Who Gets to Be on the Steam Store?
Ben Thompson, writing in his newsletter for Stratechery about Valve's decision on Steam moderation:
I believe that Valve got this exactly right:
The implication of platforms and aggregators is a tremendous centralization in power over distribution.
Centralized power ought to be managed collectively, that is, by government; thus Valve’s focus on legality (I suspect the company is saving the “trolling” designation to preserve the right to keep out a particularly problematic game in the future).
That everyone has a right to express themselves does not mean they have a right to be seen or heard; to that end, Valve’s intent to focus on building tools to control what content you see strikes the exact right balance.
This framework should be the starting point for platforms and aggregators. It is, to be clear, a tradeoff: it absolutely means tolerating content that, while legal, may be morally repugnant. The alternative though, thanks to the inherent centralization that happens with aggregators and platforms, is to entrust tech companies a degree of control over expression and thought that would make the most power-hungry despot blush.
Thompson brings up a fair point I did not think of yesterday while criticizing Valve. Asking them to moderate Steam means trusting a company that doesn't know its ass from its elbow.
Perhaps government would be a better Steam moderator than an unaccountable billionaire like Gabe Newell. That, however, opens a whole other can of worms.
Edit: I don't think Valve deserves the credit Thompson is giving them. They didn't do this as step one in allowing Steam to be government-regulated as a legitimate public space. They just want to make money without doing any hard work moderating content. Valve would fight tooth and nail to keep control from the government.
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