Valve is about to start moderating comments across Steam’s game hubs. In a blog post released last night, the company announced that its moderation team “will start reviewing reported discussion posts in all game hubs on Steam.”
Valve points out that the moderation team has already been reviewing reported content across much of Steam. That includes user reviews, screenshots, and posts in community groups, and action has been taken against those found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines. Valve says, however, that until now it’s been “hesitant to get involved in the moderation of individual game discussions.”
As the blog post points out though, “we’ve been hearing from more and more game developers that would actually prefer for us to take a more active role in discussion boards, at least to the extent of handling posts that are reported by other players.” If devs want to handle their own community, they can opt out of Valve’s system, but for now, any reports will be added to a queue to be looked at by the moderation team.
Valve does say it won’t be “actively perusing” comments, but it’s an interesting step nonetheless, from a company which has commented on its lack of desire to moderate Steam in the past. Earlier this year, the company said that it will allow any game on its platform as long as it’s not “illegal, or straight up trolling.”
Elsewhere, however, the company has been more vigilant in policing some of its fringe communities, deleting several hate groups from the platform back in March. The new moderation system will begin, with an expanded team behind it, on September 25.