offer no solid reason why, other than wanting him to just go away.
Valve allows this?
Valve allows a lot of games I’d question like the Kyle riddenhouse game or whatever that loser is that went across state borders to shoot people.
i just don’t see how hard it could be to assassinate alex jones. pretty sure 3 or 4 intelligent people could coordinate the whole thing.
It’s more complicated than that. Probably best he dies of normal causes so no insane conspiracy’s pop up. Even then that’s too good for him.
oh no. let his idiot followers think it was a conspiracy. the more riled up they get, the more likely they’ll do something stupid that ends with them in prison or dead. no, let’s stir the pot.
I don’t think my sanity can tolerate more insane shit. Living in the US sucks.
i think the next time they grab up torches and pitchforks, the military will intervene. that’s probably our best hope since most of the good citizens of the left are cowards. the sooner we get it over with, the sooner this country can go forward.
3 or 4? 1 person is with a $300 Walmart hunting rifle could pull it t off.
People don’t realize how much one dedicated person and a decent rifle can do, especially when no one is expecting it and the assassin doesn’t care about their future or anything but their objective
Hell do it dc sniper style, park a car and modify the trunk.
No one would see anything but an empty car parked down the block from his house or office.
Why not? It’s not like the kids are going to boycott them. Boycotts are only for easy to refuse things. Or things that sound good in a instagram post.
Not for actual thinks they like and can’t live without.
That’s how boycotts have always worked. Boycotts have only been successful when people already didn’t like the thing they were boycotting.
I looovvveee tollhouse cookies, crunch bars, KitKats and stouffer’s French bread pizzas but I still don’t buy them, even though they are like the only people to make a wide range of frozen dinners, and I am not even a little bit salty about it, definitely, not at all…
So yeah, some people do stick to their morals over creature comforts.
Even when it really sucks.
I did just remember Schwann’s is a thing though, so maybe nestle is good for something at least.
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here or why you’re introducing the topic of boycotts.
I’m so confused. Did you respond to the wrong comment?
Valve allowing that dingus to sell a game while refusing to pay his victims families?
Sounds like a good reason to boycott to me.
But no one will.
Oh, I understand now! Yes, that would be an excellent reason for a boycott, but it never works because people never seem to be willing to sacrifice even the smallest amount of convenience for the greater good. I’d be in, and a lot of others probably would be too, but how does one even organize something like that? I think that’s another part of the problem. For a boycott to work, it has to be well planned and organized.
Exactly my thoughts. Well said. Though, under normal circumstances, people would be absolutely outraged by this and the shockwave would be spreading across all platforms to boycott immediately-
but mUh gAmEz?!
So…. It won’t happen.
I boycott Nestlé, and I have ran into someone in the world who does the same.
So in my little town if there is a chance that the two of us ran into each other at the same Walmart, right as I was explaining to my kid why we couldn’t buy that type of bottled water, I think that there are a bunch of us boycotting nestle while unorganized.
Overtime cents add up to dollars, even if we can’t bring them down, we can still help them not grow as quickly.
To the best of my knowledge Valve allows basically everything that’s not outright illegal. They aren’t nearly as much of a “good” corporation as they’re often framed as. They’ll happily provide a platform and take their 30% from anyone, including racists, misogynists, homophobes, etc.
Or maybe they don’t see it’s their place to gatekeep the store based on their own morals. If you start - where do you draw the line? Some examples like such games may be obvious, but there will be a lot more that are less so.
If people disagree with the message - nobody forces them to buy it after all and you can block any game from even showing up for you in the store, in my opinion it’s plenty enough from the valve’s part. I’d rather be the judge myself as to what I want and what I don’t want to see and play, rather than any corporation.
They used to disallow adult games, they don’t allow NFT or crypto.
They have drawn plenty of lines, and moved them when it benefits them. They are just like any other corporation, they just hide it really well and the fans forgive or hide the rest for them.
Didn’t they also rule against AI artwork? Seems that where their pocket book and legal worries are concerned, Valve treads lightly. Moral concerns and societal obligations? Not so much.
They also told a dev to stop developing a game since if they gave the go ahead Nintendo could potentially go after them.
They care about money more than anything else, just like any other corporation.
Are you talking about the dolphin emulator per chance?
No, someone was developing a fan demake of a valve game for the Nintendo 64, and since the tools to develop a game for the Nintendo 64 aren’t legally available and it’s being used for valve’s IP then nintendo would be able to go after valve.
I find the “where do you stop” argument to be riddled with holes. Laws are essentially written to explicitly outline boundries and moderation policies are basically just internal laws. Like Canadian law has very specific laws regarding what constitutes hate speech, here is what that looks like.
