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Nexus Mods has found itself at the center of drama after removing political Marvel Rivals mods from its site, but it's now taken the opportunity to remind users that it was "simply executing our existing file submission policies."
The mods in question saw Donald Trump and Joe Biden – or rather, their heads – added to NetEase's hit third-person shooter Marvel Rivals, as replacements for Captain America's face. Nexus Mods site owner Dark0ne acknowledged this on Reddit a few days ago, responding to one user who referred specifically to the removal of the Trump mod, and asked: "Anyone else sick and tired of Nexus Mods censorship on their website?"
To this, Dark0ne pointed out that the Biden mod had also been taken down "at the same time (on the 2nd of January) to ensure there was no bias," before going on to say that people had been "coming out of the woodwork sending us death threats" with the incorrect assumption that "we are only removing Trump mods." The site owner added: "It's so dumb, and these people are so dumb, that I really cannot be fucked with it."
Today, the official Nexus Mods Twitter account shared a new thread addressing the "misinformation" surrounding the mods, which it wants to "quickly clarify and put to rest." It says the site 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."
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.January 8, 2025
Continuing, it notes that its Terms of Service were altered in 2020 to put a blanket ban on "any American political mods." In a statement released at the time, it explained this was due to "the low quality of the mods being uploaded, the polarizing views they express, and the fact that a small but vocal contingent of our users 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." As written in the site's File Submission Guidelines, it was decided after a review to "extend the ban on such mods indefinitely," and so these rules have been in place for over four years.
Back to today, Nexus Mods reiterates: "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."
Continuing, Nexus Mods states that as "a small, independent, UK-based company," it has "no stake in US politics" and has been "actively ensuring that any other American political mods are also removed from our site." Wrapping things up, it reminds users that "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," even though Nexus Mods itself can decide what it hosts on its own platform.
Marvel Rivals' next season kicks off this week, and it'll nerf Duelists Hela and Hawkeye.
