Two articles by writer Ana Valens were removed at the demand of Vice owner Savage Ventures, the latest in multiple deletions at the site
Last week, Steam quietly announced a new rule banning “certain kinds of adult-only content” that “may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks.” Following this, reporter Ana Valens wrote a series of stories on Vice’s video games vertical Waypoint about an organization called Collective Shout that took credit for the changes on Steam as part of a campaign aimed at payment processors. Valens says Vice’s owner, Savage Ventures, demanded the removal of the articles; Valens and several other Waypoint writers quit in response. Two articles were removed from Waypoint Sunday morning: a July 18 article titled “This Group Takes Responsibility For Steam's Payment Processor Censorship Policies--They Just Implied 'Pervert Nerds' Cause Society's Problems and a July 19 article titled “Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies–And Targeted Popular Games With Outlandish Claims.” Valens told Aftermath she was informed by Waypoint managing editor Dwayne Jenkins Sunday morning that leadership at Savage Ventures had ordered Jenkins to remove the articles; Valens informed Jenkins that she would quit her Waypoint contributing role if this happened and, once it did, announced her departure. Valens said that both articles had been edited and approved by Jenkins, though did not go through pre-publication legal review. Valens told Aftermath that, as far as she’s aware, there was no legal threat from Collective Shout or other entities over the contents of the articles, though tells Aftermath it’s “possible that [Savage Ventures] simply were afraid of one coming eventually.” As PCGamer notes, “The two retracted articles from Waypoint appear to be the first among the games press to point out the connection between Collective Shout and the recent changes on Steam, a connection which is public knowledge—by Collective Shout's own statements—and not an allegation made by Waypoint against the group.”
20 July 2025
