Ukrainian gaming curators turning to witch hunting
Submitted 2 months ago by Rose@lemmy.zip to gaming@beehaw.org
https://medium.com/@justrr/ukrainian-steam-curators-turning-to-witch-hunting-f405918a44d9
Submitted 2 months ago by Rose@lemmy.zip to gaming@beehaw.org
https://medium.com/@justrr/ukrainian-steam-curators-turning-to-witch-hunting-f405918a44d9
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 2 months ago
What does “witch hunt” even mean anymore? I feel like it has been overused to the point of losing all meaning. In this case, by “witch hunt”, the writer means “they have started going too far and making some bad calls”. They aren’t calling for people to mount heads on spikes or review bomb, as far as I can tell.
It’s a strange case, though. Who do we think follows these curators? The title of the list is in Ukrainian, so I’d guess it’s mostly Ukrainians. On the one hand, I don’t want to tell Ukrainian folks how to spend their money with respect to Russia. Maybe for some, even the slightest whiff of Russia will turn them off from the game, regardless of how logical it is. It’s not my busieness to question the mostly-harmless emotional reaction of a people under siege. For those, these curation lists might still be useful. Of course, people that care this much would probably research another way if the curator lists didn’t exist.
For others, I’m sure they would prefer a curator list that actually does the research and doesn’t list a game unless the purchase would very clearly benefit Russia in tax dollars. For those, this turn of events is unfortunate. On the other hand, those people are probably level-headed enough to do their own research on a game-by-game basis.
My point is: the impact of these curator lists existing is probably minimal.
lvxferre@mander.xyz 2 months ago
A good definition of witch hunting would be “to publicly label one or more individuals as belonging to an undesired group, with little to no regard to accuracy”. It fits really well what the article claims those users to be doing.
Rose@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
In the context of the article, it’s not about the consequence - obviously, nobody’s getting burned at the stake - but about the how: the finger-pointing based on vibes, with absolutely no evidence.
In that case, just look at how the Ukrainian users of the group are reacting. The number of users to have voiced their disagreement already exceeds that of the admins.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 2 months ago
Seems like it’s kind of a moot point then, no? If even a majority of Ukrainian users are aware of the issues with the list, I would expect most would just leave and the list would fade into obscurity.