Dirty Dozen: 12 companies and entities facilitating sexual exploitation

12 companies and entities named 'mainstream facilitators' of sexual exploitation

By Samuel Smith, Deputy Managing Editor Monday, February 11, 2019

Steam

The online video streaming service Steam is used by millions of kids nationwide. While it provides access to many of the most popular video games on the market, it also provides access to thousands of games in the categories of “sexual content” and “nudity.”

Steam is again on the Dirty Dozen List for the second year in a row.

According to Halverson, some of the games that the platform sells feature the theme of blackmailing girls to have sex, having sex with child-like characters and performing lude sexual acts in front of women who are non-consenting, rape and stripping.

Halverson said that Steam began to make moves to remove the games from its platform in light of the pressure it received from being on last year’s Dirty Dozen List. But Steam received backlash from gamers and decided to institute a new policy to allow everything in the Steam store “except for things that are illegal or trolling.”

“As soon as this new policy launched, the number of games tagged for nudity doubled from approximately 700 games to around 1,400 games in just four months and now there are over 2,000 games with this tag,” Halverson said.

“In our #MeToo culture, Steam made a cowardly choice to [skirt] its corporate and social responsibility to remove sexual violent games from its platform.”