Steam, Proud Adopters Of Hands Off Games Policy, Very Hands On When Banning All Of TorrentFreak
from the freak-out dept
The calls for internet platforms to actively censor content one group or another doesn't like has slowly risen to a cacaphony as of late. Even the most well-meaning arguments calling for internet platforms to be more heavy-handed in moderating the sources of content are invariably stupid, showing little understanding of just how hard it is to do this without creating all kinds of collateral damage, how hard it is to properly define for a large subset of humanity what sources are acceptable and what sources aren't, and a near complete misunderstanding of just how much human error goes into this overall. We have helpfully cited several exmaples of platforms sticking their feet in crap as they try to attempt this.
But the case studies in how badly this always goes keep rolling in. You may recall that we recently discussed how Comcast's protected browsing options managed to disallow access to TorrentFreak, a news site. Well, Comcast doesn't exactly have a reputation for being hands-off when it comes to managing its network. Unlike, say, Valve's Steam platform, which just made a bunch of news with a new games policy championing its hands-off approach. How Steam handles links shared on its platform are obviously in a different timezone compared with the games its allows, but it's still a bit odd to see that Steam is apparently very much hands on when it comes to blocking TorrentFreak as well.
Here at TorrentFreak we’re used to censorship. Every few months we’re contacted by readers trying to access our news articles on public WiFi, only to find that the site is blocked alongside various warnings, none of which are true. It’s almost as if the word ‘torrent’ in our URL has been blindly blacklisted for some reason.
Sadly, this week we’ve discovered that Steam, the popular digital game distribution and social networking platform, has jumped on the “let’s censor TorrentFreak” bandwaggon. A tip from a TF reader and Steam user highlighted the problems he’d experienced when trying to read TF articles via Steam’s chat interface.
As has often been the case in the past, the likely culprit in all of this is a combination of an overly aggressive filtering and blacklisting system combined with the simple fact that TorrentFreak's name has the word "torrent" in it. Still, as non-nefarious as that explanation is, assuming it's even true, that almost perfectly highlights just how terrible even large internet platforms are when it comes to correctly censoring undesirable content.
Just to make this clear, nothing about TorrentFreak makes it a valid target for censorship of this kind. It's purely a news site, covering topics related to digital marketplaces, piracy, and filesharing. And, yet, the site is depressingly used to finding itself on all kinds of blacklists. In this case, however, users are being told that TorrentFreak is something it absolutely is not.
Steam has banned our entire platform and put up a warning that’s not only completely false but also damaging to our reputation.
“https://torrentfreak.com has been flagged as being potentially malicious. For your safety, Steam will not open this URL in your web browser. The site could contain malicious content or be known for stealing user credentials,” the warning reads.
Of course, on its own platform Steam is fully entitled to block resources that it believes can harm its users. Some might even argue that it has a duty of care to do so, in order to keep its community safe. However, making blatantly false statements while blocking access to accurate news reporting shouldn’t ever be part of that.
It's an obvious point, but one that needs to be repeated to every person out there shouting for websites to do more site and source blocking. Because going down that road is always going to lead to this kind of collateral damage, particularly for larger platforms that need to do this kind of censorship in an automated fashion. Perhaps for some, blocking valid news organizations is worth the larger outcome of blocking content they don't like.
For us, however, it's quite obvious how horrible a deal that is for free and open speech on the internet.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: bans, content moderation, moderation, steam
Companies: torrentfreak, valve
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Censorship is their right if it's GAB but not if it's this.
What you create belongs to pirates the seconds you create it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This is why Section 230 is a plague on this nation. The sooner the police apprehend those responsible for this obvious smear campaign and nuke this piracy cesspool to oblivion, the better. Along with PaulT and all those Anonymous Cowards who made fun of me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That means you would not be able to complain online about the pirates all the while they keep sharing stuff and ignoring the law.
Considering your history of posts here you would gladly cut off your nose to spite the face.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Again, Techdirt is keen on facilitating efforts to humiliate and ridicule me by mobilizing fake posters, acting like a foolish moron to insinuate negative inferences on my mental health.
