One of the internet’s biggest sites for gaming mods has banned all submissions with political themes until after the US election.
NexusMods’ ban covers all “mods relating to sociopolitical issues in the United States” and will last until “sometime after the next President of the United States has been inaugurated” – so not until the end of January 2021, at the earliest.
NexusMods’ decision was announced today in a weary-sounding update from the site’s staff. “To be blunt, we do not care how this looks,” read the statement posted to the site.
The move follows a spike in “provocative and troll mods” being uploaded, apparently mirroring a similar trend seen around the time of the last US election four years ago.
“Considering the low quality of the mods being uploaded, the polarising views they express and the fact that a small but vocal contingent of our users are seemingly not intelligent or grown up enough to be able to debate the issues without resorting to name calling and baseless accusations without proof (indicative of the wider issues plaguing our world at this time) we’ve decided to wipe our hands clean of this mess and invoke an outright ban on mods relating to sociopolitical issues in the United States. We have neither the time, the care or the wish to moderate such things.