Hours after former US President Donald Trump was shot in Butler, Pennsylvania, a new Fortnite game appeared: Donald Trump against the murdererThe game was quickly removed, but several other games featuring anti-Semitism and political violence remained on the gaming platform, according to a new report from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) shared exclusively with WIRED.
The games identified by the GPAHE were created using the “Fortnite Creative”Islands”, which allows users to design their own maps or play areas. One of them replicated the Jasenovac concentration camp in what is now Croatia, where tens of thousands of Jews, Roma and Serbs were killed during World War II. In the game, users can play as members of the Ustaša, a Croatian nationalist group that was influenced by fascism and Nazism. This map was labeled as “educational” content.
When WIRED informed Epic Games, which owns Fortnite, about GPAHE’s findings, company spokesperson Alan Cooper said Jasenovac’s game was one of two games removed for violating the platform’s policies. Cooper told WIRED that the company had “taken action” against a third game highlighted in the organization’s investigation.
Another game called Trump vs. Biden In this game, players face off against each other in red or blue teams to represent the two American political parties. The winning team is decided by the one that manages to kill the most members of the other side. Cooper says Epic reviewed the game and “found that it does not violate the rules, as players do not play as Trump or (President) Biden and there is no depiction of real-world violence against the candidates.”
Another game identified by the GPAHE, called AFD ZONE WARSpromotes the German right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and includes a song that refers to racism The theory of the “Great Replacement” which claims that immigrants are replacing white Europeans. GPAHE’s investigation uncovered more than a dozen games with anti-Semitic or violent political content.
Fortnite, which has an estimate 236 million monthly active usershas policies It prohibits the creation of content that encourages “illegal activities, including the promotion of known real-world gangs or gang violence, the promotion of known real-world terrorist organizations or terrorism, harassment, bullying, assault, doxing (and) swatting.” It also prohibits content that “includes hate symbols or depictions or content that glorifies or incites violence.” However, it appears that games containing hate and violence continued to exist online despite these rules, potentially reaching millions of users around the world.
Wendy Via, CEO and president of GPAHE, says that, like any platform where users can create their own content, “you’re going to see absolutely everything” on Fortnite. Policies can ban content that dehumanizes, degrades, spreads hateful language, or perpetuates negative stereotypes, but Via says these rules are vague enough to allow problematic content to remain. She also notes that Fortnite doesn’t have any policies regarding political content. “They don’t have a specific policy, so they can give themselves the leeway to leave something up or take it down, depending on what best suits their purposes,” she says.
