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Today Steam revealed a new system called Text & Chat Filtering, which essentially allows you to customize what you see and dont see in private spaces. You can choose which words you see and dont see, even otherwise innocuous words that may be offensive or triggering to you. Well show you how.

Valve announced the new feature today via Steam Labs, its experimental space. Essentially, Steam bans profanity and slurs in public spaces, such as its forums, but is choosing not to do so for private spaces such as chat. This is to empower users to choose what they see from others, specifically marginalized groups [trying to] reclaim language for themselves.

But lets assume youre not trying to reclaim anything and would prefer Steam filter profanity privately as well. Heres how you do that.

At the moment, the feature is in beta, so youll need to join the experiment in Steam Labs. However, all signs indicate this is likely to come to Steam generally. To find it, go to your Account page, then go to Preferences. Scroll down, and under Community Content Preferences, youll find something that says Steam Labs Experiment 011: Text Filtering. Click Join the experiment. Note that you can leave the experiment any time you choose.

Youll immediately see several new options in this section. The first is whether you want to filter out profanity or slurs. You can chose to allow profanity but not slurs, or to obscure them with symbols if you choose. You can also choose not to do this for your Steam friends, as presumably some words will carry a different weight if they come from someone you know.

Next youll see the more granular controls over what language is filters. You can add words to filter individually, or you can upload a list of words. Ditto the other option: you can add words or upload a list of words thatll never be filtered. You can also download lists of both words. Speaking as someone who uses profanity as a way of communicating with family (we all swear like sailors), theres some profanity that doesnt bother me and some that does. So these options allow you more control over what youll see and not see.

And thats it! Now youll be able to control what you see in Steam chat more fully. Good luck!

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How to use Steams new chat filters to block profanity and slurs - The Next Web