The US is heading into its next presidential election, and the process is turning out to be even more insufferable than usual. Now, one of the biggest mod repositories on the internet has announced a ban on all US political themes until the conclusion of the election.
“Recently we have seen a spate of provocative and troll mods being uploaded based around current sociopolitical issues in the United States,” Nexus Mods’ Dark0ne says in a blog post. Dark0ne says that due to the low quality of the mods in question, the “polarising views they express”, and the arguments that have resulted, the team has “decided to wipe our hands clean of this mess and invoke an outright ban on mods relating to sociopolitical issues in the United States.”
Any such mods uploaded after September 28 will be removed from the site. “We will review this restriction sometime after the next President of the United States has been inaugurated”, Dark0ne says.
Players are pointing to a number of Fallout 4 mods as the cause of this move. Earlier this week, a mod called ‘Raiders = Antifa’ was uploaded to the Fallout 4 Nexus, which purported to change the names of raider enemies to ‘antifa’ – though players say the mod files were actually empty.
The mod’s header image was a photo of one of the victims of the August shootings in Kenosha, Washington. The mod was quickly voted to the top of the site alongside its images of real-world violence, and a number of similar mods – with or without actual content – with varied political targets were uploaded shortly after.
“Most of these mods are being uploaded by cowards with sock puppet accounts deliberately to try and cause a stir,” Dark0ne says in the announcement. “If you see one of these mods I suggest you do as our Terms of Service say and report the mod and move on without engaging with the content. Your engagement will only fuel the idiots further.”