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Have Terrorists Infiltrated Our Gaming Communities?

Have Terrorists Infiltrated Our Gaming Communities?

Why it has become fashionable to bring video games and the people who play them under the light of suspicious scrutiny after violent acts are committed is beyond me. There is a caricature of gamers that persists in the minds of those who aren’t familiar with the medium: an image of a lonely and socially awkward outcast who rehearses the outpouring of his or her fury through video games; familiarizing themselves with the sensation of seeing flesh explode as they pull the triggers on their controllers before pulling the trigger of a firearm. This caricature is propped up as a straw man whenever destructive acts are carried out by young people who happen to play video games, as if a direct line of causality were plain to see.

You might remember a story back in September about a man who led police in the UK on a high-speed chase, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage. He told the police that he had learned to drive playing PlayStation, as if that provided some kind of vindication or excuse. It wasn’t a good excuse, but it was a great headline for the media. What about the TalkTalk cyber attack last month? The main focus for news outlets wasn’t the investigation or the attack itself, the main focus was on the arrest of a 15-year-old boy and — unfailingly — each report mentions that a year before the attack took place the boy had “posted on the internet” that he wanted to become a professional Call of Duty player. How the bleedin’ fire is that relevant to the story at all? Is that supposed to reveal to us something damning about his character? What teenage boy doesn’t want to get paid to play video games?

Fast-forward to this past weekend in France and we face a tragedy amplitudes more grievous than the incidents previously mentioned. Over 120 lives violently taken and hundreds of people injured. It is a time for sober reflection; for contemplating the people and the love you might be taking for granted or whether or not violence is an appropriate response. It is a time for introspection and honesty, not sensational headlines. In a volatile period of mourning and questioning after the attacks, it seems that the media in the UK wants to make it abundantly clear that a video game console could be the enabling tool that made the orchestration of these attacks possible, even though there is no evidence suggesting that is the case.

Have Terrorists Infiltrated Our Gaming Communities?

Three days before the attack occurred, Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon stated that it is very hard to decrypt communication that takes place over the PlayStation network, which could make it a great means of communication between terrorists. The media has since taken that statement and twisted it in every way imaginable to imply that PS4s were definitely used by terrorists to orchestrate the attacks across Paris. Now, headlines and articles from all over the world are echoing this suspicion despite, again, a complete and total lack of evidence. I think the International Business Times probably takes the cake for the most knee-jerk, reactionary spin with the following statements taken from an article posted on Saturday:

“PlayStation’s IP-based voice systems are difficult for investigators to monitor compared to traditional forms of communication such as mobile phones and computers. And terrorists could send messages to each other within PlayStation games without speaking or typing a word. A member of the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS or ISIL, could convey an attack plan in Super Mario Maker’s coins and share it privately with another PS4 user. A player in Call Of Duty could shoot at a wall and write a disappearing message in bullets to another player, Forbes reported.”

If Nintendo brought Super Mario Maker to the PS4 without my knowing it, I’ve failed you all as a video game journalist. Anyway, my point is that like it or not, as long as there are violent video games our community will continue to be looked at with doubt and suspicion whenever violence erupts in the real world. People will look at us and see a mask of the caricature that has been created by a reactionary and sensationalist media. It is up to us promote awareness and vigilance amongst ourselves. The governments of the free world cannot keep eyes and ears on everything that transpires on PSN or Xbox Live, and so we must do our part as caring human beings and report anything strange or suspicious that we see or hear. When the media looks at us, let’s make sure they see a community of engaged and compassionate members of society.

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