Organizations that forced Steam to remove R18 games criticized Musk for inciting cyber violence
Recently, the Australian non-governmental organization Collective Shout once again attracted public attention. The organization has put pressure on payment institutions such as MasterCard and Visa to prompt the Steam platform to remove a number of R18-level games. This time, the organization pointed its finger at technology entrepreneur Elon Musk.
The incident originated from the recent controversy caused by the Steam platform's removal of some games due to payment restrictions. A large number of game players have initiated online petitions, calling on payment institutions to respect consumers' right to choose and stop interfering in the content management of game platforms. Musk supported the petition on social media, a move that sparked even more controversy.
Collective Shout founder Melinda Tankad Reister issued a public statement on this, accusing Musk of exacerbating the security risks faced by members of the organization. She revealed that members of her team have recently suffered serious cyber violence, including death threats, sexual violent intimidation and personal information leakage.
"These men threatened to rape and kill us, sent vulgar and obscene pictures, encouraged us to commit suicide, threatened to use our photos to create vulgar content, and even attempted to track down our home address," Ricester said.
She further pointed out that Musk's behavior forwarded the petition objectively contributed to gender-opposition cyber violence: "Musk's behavior incited violent threats, harassment and cyber attacks on our all-female team, forcing us to take additional security measures on all platforms to protect personal safety."
At the same time, Reister emphasized that despite the threats, Collective Shout will continue to advance its advocacy efforts.
