Jesus fucking Christ. No. The vast majority of corporate hiring decisions are ultimately made based on subconscious biases held by individual HR employees, DEI initiatives primarily serve to break those biases. Yes, subconscious biases can still be racist and/or sexist or otherwise harmful, but they’re not intentionally harmful, nevermind hateful, colonialist (the fuck?) or genocidal (where on earth did you even get that from?!).

Oh for the love of fuck. Americans. Your country isn’t the centre of the universe. It doesn’t matter where a company’s headquarters are. If you are doing business in, for example, Germany, you have to abide by German laws. Being American isn’t an excuse and it doesn’t shield you from consequences for breaking the law.

Also, the big issue is that Valve isn’t actually using their right to refuse service. People can spread all sorts of bigotry via Steam’s discussions and groups without Valve acting on it. They’re providing a platform for hate speech and that is inherently immoral, regardless of what the law says.

Valve also does business outside the US. American law doesn’t clear them of their legal obligations in other countries. And besides, legality and morality are not always the same. Providing a platform for hate speech is supporting hate speech, and as far as I’m concerned that’s unethical regardless of whether or not it’s legal.

And ultimately they’re still Valve’s responsibility. If you provide a platform, you’re responsible for what people do on it.

Really? Because in my experience you have to wade through racist, homo- and transphobic, and misogynistic shit the second you foolishly open the discussions page on any game that features black or brown, LGBTQIA, and/or female characters.

I used to have downstairs neighbours like that and I loved it, free underfloor heating, I just opened the windows when I felt it got too warm. Saved me a good bit of money because I basically didn’t have to heat at all.

More, and that’s assuming you can ever build momentum. I wasn’t defending the choice.

Because fixing something from the inside takes work and time. And it’s not like it wasn’t happening (as much as I’m not a fan of it because I actually am one of the evil liberals people here love to complain about), people like AOC or Tlaib would never have been prominent voices ~20 years ago. But generational change happens over a timespan of, and I feel that it’s very odd that I need to point this out, generations.

Germany, zero minutes. Postal voting ftw!