First you outline protected grounds. In Canada this is race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted. (note: pardons are only available via democratic votes or through appeals in Canada)
There’s a stage where you determine what context stuff is in. Like whether it is being performed publicly or privately but marketing a video game is definitely publicly so in tgis context we can skip to it’s last part where you explicitly define hate speech. Hate speech is rhetoric that :
-
Describes group members as animals, subhuman or genetically inferior
-
Suggests group members are behind a conspiracy to gain control by plotting to destroy western civilization
-
Denying, minimizing or celebrating past persecution or tragedies that happened to group members
-
Labelling group members as child abusers, pedophiles or criminals who prey on children Blaming group members for problems like crime and disease
-
Calling group members liars, cheats, criminals or any other term meant to provoke a strong reaction including usage of known slurs in the context of intended harm to group members.
These rules likely wouldn’t touch some hateful rhetoric that sneaks through under the wire disguised in very abstracted metaphor but it creates a pretty distinct pass fail bar that would catch explicit hate speech on their platform.
By those rules we can’t even criticize Hamas or Houthis
-
The problem with that is that providing a platform and a revenue stream is providing support. Whatever the intent is, that is the result. The issue isn’t what I see on the Steam store, it’s providing a platform at all.
And yes, obviously there’s the question of where to draw the line. But not drawing one at all means providing support for the Alex Joneses of the world. There’s no way around that. And I don’t think that that’s a worthwhile trade.
This is too bad, but yes. They are like any other large corporation, I suppose – motivated primarily by greed.
Unless it pisses off the Chinese government, like the game Devotion that was released from a Taiwanese developer. But I don’t think Steam has a high ground so much as it has good PR while not being extremely greedy. In contrast, GOG also removed it, which sort of discredited any high ground they had.
If you read the reviews for it, you can 100% beat the game in about 25-35 minutes and return it for a full refund. I was tempted to do that but I didn’t want to enticed anyone else to buy it who may not play such a game on the devs.
My concern here is that these are not real sales and steam is allowing Jones to use their service for a poor attempt at laundering, but I suspect as a non user steam is already using services to ensure that the sales are coming from legitimate computers and cards.
If they know where money is coming from, aren’t there legal mechanisms to take it directly from Valve?
I mean, why aren’t his assets seized and bank accounts frozen at this point?
Or is it only the poor that have to pay their fines?
The court is trying. He’s just playing a lot of games. Lots of the money is held by his parents or hidden in different shell companies. The court established that he and InfoWars are basically the same thing as far as the money is concerned, so he’s been trying to start new shows and businesses to further complicate things.
Court orders don’t automatically happen or always get enforced. Going through a divorce right now - lawyer told me that even if I do get an order that some of the shared debts are paid, he can just not. I’d have to go back to court and still get dinged on my credit.
If you’re poor though they just put you in jail while they figure that stuff out. If they figure it out.
These are civil cases.
That’s honestly just worse if true. How is this not criminal? He doesn’t go to jail unless the state is what he’s ripped off? You know, the one by the people for the people?
The 1st Amendment presents a very high bar for criminal prosecution of speech.
A bar over which he took off into fucking orbit! It’s 100% because of rich, famous, right wing white guy privilege that he isn’t in prison right now.
On the contrary, the more unpopular the speech, the higher the bar.
He’s jumping through all the hoops rich folks use to hide their money, which means the courts have to jump through the hoops to get at it, and the court system is slow by comparison.
Because America is entirely broken.
Completely empty comment just shitting on America, overwhelmingly upvoted. Lol what a fucking joke this place can be.
You’re free to leave. Unlike what America is becoming… you’ve got that freedom here.
Bye.
You’re right, I can leave. Although I have that freedom in America too, so I’m not sure why you think that statement made any sense.
And just like with America I can stay and try to make it better. But I just regularly get reminded how low the common denominator is here. Keep defending it. Really proving what an intellectual independent thinker you are.
Yawn.
Whatever you say; Captain America. Should you be ironing your cape in preparation for the next big battle with…. everyone that thinks differently than you?
I call out an empty comment and you interpret that as attacking anyone who thinks differently than me? Brilliant. Lol
Maybe you should try to stop being so angry moving forward. I would like that for you.
Explaining the many reasons why America is broken could take quite a while. Some sentiments are best summed up in a few words.
The post isn’t about America, they could have easily explained why this particular system is broken. But, hey, empty shitting on America is simple and sure to get some upvotes. Definitely what we should all be aiming for.
Lock him up (for life, 0 chance of getting out), Access his bank accounts, pay out the damn families already, forget about him and let him rot in there.
Lock him up (for life, 0 chance of getting out)
Defamation is a civil matter, so there’s no chance of this. There’s really only one case in the US where someone can be locked up for failing to pay what they owe from a civil court decision, and that’s child support.
:(
Do you think he did the shooting himself?
