EDIT: UPDATE

Makes more sense to me now, rather than removing a modification that actually contained no content.

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Paradox Interactive, developer and publisher of the successful new grand strategy title Stellaris, has taken decisive action to remove a user-created mod from Steam. The mod, titled "European Phenotype and Names Only (White Humans)" removed every instance of a non-European name or a non-Caucasian character portrait from the game's representation of the human race.

Reached for comment while the mod was still live on Steam, Paradox gave Polygon the following statement.

"We shipped the game originally with an accurate representation of humans, that is to say diverse in both ethnicity and personality. We embrace the idea that players mod the game to best represent how they want to play, we do NOT however wish to enable discriminatory practices. We appreciate any inappropriate mods being brought to our attention and will take them down where necessary, we also encourage players to make use of the flagging function provided by Valve where needed."

Eurogamer reports that a second mod, titled "Separate Human Phenotypes" is also under review.

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While I can certainly understand how offensive a mod like this could be to people, and don't see the appeal or point in the mod is it really right for Paradox to remove it

Should creating a mod that removes diversity really warrant deletion? As long as the mod description and contents is not overtly racist, offensive or biggoted I do not believe it should have been removed. It seems very likely the mod was created by someone with a racist view but deleting a mod like this from steam doesn't sit right with me.

If it was a mod that removed all white characters from the game would it have been deleted also? If the author created both an All White and an All Black mod would they have both been deleted?

I don't believe the content of the modification was an issue, as it was rather just removing content that was previously in the game, I understand Paradox wanting to get rid of something like this and that it is strongly implied racism but still the modification provided didn't contain any racist material, rather the mod contained nothing....

I understand why they did it, I don't approve of the mod, but deleting it makes me feel uneasy.

Do you think Paradox did the right thing or should modifications such as this not be so readily censored?

While it's content not made by Paradox themselves I can understand why they'd delete content they don't want associated with their game.

Thing is, it's not actually content, it's just a modification that picks and chooses content that Paradox themselves created and just ditches the rest. It seems odd to delete a modification that does nothing but strip content of the game out.

I understand that Paradox is protective of its image and doesn't want people to attach its name to this mod, but personally I really don't see a problem with people creating "offensive" mods. If you want an "all white" mod, an "all black" mod, an "all arab" mod or an "all female, girl power" mod, that's fine by me; I'd just hope that if people are going to take offence to one of those, they'd take offence to all of them as they're all equally discriminatory. I'd also hope that Paradox would take the same stance in regards to all of them.

Fortunately any mods that Paradox and/or Valve disagree with should still be able to be found elsewhere and installed manually.

Yeah, it's very likely that those other mods you listed would not recieve the same treatment as this modification, and while the modification definitely has a quite horrific message behind it, it doesn't seem right to remove a modification that doesn't actually contain any offensive materials itself. And really even if the modification did contain offensive content to some degree should that be censored either? It's difficult to say, but I guess Paradox and/or Steam have the right to delete whatever they want from the mod store they have control over.

I hate current society. You're going after fucking mods? What's next? Banning mods that only change hair color for one gender? This is fucking ridiculous. I'd like to hear an explanation who is being discriminated against when a person mods his own game, in his own home, visible to only that person to only reflect a certain ethnicity.

When's the book burning starting again? Thoughts are scary.

Good decision but not enough. They should be prosecuted for racism. There is no excuse to create an "all white, all European" mod unless you're a racist. Literally I cannot come up with a single other reason why someone like this should exist.

Also LOL at people who are ok with this, "it's their lives they can do whatever they want" is as bad as saying I can make racist songs because it's my voice and my money that paid for the recording.

People can make whatever they want though, but you can't demand Paradox/Steam to host it.

The mod won't cease to exist, it'll just be removed from Steam Workshop.

Prosecuted for ... racism?  And the Plantiff would be ...?  Would they bring a game character to the stand to testify that their Civil Liberites had been infringed upon?

The mod was untasteful, but in my opinion not enough to warrant its deletion. Assuming there was no explicit racism, it should've stayed. For all we know, it could've been there just for aesthetic purposes. Some people prefer certain colors of people aesthetically, and that's not racism but an opinion (an unfortunate opionion, yes, but a valid one nonetheless). And in the really, really long run, I'd expect all the colors to blend together anyway, after which we'd have only one color anyway (somebody please correct me on this one if there's something I didn't foresee). Of course that color would probably not be white but a darker tone instead, but you get the idea.