Mod-hosting site Nexus Mods has clarified its decision to ban a handful of political Marvel Rivals mods featuring politicians like Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Nexus Mods says “misinformation” has surrounded the topic, highlighting that mods with US politics as a central focus have been banned on the platform since the 2020 election.
Around the time of the 2024 US election, multiple Marvel Rivals mods put Trump and Biden’s heads on the body of the multiplayer game’s model of Captain America. Nexus Mods removed these mods from its platform, prompting a now-locked Reddit post criticizing the platform for perceived “censorship” of the Trump mod in particular. A Nexus Mod spokesperson has since responded.
“We also removed the exact same mod with Joe Biden’s head at the same time (on January 2) to ensure there was no bias and because we don’t want to handle all the nutjobs that come out the woodwork whenever these mods get posted,” community manager ‘NexusDarkOne’ writes.
“Funny how the outrage-bait YouTubers don’t mention that, isn’t it? Case in point; today, with all the nutjobs coming out of the woodwork sending us death threats, calling us pedos and all the other ‘wah-wahs’ that come with this ridiculous situation because some YouTuber told them we are only removing Trump mods. It’s so dumb, and these people are so dumb, that I really cannot be fucked with it.”
On Wednesday January 8, the official Nexus Mods Twitter/X account issued a follow-up statement. “There has been a lot of misinformation circulating on this topic, which we’d like to quickly clarify and put to rest. Nexus Mods has always been about building a positive modding community.
“Unfortunately, some of the content uploaded to the site becomes a magnet for conflict, division, and mob harassment. In 2020 we updated our Terms of Service to state that we would remove any American political mods from our site,” Nexus Mods writes.
“By removing the Trump mod, we are simply executing our existing file submission policies. What has been overlooked in much of the conversation is that we also removed other mods featuring US Presidents uploaded to the site for Marvel Rivals, such as Biden and Obama. We remain a small, independent, UK-based company, and as such we have no stake in US politics and do not wish for our platform to be used as a base for US political discussion.
“The Trump mod was reported to us and, in line with our ToS, we’ve been actively ensuring that any other American political mods are also removed from our site. While we have the right to choose what we host on our platform, we are not the authority on what you do or do not decide to mod into your games, and these mods can be found elsewhere on other sites.”
In the wake of the ban’s announcement back in 2020, Nexus stated that “low quality” mods that referenced the election often led to “a small but vocal contingent of our users [who] 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.”
Nexus added that these mods are “being uploaded by cowards with sock puppet accounts deliberately to try and cause a stir,” and that it wanted to “wipe our hands clean of this mess and invoke an outright ban on mods relating to sociopolitical issues in the United States.”
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