Online Gaming Platforms Need to Address Misleading Election Information

While recent extremist attacks at a synagogue in Halle, Germany and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York were carried out worlds apart, they found a common home online: the gunmen responsible used Twitch, a popular video game streaming service, to live-stream the murders of innocent people. Such uses of gaming platforms to advance extremist ideologies are part of a growing trend of extremism and radicalization centered on online multiplayer games, which can contribute to the spread of misinformation and disinformation, including around elections.

Misleading information can spread through the gaming ecosystem just as it spreads on social media. Many of the most popular games feature online multiplayer, which allows users to play together and interact in real-time through voice and text chat. Distribution services and internet-connected devices—like Steam or Xbox—are also key facets of online gaming, providing a platform for users not just to purchase online multiplayer games, but to connect with other gamers through built-in messaging and social networking functionalities. Many gamers also use gaming-adjacent social messaging and live-streaming platforms, such as Discord and Twitch, to communicate with one another while playing or to watch other gamers play live. The level of interactivity facilitated by these gaming platforms, however, can enable the spread of misinformation and disinformation, including around elections, through text and voice messaging and live-streamed video, which can then be shared and amplified between platforms.

The circulation of misleading information in online gaming is exacerbated by the prevalence of hate and discrimination across the gaming industry. Research has shown that the spread of extremist content in gaming can drive polarization and hate, leading to increased harassment targeting women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ communities and a rise in the circulation of conspiracy theories and misleading information. This issue is compounded by the fact that gaming platforms often stand to profit off the amplification of controversial content which tends to drive greater user engagement. In just the last year, over 80 million adult gamers and 14 million young gamers experienced harassment in online multiplayer gamers. As more people turn to gaming for social connection and entertainment, gaming companies will face the same challenges around harassment and misleading election information that other online platforms have faced. Misinformation and disinformation about elections, in particular, can inflame political polarization and contribute to voter suppression, which especially affects communities of color.

With the 2022 U.S. midterm elections growing near, it is important to consider how online gaming platforms are potentially vulnerable to misleading information. OTI recently published a scorecard assessing how 10 major internet platforms are addressing election and voter suppression-related misinformation and disinformation ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. The scorecard measures the performance of these platforms against a set of metrics related to their efforts to promote accurate information, moderate and curate organic content, tackle misleading information in advertising, and promote transparency around these efforts. While online games were not evaluated in the report, there are numerous indicators that online gaming platforms may be equally susceptible to election-related misinformation and disinformation, raising concerns about how these services could be used to circulate false information about voting processes, promote voter suppression, and undermine the health of our democracy.

For example, while some gaming platforms have instituted limited measures to combat election-related misinformation and disinformation, most gaming platforms lack comprehensive related content policies and fail to provide meaningful transparency around their content moderation enforcement efforts.

In October 2021, Roblox, an online multiplayer game popular among children, updated its policies to prohibit “the discussion or depiction of” almost all political content. Roblox instituted these changes with the hopes of promoting safety and civility by preventing the spread of both accurate and misleading election information. Roblox, however, does not issue transparency reports on any of their enforcement efforts, so it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of the company’s enforcement of this policy.

In addition, in February 2022, Discord, an instant messaging platform popular in the gaming community, announced it was changing its Community Guidelines to ban “false or misleading information…if we reasonably believe its spread could result in…obstruction of participation in civic processes.” One month later, after facing criticism for providing extremists with a platform to monetize misinformation and disinformation, Twitch updated its community guidelines. The new policies prohibit “civic misinformation that undermines the integrity of a civic or political process” and “misinformation promoted by conspiracy networks tied to violence and/or promoting violence.” Neither platform has published information on their efforts to enforce these policies in their regular transparency reports.

While these recent developments are moves in the right direction, substantial changes are still needed to adequately address misleading election-related information.

To prevent the potential spread of election misinformation and disinformation, gaming platforms should create comprehensive content policies that ban such misleading information, as well as instances of voter suppression. These policies should be developed in consultation with relevant civil society organizations and relevant stakeholders to ensure they are responsive to the specific needs of the online gaming community. The development of these policies is crucial, since most major gaming consoles, distributors, and game publishers—including Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation, Activision, Epic Games, and Steam—do not have specific policies on election misinformation and disinformation. Online gaming platforms have yet to institute many of these measures partially due to the fact that the standards governing in-game conduct are made up of a patchwork of policies created by device manufacturers, distribution companies, social messaging platforms, and game publishers. These companies should collaborate with one another to develop effective measures for addressing misleading election information across different games and platforms.

Platforms should also institute dedicated reporting features for users to flag such content. Additionally, they should create policies to prevent the monetization of election-related misinformation and disinformation, decreasing incentives for users who may produce inflammatory and harmful content for profit. Finally, companies should take steps to enhance transparency around their efforts to combat misleading information, such as sharing information with vetted external researchers and publishing data related to the moderation and curation of election-related misinformation and disinformation in regular transparency reports. While few gaming platforms have adopted these measures, we hope that more companies will join in and help to build momentum towards industry-wide change.

Gaming is an important facet of many people’s lives, transforming how we connect, entertain, and communicate with one another. While traditional social media platforms have begun to reckon with their impact on society by taking steps to institute mechanisms for addressing extremism and misleading information, online gaming platforms have fallen behind. These platforms share the same responsibility to prevent the spread of harmful and misleading content, including election misinformation and disinformation. Such efforts are especially critical to combating the rise of extremism, curbing harassment targeted at underserved communities, and restoring trust in the electoral process. With the midterms on the horizon, gaming platforms must act quickly to address misleading election information.