UK counter-terrorism unit demands Steam withdraw controversial shooter from sale
eurogamer.net
eurogamer.net
This game is greatly inspired by Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Insurgency Sandstorm, Max Payne and Goldeneye 007."
- game exists (similar to it's current form) since 2022. No civilians. Military styled players. Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
- no one bats an eye
- developer adds a cut-scene of a military styled player paragliding into a base
- everyone looses their mind
Love him or hate him, he does make a principled point.
I mean I pretty much made my mind up about that one already. It didn’t take a lot of effort.
The developer of the game is complaining about a double standard. Given the fact that we have shooter games glorifying some abhorrent us activities, and we are okay with that, we do have a double standard. We could discuss for ages whether it's wrong or right, but we can't hide behind "oh no it's a terrible thing" because we have been representing terrible things since decades, but this time apparently it's bad because it's not our faction doing the funny (it's not so funny anymore, isn't it?)
Also worth noting that the content of this is considered distasteful among the Muslim community here as well. It makes them look bad too.
Stuff like this sows the seeds of division between the communities.
It’s a wide spectrum. Any extreme of censorship and a complete lack of censorship and control will quickly lead to the decline of society. Nuance is where everything is. No absolutes.
“How can West call itself freedom of speech if I can’t even spew nazi crap, dress as a terrorist or offend women and minorities?!”
The UK had a particular problem with preacher Anjem Choudary [1] indoctrinating followers to be militant islamists. He is reckoned to the be linked to up to 40% of terrorist incidents in the UK (including the 7/7 attacks in London).
Following this period the anti-terror laws were made stronger and "inviting support for a proscribed organisation" became illegal. Presumably that means recruiting either directly or indirectly through speeches.
So, I can understand how this happened. But your summary really only belies your bias I'm afraid, this: "arrested a jewish son of holocaust survivors for hate speech after he denounced Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner" isn't true. Even the article you link states that he was arrested for inviting support for a proscribed organisation. He wasn't arrested for denouncing Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner.
The issue is very emotive and charged. I am not taking sides. But it's often the case that whenever anyone falls foul of laws, that have been designed to protect the people of the UK, either directly from abuse because of who they are, or indirectly via terror, then those affected complain about a lack of freedom of expression.
It seems they didn't charge him, so maybe the police overreached in this instance. I haven't seen the speech, so I can't comment, and certainly I wouldn't defend the UK police as they could certainly do with some reform. But, it's also possible that this was quite a difficult tightrope for the police to walk in terms of the law.
Some of these laws may seem draconian, but the people of this country who are not racially abusing people, or targeting people because of their sexual orientation, or gender, or inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation (which is 99.999% of us), will never fall foul of this legislation.
I know Google is hard but you can just look for yourself.
Think about what makes this case different, why it was treated as such, and what the motivations were (Hint: Not related to counter-terrorism).
She lied to suit her own divisive narrative.
Free speech absolutionists are whipping up fervour with divisive rhetoric. It’s as simple as that. In the UK we have free speech rights but also responsibilities. That’s how it should be. Unfettered free speech without a thought to the public and social consequences is reckless imho.
For those that care for facts rather than the divisive rhetoric of twitter: this is a decent overview of the freedom of expression rights and responsibilities in the UK [2]
"In contrast, freedom of speech does not protect statements that discriminate against or harass, or incite hatred or violence against, other persons and groups, particularly by reference to their race, religious belief, gender or sexual orientation. In the UK, this includes laws specifically designed to protect people from suffering abuse on account of who they are."
"My Lords, so-called non-crime hate incidents may have been introduced for perfectly good reasons after the Macpherson inquiry, but last year the police recorded more than 13,000, including some against schoolchildren and others for utterly absurd reasons—I myself was investigated for calling Hamas Islamists" [0]
Essex police foi response demonstrating resources spent on hate incidents https://www.essex.police.uk/foi-ai/essex-police/other-inform...
Ditto met police https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...
[0] https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2024-11-19/debates/0DE7E...
Furthermore, in one call of duty a real event was narrated - although if in a fictional scenario - as if it was made by Russians [2], while in real life it was a us led attack on civilians, prisoners, and non fighting combatants. Google highway of death
Another article that has a broader view on the history of how defense and entertainment sector have ties [3]
[1] https://gamerant.com/call-duty-modern-warfare-recruitment-to... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/call-duty-modern-warfare-highway-de... [3] https://www.thenation.com/article/society/call-of-duty-penta...
That game has no self-awareness at all. US good, Russians bad, must kill bearded brown people.
What COD did to this scene was reprehensible, but it's also important to understand the context for the real attack. The Highway of Death that happened in real life was a targeted strike on Saddam Hussein's retreating forces, most of whom were legitimate targets of war. At the time, Iraq sponsored the 4th largest military in the world, was being bombed in Baghdad, and most of their allies were starting to turn on them over outstanding debts. This pressure pushed Saddam to invade Kuwait, and Saddam's actions pushed the US to destroy as much Iraqi materiel as they could possibly damage.
