Milo Yiannopoulos disputes BBC report on extremists taking over video game chats

Right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos is disputing a study by BBC Click that says extremists have taken over the online chat streams of video games such as “Call of Duty” and “Minecraft” with hate speech.

“To the elderly and those with weak constitutions, gamer culture can appear bizarre, offensive and perhaps even frightening. But it’s deeply silly to allege that ’hate groups’ are ’taking over’ just because some hand-wringing, perpetually-aggrieved offense archeologist with too much time on her hands discovered someone saying something shocking,” Mr. Yiannopoulos told The Washington Times.

The BBC reported Sept. 23 that researchers spent three months tracking anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist comments on multiple streaming platforms, including DLive and Odysee, where users of all ages from around the world chat live while playing “Call of Duty” and “Minecraft” with each other.

The BBC Click study raises the concern that “everyday conversations” might lead to radicalizing young people who get drawn into them.

But Mr. Yiannopoulos, a former Breitbart News tech writer, rejected the idea that hate groups want to radicalize teenage boys.

“The report itself acknowledges that these are merely ’everyday conversations,’” he said. “All evidence shows that video games make people less aggressive and less violent in real life. And we all know that these endless media reports on ’hate’ create the very thing they warn against.”

First-person shooter games popular with young men such as “Call of Duty” have come under fire in recent years for perpetuating sexism, racism and homophobia.

The British-American Mr. Yiannopoulos, who now writes for the Catholic website Church Militant, rose to fame as a leading figure of the alt-right through his involvement in 2014’s so-called Gamergate scandal.

After he targeted political opponents on social media, including female video game designers and feminist critics of video gaming, he was banned permanently from Twitter in 2016 and from Facebook in 2019.