Since you are not logged in, it is in fact you that are the "Fake poster" with no verifiable identity. Register with a valid email address and (one of the Smiths at least can) claim to be the real one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Now now, you don’t need us to insinuate the problems with your mental health.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
4chan makes better threats than you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
https://steam.madjoki.com/apps/banned
That long list does not even include some of the more notorious banned (or never accepted) games like the school shooting game "Active Shooter" that came out a few months after the Parkland massacre. As it now seems likely that someone will probably submit a synagogue shooting simulator to Steam in the near future, it's a near certainty that Steam will reject that game too. Even non-violent games like those Japanese "lolicon" and rape simulation games are probably also banned by Steam (not that there's necessarily a problem with that).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
- trojans, typically cryptocurrency-miners
- handing out thousands of steam-achievements
- doing bollocks with the DLC system
- being completely non-functional
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
Putting semi-legal news site to such awful name is always big surprise that they don't get more angry emails from parents of some kids who browse the web.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Don't expect sense from that one, at best they're a poe/parody, and to say their opinions on copyright law are 'novel' is an understatement of immense proportion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
The name of the site usually is good agreement with the state of mind of the person who created the site, at the site creation time. Techdirt's name clearly communicates that the site author thinks everyone in tech industry are scumbags, so obviously if I also think that tech people are dirt, techdirt would be a good place to post this type of comments. Posting this kind of information about dirt to other sites would be bad; so I wouldn't go to stackexchange and post their dirty secrets in such respected forum.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
Welp, time to ban Coca-Cola, I guess.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
Mike - a roll of comments would be useful and probably generate some sales in the Techdirt store.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Obviously it's their own fault, if they get blocked...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Torrentfeak = dubious site name.
First off, torrent is a data transfer protocol, the same thing that the Steam service is.
Secondly, it shouldn't matter. Even if it was childporndistributors.gov or wesellpeople.tv
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Another explanation
More than once, I've gone to sites that use a "cheaper" type of include advertising and some of the ads use malicious code - things like modal pop-ups that tell you your PC is infected, etc.
I've actually been surprised at the number of "legit" sites that allow that sort of advertising.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Another explanation
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
For the record, Steam is back to not blocking those image links again.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Stupid question . . . .
Not being a Steam user, I'm not clear on how Steam is in a position to censor? Are they an ISP and I wasn't aware of it, or do they have some kind of proxy or filter that gets invasively configured on your devices?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Stupid question . . . .
So if you don't use Steams social functions this will not impact you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Stupid question . . . .
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Steam Chat? -Reallly...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Malicious defamation?
Maybe it's because we see so much very dubious legal action talked about on this site, but it seems to me that TorrentFreak at least has a reasonable case if they allege defamation given this warning being shown to Steam users.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Malicious defamation?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Malicious defamation?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
No coincidence. Torrent Freak advocates piracy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: you aren’t even consistently inconsistent.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Steam chat?
Borrow a quarter, get yourself a real browser so you can set your OWN black list.
Don't forget to blacklist that smith clown.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Habit
Really, I keep in touch with my friends by steam chat. It was one of the early available chat clients, was right there and served well enough.
We haven't switched out of habit, even though it doesn't provide current emoji support (or have a very good emoji font).
Steam voice chat became intolerable, so we all switched to Mumble, though.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Really this indicates a lack of confidence on Valve's part.
The primary thing Steam sells is its distribution service on the premise that it is actually better than other distro-vectors, including piracy.
So blocking sites that allegedly provide torrents for games or are even only related to torrents for games is kinda like Amazon blocking www.alibaba.com
Ultimately this kind of restriction draws more people towards those sites by way of the Streisand Effect.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Likely a filtering false positive
As a company that's responsible for our end user's security, we tend to take the more conservative stance that if our automation platforms have a reasonably high confidence that some kind of malicious activity is going on at a given URL (eg, click-jacking, malicious ads, drive-by downloads, etc) the URL will be marked as malicious as soon as it crosses the confidence thresholds. If a customer reports that it's a false positive, and there is no actual malicious behavior (eg, someone had multiple tabs open and one of them had bad behavior, all open tabs would likely be tagged in the confidence algorithms since determining the actual source becomes quite difficult at that point) then it will be manually checked and removed from the malicious DB if it's clean.
Sorry for the vagueness, but proprietary info and all that. That's likely the cause of both TorrentFreak being tagged as malicious, and the 4chan images referenced by the AC above. An algorithm picked up some suspicious behavior on a TorrentFreak or 4chan URL (which is completely believable on either site - either by ads or other means) and it was auto-flagged as malicious. This likely isn't something that a person that Steam/Valve set, but much more likely to be a algorithm or semi-AI decision made without human intervention.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]