Steam operates a text filtering system in Steam Chat and in games like Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, automatically blocking or replacing profanity and slurs. Players can adjust how much filtering is applied to their own experience. The system shipped as Steam Labs Experiment 011 before being integrated into the main platform.

The Steam Text Filtering system uses curated word lists as its primary mechanism, with players able to set their own filtering sensitivity. Game developers can integrate the same filtering into their titles via the Steamworks API. Valve stated that default word lists would continue to be refined based on user data, indicating ongoing data-driven maintenance rather than a purely static rule set. While the system's core mechanism is list-based rather than a machine learning model, its continuous refinement from usage data and its role in automated content filtering make it relevant to this ledger. The system supports multiple languages.