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Do Gamers Really Need An Adjustable Hate Speech Fade Button?

That and more this week In Race and Racism

Stephanie Siek
Momentum
4 min readApr 17, 2021

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Two friends play video games./ Getty Images

The racial nonsense was thick this past week. From an adjustable hate speech slider for gamers to the racist roots of the District of Columbia’s federal disenfranchisement, here’s some of the race and racism news you might have missed.

“Computer: Decrease racism shields by 17 percent.”

How much White nationalism, body shaming and sexism would you prefer to experience today? Apparently Intel thought that answers other than “none” were acceptable, because it recently previewed a service that would allow video gamers to choose the degree of racism, misogyny or hate speech that comes in through their headsets from other players. This service, called Bleep, tries to use artificial intelligence to try and filter out anything from ‘aggressive’ language to the N-word from online voice chat. Users choose the level they consider acceptable using a slider. “Hateful speech is something that needs to be educated and fought, not toggled on a settings screen,” writes Luke Plunkett at Kotaku. At Kotaku you can see screenshots of the actual slider and get a better idea of just how absurd this really is.

The advent of “copaganda”

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Momentum
Momentum

Published in Momentum

Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant anti-Black racism is leading to violence, trauma, protest, reflection, sorrow, and more. Momentum doesn’t look away when the news cycle shifts.

Stephanie Siek
Stephanie Siek

Written by Stephanie Siek

Stephanie Siek is a writer and editor who loves cats, cookie dough and aborted alliteration.

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