Fortnite and Call of Duty criticised over poor response to Holocaust denial incidents
League of Legends fared slightly better.
Epic Games and Activision Blizzard have both received damning grades from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) in its 2023 Holocaust Denial Report Card.
The ADL published its online Holocaust Denial Report Card earlier this week. Here, the ADL lists the 10 most popular gaming and social media platforms and rates them based on the degree to which they aid the spread of Holocaust denial content.
Epic Games and Fortnite received an F grade, the lowest score reported by the ADL. The ADL noted the game does not have an explicit Holocaust denial policy. Additionally, Epic took more than 24 hours to respond whenever an incident was reported to it, and also failed to take action on reports made by average users.
Call of Duty's Activision Blizzard, meanwhile, received a D-, the same as social media platform Twitter. The ADL remarked that Activision would take action when an incident was reported, however it still took more than 24 hours to respond.
Riot Games and League of Legends fared a bit better, although still rather poorly, garnering a C- grade. The ADL noted Riot would often respond to the average user within 24 hours of an issue being raised, and further action was taken by the company.
The platforms with the highest grades were Twitch and YouTube. Each of these obtained a C+. However, in Twitch's case, this is a downgrade from the ADL's previous Holocaust Denial Report Card, where it scored a B.
Youtube, Facebook, Reddit and Discord all showed slight improvements since the ADL's 2021 evaluation.
Following this report, ADL head Jonathan A. Greenblatt stated that while tech companies "claim to be addressing hate on their platforms", when it comes to Holocaust denial "they aren't" (via GamesIndustry.biz).
"The consequence is that Holocaust deniers take advantage of this lax enforcement to spread their noxious antisemitic ideas and garner support for their hateful views."