Agenda
Beyond Toxicity: Designing Safer Game Communities
Sian Hutchinson (Officer in Charge, PCVE Section, United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT))
Lily Vicente (Programme Management Officer, United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), United Nations Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCCT))
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Hot Topics:
International
Track:
Culture & Sustainability, Marketing
Audience Level:
All
Format:
Microtalks
Vault Recording: TBD
Audience Level: All
Title: Beyond Toxicity: Designing Safer Game Communities
You work hard to create a game people love. The friendships, shared experiences and sense of belonging around it can be just as valuable. So how do you protect those connections when someone uses them to manipulate, threaten or recruit others towards violence?
Whether you design games, lead a studio, launch new titles or manage player communities, your decisions help shape those spaces.
This session explores serious harms that can emerge in and around games - from targeted hate to radicalization to violence and recruitment into terrorist or violent extremist groups - and what your team can do about that. It'll unpack what concerning behavior can look like, why context matters, and where opportunities for prevention lie across the player experience.
You'll leave better equipped to recognize risks, identify improvements to reporting and player support, and work with your community to turn safety guidance into action - helping protect the spaces players value and the trust your team has worked to build.
You work hard to create a game people love. The friendships, shared experiences and sense of belonging around it can be just as valuable. So how do you protect those connections when someone uses them to manipulate, threaten or recruit others towards violence?
Whether you design games, lead a studio, launch new titles or manage player communities, your decisions help shape those spaces.
This session explores serious harms that can emerge in and around games - from targeted hate to radicalization to violence and recruitment into terrorist or violent extremist groups - and what your team can do about that. It'll unpack what concerning behavior can look like, why context matters, and where opportunities for prevention lie across the player experience.
You'll leave better equipped to recognize risks, identify improvements to reporting and player support, and work with your community to turn safety guidance into action - helping protect the spaces players value and the trust your team has worked to build.
Takeaway
Attendees will gain knowledge and insights into practical approaches to:
1. Understand how gaming communities can be exploited for discrimination, grooming, recruitment and radicalization to violence, and recognize concerning behaviors in context.
2. Identify concrete steps their teams can take to strengthen player safety, from social-feature design and clear community guidance to accessible reporting and appropriate escalation and referral.
3. Identify how youth-developed safety guidance and interactive learning tools can help community teams recognize concerns, support players and respond to harmful behavior.
1. Understand how gaming communities can be exploited for discrimination, grooming, recruitment and radicalization to violence, and recognize concerning behaviors in context.
2. Identify concrete steps their teams can take to strengthen player safety, from social-feature design and clear community guidance to accessible reporting and appropriate escalation and referral.
3. Identify how youth-developed safety guidance and interactive learning tools can help community teams recognize concerns, support players and respond to harmful behavior.
Intended Audience
Every game developer or publisher that has or is building a community around their game regardless of direct involvement in the care thereof is invited to understand the risks to their community, how to mitigate those risks, and the ways multiple teams are working to prevent extremism in game communities. No prior preventing or countering violent extremism knowledge is required.