Days after the July 13 assassination attempt on Donald Trump, The FBI told Congress that Thomas Crooks, the shooter, had hinted at his attack on a gaming platform called Steam.
Plot twist: FBI Director Christopher Wray later told Congress that the Steam account didn’t belong to Crooks. A fake account had misled the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray explained that the profile on the gaming platform was created by someone else as a prank after the shooting. He confirmed that the shooter, Thomas Crooks, had several gaming accounts and was a gamer. Those accounts revealed several anti-Trump posts but no “smoking gun” declarations.
NBC News reported in April 2023 that the Biden White House would monitor more online gaming sites. An official from an Israeli firm, CyberInt, said they like to start tracking young people around 14 or 15 years old because they are often more careless and show off their activities.
In February 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported that the FBI had stepped up its efforts to get involved in gaming servers. They claimed to want to intercept and remove content they deem “extremist.”
Reddit, Roblox, Discord, and two others that chose not to be named in the report were among the companies that worked with federal agencies.
Hasan Piker, a political Twitch streamer, criticized the FBI. He says they have a poor history of identifying extremism. He noted the FBI is much better at “finding vulnerable teenagers with mental disabilities to take advantage of.”
According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security “share information about domestic threats” with social media and gaming companies. However, the report says neither agency has a clear plan for choosing which companies to work with or what they hope to achieve from the partnerships.
Without a clear strategy or goals, they might not know how well their communication with these companies works or if it helps them reach their overall missions.
The report explained what the US authorities are doing and what they should do in the future. It suggests that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Intelligence and Analysis division should create separate plans for handling alleged domestic terrorism with social media and gaming companies.
The January 6, 2021, incident led the Biden administration to call “domestic terrorism” the top threat in the country. They also created a national plan to fight it. This plan includes “online gaming platforms” as places where people can be recruited for domestic terrorism.
When working with gaming companies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) holds meetings to share information about online activities promoting violence or breaking company rules. The companies then give tips on anything illegal, and the FBI investigates.
Discord and Roblox also have a “trusted flagger” program where so-called “experts on extremism” can easily report content that might break the rules.
Researchers found that users made games on Roblox that recreated mass shootings. Roblox officials said their moderation team checked and updated their tools to block these games. They also made rules to prevent content glorifying violent events from appearing on the platform.
Since 2019, domestic terrorism threats have been categorized into five types: racially motivated extremism, anti-government and anti-authority extremism, animal rights and environmental extremism, and abortion-related extremism. For other infractions, there is a broader catch-all category.
These categories have blurred the line between acting on threats and censoring ordinary opinions online. It’s a twisted road for the FBI, which has been accused of entrapment many times.
The issue isn’t going away. The House Homeland Security Committee asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate how domestic extremists use games and social media. This decision followed pressure from Congress on major gaming companies last year.
And so, censorship creeps onward. No longer just the stuff of social media platforms, Democratic calls for censorship also target online gamers. But whatever you do, don’t complain about it on Discord.