Ooooo TALKING = LIFE SENTENCE . Maybe you should talk a therapist and let the anger out peacefully. Don’t involve your emotions. Surely a rational person cannot think that is a reasonable punishment.
(Most sane supporter of him)
I guarantee the kids will not boycott Steam. That’s a line drawn too far.
“The kids”?
Millenials and younger are all kids.
Nevermind that a not-insignificant portion are entering middle-age.
Kid is objective and subjective.
It’s a paradox
This article invests a lot of effort trying to make it look like it’s all Steam’s responsibility.
It IS their store.
Fun fact the game can be beaten in 45 minutes and steam refund policy allows returns on games played 2 hours or less
That is a fun fact. Here’s an ever funner fact: Don’t give your money to assholes and then take it back. Just like, don’t give it to them in the first place.
Doesn’t make sense. You give them money. Enjoy (only some do enjoy) the game. Get money back. Net sum is positive if the game was fun for you.
Look, people need something to play after they’ve finished Hogwarts Legacy.
What’s up with Hogwarts legacy? It’s one of the most progressive minded games I’ve ever played, so much so that J.K.Rowling herself tried to taint it by saying money that went to that game supported her views instead of the views in the game. Even though she doesn’t get any residuals from sales. She tried to tank sales to get back at them for making an open minded game instead of one that aligns with her views.
It’s one of the most progressive minded games I’ve ever played
That is such an incredibly low bar. What passes as progressive values in AAA games is just a shoehorned and saccharine checklist progressiveness. I can almost understand why the chuds get annoyed because playing some games can be like bad corporate DEI training.
Right wing ideology meanwhile is baked into gameplay. It doesn’t matter much if the themes are anti-racist so long as every problem can be solved with the right gun. It doesn’t matter if you’re a socialist state in a strategy game who’s economy is straight out of the Chicago school.
A couple games get it right. “This War of Mine” shows you what’s happening in the out of bounds areas of Call of Duty. “Darkest Dungeon” is a microscope on the exploitation of capitalism. But good luck finding something like this in the AAA space.
I’ll take this opportunity to plug a tiny podcast that I stumbled onto called “Some Dare Call it Conspiracy”. It’s hosted by two English guys that were hard-core conspiracy theorists for 15 years.
They now discuss, debunk and interview people around the conspiracy life. It’s really fascinating to learn about Pizzagate, Chemtrails, Hunter Biden’s Laptop and Jeffery Epstein from very knowledgeable people but in an environment of debunking.
Their latest episode is an interview with Rob Jacobson, a former staffer for Alex Jones that worked for him for 12 years. Jacobson ended up testifying against Jones in the Sandy Hook trial. The episode is on their Patreon at the moment but will roll out to the general public in a few days. Fascinating stuff and Jones is every bit as shady as one expects.
I’m a huge Knowledge Fight fan. And your recommendation sounds right up my alley.
KF is a podcast done “the dollop style” with the broadcasts of Alex Jones, both modern and years old episodes. Dan Freissen has listened to 1000s of hours infowars, has read None Dare Call It a Conspiracy (which is why the recommendation perked my ears), has read Protocols of the Elders of Zion, “you name it”.
He shows how AJ’s Globalizist conspiracy is just a reskinning of old antisemitic writings.
Dan was flown to Texas to help the lawyers of the Sandy Hook defamation trial. I can’t say enough about how much I respect him.
Btw, by “the dollop style”, I mean comedian Dan Friessen tells his findings to comedian Jordan Holmes who is naïve on the topic.
Edit: Knowledge Fight has zero ads. Never has. No paywalls. They have no interest in sensationalizing. It feels very honest.
I’ll link the episode most inline with this article. #602 with Sandy Hook lead counsel Mark Bankston.
It seems like you folks like Behind the Bastards. They’ve been guests a few times. Here’s one Part One: How The Rich Ate Christianity
Edit: I wanted to clarify the relevance of #602. That came out in 2021, right after the default judgement was issued in Texas. I believe the lawyers never gave interviews until that ruling. I listened back. It’s a neat little time capsule. Just skip ahead until you hear Mark Bankston speak if it’s your first taste.
Can you link directly to the pizzagate one. I’ve never heard a good debunk beyond “there is no basement so nothing is true”.
The short answer is no. I can’t think of when tried a pizzagate debunking. (They are going on 900 episodes.) I do distinctly remember an early episode when they analyze an undercover Periscope video inside Comet Ping Pong.
For a hopefully longer, but slower, answer, I made a thread asking the small community on lemmy.world.
I don’t believe Pizzagate was ever bunked, or debunked. The problem is that there are so many claims made that a rigorous debunk is difficult and time consuming.
The best attempt was NY Times that covered some details but cherry picked the claims it could debunk and completely ignored others.
