afaik the client does collect a bunch if data, most (all, i think? but not a 100% on that) of which is opt-in.

they do need stuff like IPs for internet related features.

telemetry wise there’s the steam hardware survey, which is opt-in, and it asks every single time it attempts to collect your systems hardware and OS information. this could technically be identifying information, but since it’s opt-in it’s not a privacy violation and it’s entirely optional. (plus it’s super useful for all involved: users, devs, and steam. it’s kind of a win-win and straight up necessary info for devs to know which hardware they should optimize for)

they might be putting it at the top because steam has native support for DRM?

but that’s also weird, because DRM isn’t a privacy violation. it’s a shitty practice, barely does anything, barely works, and keeps breaking or hobbling otherwise perfectly good games, all of which is shitty, but it’s little to do with privacy. and the dev has to specifically opt-in and integrate it as a feature…unless they’re thinking of 3rd party DRM that can be waaay more intrusive, like Vanguard… THAT’S a privacy and security nightmare just waiting to blow up in people’s faces.

otherwise…i haven’t really heard anything bad about steam privacy wise?

doesn’t mean that there’s nothing to be concerned about, but i feel like there’d been some news about it if there was…

Arthmoor is far from the worst the elder scrolls (and specifically the skyrim) modding community has to offer, lol

he’s one of the most famous weirdos, but there’s waaaaaaay worse among some of the most widely used mods’ authors.

the best example is probably Boris, the maintainer of ENB (a shader extension/injector), who is a famously fascist russian.

then there’s all the anti-woke modders (which mostly get banned from most platforms within hours/days). these aren’t that bad in the grand scheme, but they regularly cause huge shitstorms and hilarious modding sprees that can be best described as “extra, super gay” in protest.

ETA: one kinda famous incident was some guy modding out a SINGLE reference to a (probably, implied only) gay couple of dead skeletons. they’re not even really characters, they’re just set pieces lying around, but this dude thought “absolutely not!” and posted a patch that removed that like, single text line in a diary, from the game. suuuuper petty, borderline insane. anyway, nexus community, understandably threw a fit, nexus staff was super on board and went nuclear on the dude’s account, and a bunch of mods in the theme of “EVERYONE in skyrim is now super gay” sprung up on the front page of the skyrim nexus. so that was pretty funny!

but yeah…there’s regularly gross ass bigots around…'cause, you know…viking-themed fantasy land…

have i mentioned the frequent self-takedowns of mods in protest? yeah, that also used to be a big thing on the skyrim nexus…have fun trying to mod when some of the core frameworks just dissapear overnight just because someone was mildly offended by some bullshit…except like once or twice, when they actually kinda had a point…

at least with minecraft most of the mods, and as far as i know all of the big ones, are open source. skyrim’s are often closed source, so for a bunch of the core frameworks the community is built around there just isn’t an easy replacement. if the modders got mad, things used to just…break.

and then there’s the pedos…yeah. some folks keep trying to lewd the kids in skyrim…also get banned pretty much immediately, but like…you know.

sooooo…yeah…minecraft drama is suuuper tame by comparison!

it’s intense for the people involved, sure, but big picture wise it’s childs’ play…skyrim drama hits different.

pfffff… separate browser/firefox profile with blatant porn links right in the bookmarks, neatly sorted.

no need to hide shit…just separate it out and lock it behind a password/have it on a separate, locked volume/drive/directory/whatever…

…or a portable linux live stick…

there’s plenty of civilized options! ;)

requiring third party services is still problematic; i seriously do not trust any third party services to handle data as critical as ID.

having that leaked isn’t like having your passwords or nudes leaked…it can seriously ruin entire lives!

I’d honestly rather have the government directly involved than some fuck-off “we’re in it for the money”, “how cheap can we go before we start leaking” company…

that said, i completely agree with the rest of what you said!

only i think that age restrictions is the wrong solution for the problem at hand, because it doesn’t actually solve the problem.

the problem isn’t (just) “kids have access to social media too early”, the problem is “social media has become manipulative cesspool designed to brainwash entire populations”!

age verification doesn’t solve issues like election interference, rising violence, privacy violations, misinformation, disinformation, etc, etc.

what does solve most, if not all, of those problems is properly regulating social media companies!

and it starts with forcing those companies to have open source, verified algorithms, to prevent them from being able to claim “they’re committed to X”, while blatantly ignoring any and all regulation.

the real problem is that just about nobody actually knows how exactly the massive social media platforms serve content, and how little control users have over their own algorithms.

solve that problem, and kids can be online just fine again! just like you and i were!

it is possible to return to a better internet, but that requires actually solving the root of the problem(s) at hand, instead of getting distracted with things like age verification, which, again, is just mass surveillance by a different name.

problem here is as follows:

how would you verify the age of someone without government id?

the answer very simple: you can’t.

there is no (reliable) way to verify ID without government involvement, period.

“but it’s the companies responsibility!”

well, how are they going to verify anyone’s age?

that’s right! by checking some form of government ID (passport, drivers license, etc.)

how would they know wether an ID is legit or not? by comparing to a government database.

so it’s the government checking either way.

theoretically you could implement a hash-based system that’s secure by comparing only hashed values against a government API without ever actually saving user information anywhere, similar to how “login with google/apple/facebook” and so forth work, but i doubt there’s any government willing to spend the cash on such a system.

because that would actually work and could be made in privacy respecting way.

but because surveillance is the goal of any government trying to implement bullshit like this, it won’t ever be done this way…

remember: it’s always mass surveillance. never about “the kids”, or “the crime”, or whatever straw-man-of-the-week they pull out their ass at any given time.

effectively calling at least a quarter of the population some kind of mentally handicapped is certainly a novel strategy…

i wonder why politicians don’t typically run on such a platform? /s

also in the books!

the expanse is probably the most faithful reproduction of a book series ever.

especially considering it’s like, what?, 5 books they made into the series?

it’s almost a 1:1 translation into a different medium, which is hella impressive!

they cut some stuff here and there (more and more as the series goes on, for obvious reasons) but seriously, damn near everything about the main story is there!

there’s really good reasons for the fans demanding more of it after Netflix stopped production

i mean it’s a mathematical certainty that FPTP systems will eventually result in only 2 parties.

so it really is not up to the voters…

because that doesn’t make any sort of sense in german; it’s nonsense ;)

ETA: “waffenspiel” is the only actually german part of that. and the translation for that is accurate (weapons’ game), but also kinda nonsensical, especially without proper context.

the rest is just straight up not a word…

it’s not the anthem, it’s a popular folk song ;)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korobeiniki

right up until redacted and suddenly it’s reeeaaaal difficult to find a way to end the game, because dying isn’t an option if you didn’t prepare for it XD