10mo ago

The Feds Are Coming for “Extremist” Gamers

theintercept.com Will Aaron Bushnell’s Death Trigger Anarchism Witch Hunt?

Sen. Tom Cotton demands the Pentagon root out leftist extremism.

Games @sh.itjust.works

theintercept.com /2024/03/09/fbi-dhs-gamers-extremism-violence/

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Games @lemmy.world

The Feds Are Coming for “Extremist” Gamers

theintercept.com /2024/03/09/fbi-dhs-gamers-extremism-violence/

139 44

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An internal FBI threat advisory obtained by The Intercept defines Anarchist Violent Extremists as individuals “who consider capitalism and centralized government to be unnecessary and oppressive,” and “oppose economic globalization; political, economic, and social hierarchies based on class, religion, race, gender, or private ownership of capital; and external forms of authority represented by centralized government, the military, and law enforcement.”
Guess I’m on another list because I agree with all of that.
- Are they honestly okay with putting "Social hierarchies based on [...] race or gender" in writing?
- The result of none of that is the same as anarchy, violence, nor extremism
  
  Anarchy has stood for those things since its inception.
  Who taught you that it means violence and lawlessness? Maybe they have an agenda?
- I would read this as "Of the types of violent extremists, the 'Anarchist' type are those who... ". As a really dumb metaphor, if I have a pokedex, I don't need to restate that they're all Pokémon in there each time.
  
  I'm not sure that your interpretation gels with the FBI's historical behavior. The organization literally tried to get MLK Jr. to kill himself.

Roblox? Are there that many radicalized 8 year olds?
- Have you met many 8 year olds? They are all fucking radicals. I’d say at least half are terrorists.
  
  Letting them out from the mines was a mistake
  
  That’s a preexisting condition though, 8 year olds have always been menaces to the rest of us
- Gotta catch them early if you want to have nice obedient corporate drones.
  
  Robocop?

Surely this will be an article about the FBI finally cutting down on Nazis and right-wing extremists in The Gaming Community right? Right? Oh..

Huh, I wonder how much they'll focus on the right wing aspect of that. Or are they both-sidesing the animal activists, giving that equal weight to alt-right fascists?
- Huh, I wonder how much they’ll focus on the right wing aspect of that.
  Just enough to say they did and no more.

No
- I'm afraid that's not a very strong legal defense.
  
  Its not a legal defense, its a warning. We all like our fingers, be a shame is some of us lost em.

This is the best summary I could come up with:
Gaming companies are coordinating with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to root out so-called domestic violent extremist content, according to a new government report.
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have mechanisms to share and receive domestic violent extremism threat-related information with social media and gaming companies,” the GAO says.
“All I can think of is the awful track record of the FBI when it comes to identifying extremism,” Hasan Piker, a popular Twitch streamer who often streams while playing video games under the handle HasanAbi, says of the mechanisms.
The GAO’s investigation, which covers September 2022 to January 2024, was undertaken at the request of the House Homeland Security Committee, which asked the government auditor to examine domestic violent extremists’ use of gaming platforms and social media.
A 2019 internal intelligence assessment jointly produced by the FBI, DHS, the Joint Special Operations Command, and the National Counterterrorism Center and obtained by The Intercept warns that “violent extremists could exploit functionality of popular online gaming platforms and applications.” The assessment lists half a dozen U.S.-owned gaming platforms that it identifies as popular, including Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net, Fortnite, Playstation Xbox Live, Steam, and Roblox.
In 2019, ADL’s then-senior vice president of international affairs, Sharon Nazarian, was asked by Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., if gaming platforms “are monitored” and if there’s “a way AI can be employed to identify those sorts of conversations.”
The original article contains 1,138 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
- a way AI can be employed to identify those sorts of conversations.
  i'm sure that'd be done fairly
  
  My bet: They're probably going to initially go after some actual problem accounts, then once they got the PR out, immediately start using it for bad faith surveillance.

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