The attack did happen on a civilian road, but only after the locals became aware that the highway was being used by Saddam's forces. The controversy mostly stems from attacks on a retreating force and the scale of the destruction, both of which are still up for debate on their effectiveness.
It's clear they would have had to use children and not soldiers, had they made this about an Israeli soldier and not a Palestinian one (/s)
Sure, he’s right that that’s double standards, but still.
And before I get “but Counter-Strike!” - it is set in imaginary universe with made up factions.
Not what happened in Amsterdam by any measure. Israelis started a row on the streets and got backslash from the local Arab population. No casualties.
I'm not sure what happened where you live but here several networks apologised and withdrew their earlier reports.
https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/amsterdam/1046153...
The facial expressions are great .. the weekly shows are only 20 minutes or so and still soak up the time of 10 staff or so, including KC's (King's Counsel Lawyers (top ranked in Commonwealth countries)) that donate a fair bit of time gratis to double check statements and liabilities.
They do f*ck up on occassion but it's a solid show for ripping into the (media) pricks with substance and receipts.
That segment is from the very last of Barry's hosting sadly, he's retiring after a storied career that includes being fired (and later rehired) for asking tough questions.
Thanks for irresponsibly spreading falsehoods without any factual basis. Very cool.
An utterly ludicrous description of the actual events.
> The game drew the attention of terror police because it included scenes of players paragliding into an Israeli army base and killing soldiers.
That's the only connection to the Oct 7 attacks.
Also when you look at the graphics and gameplay, the 'combatants' are all in military style uniforms. Nothing even remotely suggest there are civilians involved.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/11/26/terror-polic...
This, plus, what authority does Counter Terrorism Command over commercial enterprise in the UK?
Can any police force in the UK just arbitrarily block things for sale?
The article provides the CT comment:
"The CTIRU works closely with a range of technology, social media and online service providers, but we do not comment on specific content or any communication we may have with specific platforms or providers."
But nowhere do they state an actual law being broken, or law under which CT command can block things for sale.
I'm not a lawyer, so maybe this one is obvious, but this looks like authoritarian overreach.
Wasn’t it just an intro where you play as bad guys to provide background for the conflict? The game wasn’t fully based on playing as bad guys.
Well yeah... COD is a giant mainstream game where that line has to be from a socially acceptable shortlist of bad guys. Yet it still included a transgressive scene that upset people with calls to remove it. I remember the news heavily covered it. Great for marketing.
This is some small Steam game where you can put together some low effort campaign in an old game engine, spin it with some controversial topic and get frontpage on social media without having to appease a wider audience.
You gave it away.
It’s one thing to create imaginary world of freedom fighter fighting against tyranny of oppressive world hegemony of certain state and it is completely different thing to include some sort of Sep 11 event and then paint it as resistance.
It's subversive because you think it's the typical "sometimes you have to do bad things to stop worse things from happening" plot.
But nope, committing atrocities because that's the standard of the "bad guys" is what allows terrorists to justify their existence and propagate the cycle of violence. The entire plot of the game is that individuals in the US and Russian governments use terrorism to justify even worse actions.
The game mentioned in the OP, on the other hand, portrays Palestinian liberation as requiring violence in order to match the actions of the Israeli military. The killings are not only justified but are necessary. This follows Frantz Fanon, who said:
> At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.
In other words, getting revenge is inherently cathartic and the solution to a violent conflict is to ensure your side performs more violence and ultimately wins. It's a very different message to Call of Duty.
All the Characters, Art and Storylines depicted in this game are purely the work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The plot of this game is a fictional history inspired by real facts. Even the political and military groups depicted on the game are fictional. In this game, the player does not shoot Israeli civilians, women, children, elderly, only soldiers. Also in this game there are NO images of sexual content, illicit drugs, religious desecration, hate of speech against any group, ethnicity or religion, anti-Semitic propaganda against Jews, Nazi propaganda or boasting of any terrorist groups and / or other unlawful acts. This game only contains the virtual representation of the Palestinian Resistance Movement against the Israeli Military Occupation, which is officially recognized by the United Nations (UN). This game was approved to release by Brazilian's Government Justice Department, Age Rating Sector.
To be honest, the game looks ridiculous with its over the top scenes. It's like a reverse spec ops the line, except it's so exaggerated it's ridiculous rather than depressing
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Now I'm curious... might have to find it on the high seas just to have a look
So I wonder which route this game takes. Is it a straightforward combat simulator with one team that happens to be labelled Palestinian, or can you press F to rape?
I don't have a side here but that is in really bad taste, and not comparable to any other mainstream shooter.
Also- considering the plotline of the game, in which the protagonist is fighting off an invading IDF military, is that flag you see Israel (Israel) or Israel (Occupied Palestinian territory)?
> Missions across real places in Palestine
Seems like the latter, with no evidence for the former.