The variety of emoticons has just dwindled on the gaming client Steam, albeit slightly, since the popular Pepe the Frog has been ordered to be taken down via the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) issued by owner of the sketch Matt Furie. Furie's reason for putting a stop to his popular meme-ified sketch is due to Pepe the Frog being used by people of the alt-right in recent years.
According to reports, Furie has been hard at work to try to take down Pepe the Frog on all platforms wherein this specific artwork-turned-emoticon has been popular in -- such as Reddit, Amazon, and most recently, Steam. Upon sending out legal notices to these parties, it did not take long for people to notice that Pepe the Frog had suddenly vanished, and became unusable.
With the internet currently being what it is, not all Pepe the Frog memes have been erased. However, given DMCA's vigilance on the matter, it will definitely be more difficult to create content with Pepe in it. According to other reports, potential buyers will still have the option to purchase the CunningPepe emoticon pack, but will see a message stating that "Emoticon art currently unavailable due to DMCA takedown notice submitted on behalf of Matt Furie."
For those who have been closely following this story, Pepe's disappearance from Steam should be unsurprising. In an interview with Gizmodo back in August, Furie's Internet Protocol lawyer, Louis Tompros, has been attempting to reclaim the rights to the meme-ified frog once more stating that "The point we are trying to make with this case is that Pepe the Frog does not belong to the alt-right," seeing that the political group attempted to use the frog as a mascot to spread their beliefs.
It appears that Furie is completely against the core beliefs of the alt-right, some of which include anti-semitism, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and Nazism. These issues have been plaguing the United States, and are clearly hateful beliefs that misappropriate the purpose of Pepe -- who is meant to be a character made for children.
