Poynter’s MediaSensible launches new initiative to fight extremism in on-line gaming areas

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (August 18, 2025) — More than 75 percent of gamers, together with kids, have witnessed harassment of their digital areas, in keeping with a 2023 research from the Anti-Defamation League. Gaming areas have many elements that make disinformation, harassment and extremist content material particularly troublesome to fight. From the real-time nature of chat making moderation exhausting to direct exploitation by extremist teams, a study by the National Library of Medicine discovered that avid gamers face an unusually difficult data ecosystem.

MediaSensible, the media literacy initiative from the nonprofit Poynter Institute, has launched a brand new pilot program to deal with manipulation, toxicity and extremism in on-line gaming areas. Gamers Against Manipulation Efforts (G.A.M.E.), goals to empower streamers, content material creators and their followers to establish and counter dangerous narratives of their communities.

“Our goal has always been to meet audiences where they are and address misinformation where they actually see it,” mentioned Alex Mahadevan, director of MediaSensible and Poynter school. “In the past that may have meant through WhatsApp courses or Facebook PSAs, but it’s clear we must reach young people with critical media literacy skills in Call of Duty lobbies, Roblox Chat or anywhere they’re spending time online.”

The online game group is exclusive: Gamers aren’t simply consuming these media messages, they’re interacting with or modifying them. A research from the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights discovered that the publicity price to extremist content material is excessive for avid gamers, with 51% encountering such content material in on-line multiplayer video games alone. 

When requested about these challenges, avid gamers reply that they’re uninterested in the vitriol; they imagine that recreation creators and group moderators have a accountability to assist handle the damaging content material invading their areas, in keeping with analysis from Take This. With over 3.2 billion folks enjoying video games worldwide, the viewers being impacted is big. Where can a person begin in the event that they need to deal with this problem?

When it involves media literacy, there is no such thing as a one method that meets the wants of each group. Due to the excessive quantity of malicious content material avid gamers are uncovered to, this challenge is specializing in strategies to construct resilience towards the impression of manipulation. Through G.A.M.E., MediaSensible will convene a bunch of streamers for 2 digital workshops centered on countering manipulation and abuse. The trainings will assist contributors empower their audiences by studying to acknowledge manipulation ways corresponding to scapegoating, false binaries and different widespread propaganda strategies. The program additionally addresses the evolving impression of synthetic intelligence on digital communities and the challenges it poses to belief and security on-line. The initiative attracts on research-backed strategies in psychological inoculation, a “pre-bunking” method to strengthen resilience to manipulative content material as a manner  to construct resilience amongst streamers and their audiences. This method stems from analysis suggestions developed inside the recreation group itself. 

“We’re excited to be building bridges between gaming communities and important research that points the way for positive impact and improving the online experiences for gamers, fans and creators,” mentioned Nan Noble, a MediaSensible associate and lead marketing consultant on the initiative. Data reveals that practising media literacy with benign and even humorous content material can “inoculate” learners and make all of us extra resilient when uncovered to dangerous content material. 

Streamers chosen for this system will obtain tutorial assist, networking alternatives and entry to a devoted useful resource hub. Participants can also be invited to collaborate on paid video explainers, designed to assist translate complicated media literacy ideas into relatable, audience-facing content material. 

At its core, G.A.M.E. is about supporting these within the recreation group to deal with the challenges they’re dealing with. 

G.A.M.E. is a collaboration between MediaSensible and Reality Team, Moonshot, Define American, Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) and supported by funders throughout the U.S. together with Argosy Foundation. For extra data or to get entangled, contact MediaSensible at [email protected]. 

Media Contact
Jennifer Orsi
[email protected]

About The Poynter Institute
The Poynter Institute is a worldwide nonprofit working to handle society’s most urgent points by educating journalists and journalism, masking the media and the complexities dealing with the trade, convening and group constructing, bettering the capability and sustainability of reports organizations and fostering belief and reliability of knowledge. The Institute is a gold commonplace in journalistic excellence and devoted to the preservation and development of press freedom in democracies worldwide. Through Poynter, journalists, newsrooms, companies, huge tech firms and residents convene to seek out options that promote belief and transparency in information and stoke significant public discourse. The world’s prime journalists and rising media leaders depend on the Institute to be taught new abilities, undertake greatest practices, higher serve audiences, scale operations and enhance the standard of the universally shared data ecosystem.

The Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), MediaSensible and PolitiFact are all members of the Poynter group.

Support for Poynter and our entities upholds the integrity of the free press and the U.S. First Amendment and builds public confidence in journalism and media — a vital for wholesome democracies. Learn extra at poynter.org.

About MediaSensible
MediaWise is a social-first digital media literacy initiative of the nonprofit Poynter Institute. The program teaches folks of all ages and backgrounds methods to responsibly interact with on-line content material within the age of knowledge overload. MediaSensible was created in 2018 to empower residents to seek out trusted sources and make sense of the huge quantity of knowledge at their fingertips. MediaSensible brings easy, but efficient, digital media literacy instruments to folks the place they’re — whether or not they’re on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, TikTok, or in one of many 10 international locations the place MediaSensible operates — and stroll them by each step to find out what’s actual and what’s not on the web. Through MediaSensible, everybody can do their half to cut back the unfold of misinformation and elevate the info.