Rolling Stones made a feeble effort spending most of the article on how the story spread, not it’s veracity.
In the body of the thread a posted on c/knowledgefight, I bring up that I didn’t care about pizzagate because there really no damages. No victims coming forward. No suspicious activity. Nothing.
The only thing interesting about pizzagate is how strongly people can hold on to beliefs with zero backing. I’m sure 99% of posts about pizzagate are LARPing really. (I think the same of Flat Earth. At least, way back when.) But we know how seriously some people belief it.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say, the fact there is no evidence backing it up is precisely why this stuff is so dangerous. If some one is mentally unsteady enough to accept any reason to hate their enemies, they are probably pretty dangerous to be around already. Now use a massive media operation so that person need no other source of news. He (sorry to be sexist, but I’m going to stick with “he” for the easily influenced viewer’s pronoun) knows he’s right. He hears nothing but that he is right. However, out in the dangerous part of the world, no one cares about this. It’s so fucking easy to dismiss this stuff. Why would anyone believe it?
This feels like persecution, gaslighting, and like “they” are all in on it. That’s fucking powder-keg as we saw in this matter.
the body of the thread a posted on c/knowledgefight,
I’ll take a listen to the podcast, but I think you are right in that it’s only tangentially relevant. Although it’s existence shows the topic won’t die easily.
No victims coming forward.
Such a bad argument. Are you expecting an abused kid to file a police report? Look at Epstein’s Virginia Giuffre who is now 40! At least the guardian’s of the kids in the Instagram photos should have been questioned.
No suspicious activity.
There was enough to send 4chan and reddit into a frenzy. I think you mean that there was no definitive proof.
The only thing interesting about pizzagate is how strongly people can hold on to beliefs with zero backing.
I thought the most interesting thing was how hard the pushback was. Pizza owners on the news, 10 min features on Colbert, NYT and Rolling Stone articles, banning of subreddits and censoring of search results. Try to find the steemit article I linked above. There was a well organised PR campaign against “nothing”.
I suspect some of the conclusions being drawn from highly circumstantial evidence were too close to the truth for some influential people’s comfort.
I’m sure 99% of posts about pizzagate are LARPing really.
Initially all politicians were suspected (e.g. Hastert is republican). It turned into a right wing topic after qanon stoked the fires.
In fact, I’d go as far as to say, the fact there is no evidence backing it up is precisely why this stuff is so dangerous.
True. On the other hand, vigilantism occurs when the police say they’ve investigated but actually haven’t. (Sorry impossible to back this statement in 2024. If you doubt me, find some official DC police reports unrelated to the gunman attack)
However, out in the dangerous part of the world, no one cares about this. It’s so fucking easy to dismiss this stuff. Why would anyone believe it?
It happened in Belgium, UK, France, Portugal etc. People there cared. Why not also in the US?
This feels like persecution, gaslighting, and like “they” are all in on it.
Podesta and Alefantis have certainly been persecuted by the Internet. And probably still are being 8 years later. Their no comment policy certainly backfired.
Omg, you’re one of them! Lol. Take me to your magic kingdom.
Ugh, I was so excited for this … And at about 20 minutes into the first chemtrail episode they say contrails are the exhaust fumes coming out of engines :facepalm:
That doesnt square with the fact that these guys were hard-core conspiracy theorists? 😂😂
Haha good point, at least they are trying 😏
I do find it weird that Steam actually had this as a game pushed to me. Not sure if that was targeted due to other game choices I’ve made, but I saw the ad and laughed and shook my head.
Alex Jones got to his position by gaming the advertisement system for self-promotion. I can’t say I’m shocked to see his video game once again exploiting the Steam store’s algorithm, just like he’d gamed the YouTube and Twitter algorithms before.
You’ll see Ann Coulter do the same thing with book sales. Have someone straw-purchase 10,000 copies of “Smelly: The Liberal Campaign To Fart A Lot And How It Is Destroying America”, and rocket to the top of the Best Seller Lists.
I think Regnery Press does that last bit all the time…I don’t know if people that maintain such lists take that kind of thing into account or not. And yeah, I have no trouble believing that Lil Alex found some demon willing to help him game the Steam system.
I don’t know if people that maintain such lists take that kind of thing into account or not
It takes more work to find out who is purchasing the books, particularly if the publisher includes straw-purchases as part of its marketing strategy and therefore has an incentive to report their number inaccurately.
I have no trouble believing that Lil Alex found some demon willing to help him game the Steam system.
He’s got enough money to simply do it himself (or outsource the process to professionals). Sort of a priming-the-pump method to marketing. Its very possible that the vig Steam gets from your straw purchases is less than the cost of paying them upfront to advertise your game. Also possible he’s doing both, in which case Steam has a strong economic incentive not to discourage this behavior.
I’ll stick to playing Broforce
