This past week, you probably read some news stories talking about how several games from Steam were removed from the platform. At the same time, Valve also implemented a new rule on what you "shouldn't publish on Steam." The wording suggested that Valve was forced by payment processors such as PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard to remove content from Steam that they found offensive.
Across July 18th and 19th, Vice's Waypoint put up two detailed articles authored by Ana Valens that brought into focus Collective Shout. As shared in Valens' work, Collective Shout is a radical feminist organization that publicly claimed responsibility for pressuring several of Steam's payment processors to get titles removed from Steam that they thought should be removed. This pressure from Collective Shout was applied through mass letters and pushing their gullible followers to contact these various payment processors with outright lies that the games in question contained child abuse content. This pressure obviously worked, because the equally gullible payment processors gave Valve no choice but to pull several titles from Steam or they would lose access to the payment processors completely.
One day later on July 20th, articles talking about the removal of games from Steam and Collective Shout were pulled from Waypoint. Both articles were written by Valens. Fortunately, an archive of both articles are archived elsewhere:
- Group Behind Steam Censorship Policies Have Powerful Allies — And Targeted Popular Games With Outlandish Claims
- This Group Takes Responsibility For Steam’s Payment Processor Censorship Policies — They Just Implied ‘Pervert Nerds’ Cause Society’s Problems
In a follow-up post Valens states, "Savage Ventures requested I no longer contribute to VICE," noting that as of 11 am EST on the 20th she is "officially out from VICE/Waypoint." Valens suggests that even if Savage Ventures didn't make that request, she had already decided to cut ties with VICE, saying that the "feeling appears mutual that I am not to publish there again."
Valens says that both articles were edited and approved by Waypoint's managing editor Dwayne Jenkins. However, neither article went through legal review prior to publication. Jenkins was also the one who, on the morning of the 20th, informed Valens that leadership at Savage Ventures ordered him to pull the articles. According to statements shared to Aftermath from Valens, "there was no legal threat from Collective Shout or other entities over the contents of the articles." Valens says that it was "possible that [Savage Ventures] simply were afraid of [a legal threat] coming eventually."
Valens shared additional thoughts on Sunday morning in a Twitch stream. She claims that Savage Ventures was already worried about how Waypoint articles that covered sexual topics or politics could impact the outlet's performance in Google search results.
I’ve been told very specifically with a number of articles that it’s an issue with… Google, Google overlords. We actually had to fight very hard to keep some of our more politically-oriented VTuber coverage up because [Savage Ventures] were nervous it was going to be too R-rated for Google… I was told especially [of issues with] Google Discover.
'I can't sit back and watch Savage Ventures silence Ana and stifle actual journalism out of fear of being ‘too controversial,'' wrote Vatankhah, while Cichacki wrote that 'I cannot stand by and watch [Valens] be censored for doing her job and doing it properly.'
Waypoint previously removed several articles by Valens about VTuber Kirsche Verstahl following Verstahl releasing an “open letter” about the coverage that read in part “I don’t want to go to court over this. But… what else am I supposed to do?” An article by Jenkins about harassment Valens faced surrounding her VTuber coverage was also removed. Waypoint also previously cancelled a column Valens planned to write about adult games, and, Valens says, Savage Ventures, “wanted to pull an article I did on right-wing extremism in VTubing due to its political content” and over how “such political extremism could impact our standing with Google Discover.” Valens noted to Aftermath that, despite this seeming concern over Waypoint’s content, articles about zoophilia and “gooning” appear on Vice itself.
Aaaand with my Slack being unceremoniously deactivated following my own formal announcement of my resignation and the exodus of 66% of the team, that's ballgame on *that* particularly gruesome era of my career!
Jenkins said that, following the resignations of Valens, Cichacki, and Vatankhah, it felt challenging to stay at the site. He messaged his boss to resign, offering to stay on until the end of the month, and says that rather than receiving a reply to the message, "my boss gave it the green checkmark emoji, and deactivated all four of our Slack profiles in one fell swoop."
Jenkins confirmed that two writers, Anthony Franklin II and Brent Koep, remain at the site. Jenkins said, "Ana, Shaun, Matt, Brent, and Anthony deserve so much better... We formed a group I'd like to think will always have this era of our careers to thank for finding and supporting each other."
Jenkins confirmed that two writers, Anthony Franklin II and Brent Koep, remain at the site. Jenkins said, "Ana, Shaun, Matt, Brent, and Anthony deserve so much better... We formed a group I'd like to think will always have this era of our careers to thank for finding and supporting each other."
This seems like it could be the second ending for Waypoint. The first shuttering of the site came in April 2023, at which point most of the former Waypoint staff went on to form Remap. In February 2024 VICE declared bankruptcy and laid off most of their staff throughout the rest of the company. After Savage Ventures essentially bought out Vice Media, VICE relaunched in May of 2024. October 2024 saw the return of Waypoint with an all-new staff.
While working for this current version of Waypoint, Valens said that she was paid just $30 per article. Nick Capozzoli, who was a contributor for the "original" iteration of Waypoint, stated that rates used to be at least $300 per article. Given their lack of journalistic integrity, failure to support their staff, and failure to pay a fair wage I can't help but personally express disappointment and contempt for Savage Ventures, and that's putting it kindly.
