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Comment by Aeolun | Hacker News Reader

I came in prepared to defend the game and all, but then I read the subject matter, and just walked away thinking it’s a miracle it’s available anywhere.

Sure, he’s right that that’s double standards, but still.

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They added in the Oct7 attacks?! Pretty abhorrent. That being said, I'm not sure what counter-terror objective blocking this game actually has.

Pretty wild guess but maybe to prevent radicalization and recruitment? If you have a game like this and get the players onto your discord, you might move over some of them to do something in real life.

Are people still seriously clinging on to the "video games cause violence" idea?

I was skeptical about whole thing, but then getting Jewish pogroms in the middle of freaking Amsterdam in 2024 wasn’t on my bingo card. Some things are better be blocked for good.

And before I get “but Counter-Strike!” - it is set in imaginary universe with made up factions.

> pogrom: an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group

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.

Even this is soft pedaling it a bit. A bunch of soccer hooligans chanting genocidal slogans got their teeth kicked in.

Completely untrue.

https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/IDF

https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/SEAL_Team_6 https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/GSG-9 https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/FBI

On T side. You’ve listed good guys.

A pogrom with zero casualties. What’s next, a holocaust of taunting? When a government is committing genocide, you can expect people will have strong feelings about it.

Well, at least one tram got destroyed. Maybe it was some sort of tram genocide/pogrom? Rest in peace.

You do realise the bulk of video showing packs of dark dressed soccer thugs chasing down victims were showing Israeli fans chasing local Arabs?

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...

I dunno who this guy is, but I really like his facial expressions as he describes this stuff.

Paul Barry - very much a veteran Australian news reporter and on again off again host of Media Watch for decades - an Australian weekly short that rips into print, tv, radio, and internet media reporting across the board and takes it to task for accuracy, dodgy deals, misrepresentation, etc.

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.

> I was skeptical about whole thing, but then getting Jewish pogroms in the middle of freaking Amsterdam in 2024 wasn’t on my bingo card.

Thanks for irresponsibly spreading falsehoods without any factual basis. Very cool.

but then getting Jewish pogroms in the middle of freaking Amsterdam in 2024

An utterly ludicrous description of the actual events.

I just went over a year worth of updates/release summaries and nothing suggest that Oct 7 attacks were added! If it's judging by this [1]:

> 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...

The video in their steam page starts with the October 7 scenes in-game.

Yeah, that's my point: describing military-styled persons paragliding as "October 7 scenes" is really stretching it.

Is it though? What other events might that represent, was that ever seen before?

It doesn't have to represent anything. Just as CS 747 map (CounterStrike, 747 Hijack map [1]) represents nothing, even though "we have seen that before".

[1] https://counterstrike.fandom.com/wiki/747

"I'm not sure what counter-terror objective blocking this game actually has."

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.

Sadly, authoritarian overreach is the state of the affairs in the UK. Recent "coconut" incident that got wide publicity:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgwew5v4qyo

My thoughts exactly. I was thinking it maybe genuinely unfair treatment, but then I read the developer's own description of the game. Anyone who describes their own work as 'basest of all time' is clearly going for shock value, and not as a protest, but as a selling gimmick. I don't necessarily agree it should be banned, I just... can't think of a downside.

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