S.T.O.P. Report Warns Video Game Surveillance May 'Kill The Internet As We Know It'

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For Immediate Release

S.T.O.P. Report Warns Video Game Surveillance May ‘Kill The Internet As We Know It’

(New York, NY, 05/31/23) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group, released Game Over: The Unintended Consequences Of Video Game Censorship, detailing how video game censorship laws increasingly threaten internet freedom more broadly. Historically, video games have gained far fewer legal protections than other internet platforms, but as gaming becomes ever more central to the broader internet ecosystem, gaming censorship is poised to curtail internet freedom for billions of users. This danger is being driven by the increasing popularity of gaming, the convergence of gaming and social media, and the likely expansion of virtual reality and augmented reality platforms to other areas of digital life.

SEE: Report – Game Over: The Unintended Consequences Of Video Game Censorship
https://www.stopspying.org/game-over

“Gaming isn’t just a toy, it’s the future of the internet,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. “Already gaming is a multibillion-dollar industry, but it’s poised to become even more central to how we live our lives online. Virtual reality, augmented reality, and other novel technologies will move more and more of work and social life onto gaming platforms. But as long as we regulate gaming differently, subjecting it to greater scrutiny, surveillance, and censorship, we are creating an architecture of control for the future of digital civil society. We must upend how we conceive of gaming if we want to protect an internet compatible with democracy.”

Key Findings Include:

Video games and computer games are increasingly central to digital civil society, hosting political campaigns, protests, religious ceremonies, and much more.
Gaming often faces much more stringent censorship and regulation than other online service providers. In some cases, games are even banned for showing content comparable to what can legally be shown in movies / TV.
The multi-billion-dollar investment in virtual reality and augmented reality technology is likely to migrate large amounts of our online lives—work, social media, news consumption, etc.—onto gaming platforms.
Unless action is taken, this game platform migration will result in far fewer legal protections for users, enabling greater governmental control of online speech.

Earlier this month, the civil rights group released Banned for Being: Moderating Online Games’ Public Sphere, detailing how video game content moderation penalizes historically marginalized players for being open about their identities and for responding to identity-related abuse. The report found that crackdowns on user-generated content that aim to stop identity-based harassment frequently backfire, hurting the gamers they aim to help.

Release – S.T.O.P. Report Shows Video Game Content Moderation Reinforces Discrimination
https://www.stopspying.org/latest-news/2023/5/19/stop-report-shows-video-game-content-moderation-reinforces-discrimination

The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color.

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Press, Researchcommunications staffMay 31, 2023