Esports is a thriving multi billion dollar industry that is continuing to grow and influence our culture. With a world wide pool of diverse participants, there are still racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and other forms of hate speech commonly practiced. Reports of these incidents have caused some individuals to quit playing specific games.
This working group has established two specific tracks of qualitative research and the technology side of gaming to address these issues. With qualitative research, participants will be interviewed and surveyed to identify instances of hate speech and predict triggers of engaging in this behavior. The data gathered from these efforts will inform the development of standards aimed at the creation of open-source tools for combating hate speech and extremism in the gaming community. These standards are set to enhance transparency, create publicly accessible tools, and promote measures to counter hate speech and extremism effectively within games.