Gaming platform Steam agrees to remove banned content in Russia, censorship agency says
The video game platform Steam has agreed to remove all content banned in Russia from its online store in the country, the Russian state-controlled media outlet Interfax reported on Oct. 15.
Steam is owned by the U.S. video game company Valve.
The move follows a growing crackdown on social media and other online platforms in Russia since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In September, Russia banned the popular messaging service Discord, becoming the latest social media application to be blocked in the country.
Steam, which has an online catalog of more than 100,000 games and is used by around 130 million users around the world, including close to 10 million in Russia, agreed to comply with legislation, the federal censorship agency Roskomnadzor told Interfax. It blocked 11 websites and removed 260 "banned materials" from its platform.
Roskomnadzor did not specify what materials it had removed.
After Roskomnadzor moved to block the Signal messaging app in August 2024 due to alleged "violations of Russian law," rumors emerged about plans to block WhatsApp as well.
Meanwhile, YouTube has begun experiencing massive outages following reports that the Russian government is planning to block the site completely in September.
Martin Fornusek
