Kidas is behind this coalition to reduce toxicity in gaming

Seven gaming industry stakeholders led by one Philadelphia company are working together to reduce harm on gaming platforms.

Kidas, a venture-backed AI-based startup focused on creating anti-bullying and predator protection software for online games, announced this week it had brought together a coalition of companies to create and uphold safety standards for the online gaming community.

Ron Kerbs, founder and CEO of Kidas, said as someone working in the industry — and as a gamer himself — he thinks toxicity like cyberbullying, scam and hate speech is not being addressed enough in gaming.

“By building this coalition, we [are] united, telling the gaming industry and telling the world, ‘Yeah, there is toxicity in gaming, we recognize it and we as gaming companies, as gaming organizations, as security companies are committing to help [on] our side advance gaming to make it a little bit less toxic,’” the Wharton alum told Technical.ly.

Fellow gaming-adjacent companies Aura, Xsolla, Stand4Kind, LeagueSpot, Game Gym and Overwolf are also participating in the coalition.

Kidas wanted to have representation from all aspects of the gaming industry in this coalition, Kerbs said, including esports, gaming infrastructure, content creation and cybersecurity. The coalition welcomes more companies to join them as well.

“The FBI reports there are more than 500,000 online predators targeting children every day. This threat, coupled with the rise of cyberbullying targeting kids, is a crisis all families are facing,” said Hari Ravichandran, founder and CEO of Aura, in a written statement. “Together, with our industry partners, we can work towards creating a safer, toxic-free internet.”

Coalition members signed a safety pledge that commits them to reviewing their own safety procedures, sharing their knowledge and data with the group, and helping to publish a public report that outlines the main safety issues, what each company is already doing, and what they can improve. The first report is expected to be released in 2024.

For companies or individuals who might join in the future, Kerbs said the coalition is looking for members who are influential in the gaming and security industries and are fully committed to the pledge.

Kidas’ most recent effort to reduce harm in gaming was the release of its ProtectMe Bot, a product that runs in the background of Discord and monitors voice and text communication to detect cyberbullying, scammers, predators and stalkers. The Bot provides reports summarizing any threats and provides recommendations to increase security.

“Bullying and abusive language are pervasive issues across esports communities, and the introduction of our ProtectMe Bot revolutionizes server administrators’ abilities to take action against harmful behaviors,” Kerbs said in a written statement.

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.