Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Valve is adding a customizable profanity and slur filter to Steam’s chat system. The feature is now available through the Steam Lab beta program, with plans to make it a universal option soon. It filters a default list of commonly used “strong profanity” and slurs for “racial, religious, ethnic, and other identifying groups,” but users can choose to add or remove specific words or upload full block lists of terms.
Steam already censors offensive language across its public platform, including in forum posts and reviews. It’s also implemented an optional profanity filter for specific games, including Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Destiny 2. The new feature works across Steam’s chat service as well as supported games, and its block…