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Follow up to this.
The Doctor Who Said Video Games Cause Rape Explains What She Meant
Fox News didn’t really get Lieberman wrong. She’s been pushing back against what she sees as the harmful influence of violent video games and other violent media for years. In a chapter of a book written for TV host Larry King, she bundled video games with violent movies, toys, rap lyrics as “modern weapons of mass destruction” that “are causing us to destroy each other – on playgrounds and battlegrounds.”
She believes that violent media does encourage more aggressive behaviour and says there are “thousands” of studies that support the view she and others share. “The thing is that all these thousands of studies relate violent media,including video games, to an increase in violence in general.”
At least she's not singling out only video games and is also going after movies and music and such as well. That makes her slightly better than most anti-video game crusaders I've seen.
Still, in response to the above, in particular the "increase in violence in general" bit, I would like to post a few links of my own, as noted by Mord in my previous post on this topic.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/rape.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/hmrt.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/cv2.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/offage.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/aslt.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/viort.cfm
Also, there's this, from the Kotaku article:
Lieberman is not a gamer, says she’s never even played Pac-Man; though she suspects that Jared Lee Loughner, the man who allegedly tried to assassinate a Congresswoman last month, was a player of violent video games, a theory that has yet to be confirmed. (Emphasis mine)
Right. Didn't some people try do the same thing with Seung Hui Cho? Even though it turned out to be not true AT ALL.
And, anyway, what if Loughner did play violent video games? So what? Millions upon millions of other people play the same games, and they don't then go out and try to assassinate Congresspeople.
I think the bit that comes right after that is most telling:
She doesn’t think games alone trigger any of this. She believes that troubled upbringings are a major factor and explain why so many gamers don’t resort to the awful behaviours that concern her.
This, I mostly agree with. It's pretty much common sense, after all, as opposed to the "OMG vidya gaems r teh evuls!" crap she's otherwise spewing. But besides that, there is also the fact that some people are just flat-out, stark raving loony, no matter what video games they do or do not play, no matter if they had layabout druggies for parents or the absolute best parents in the world.
In the end, I mostly just chalk all of this up as yet more sensationalist bullshit by Faux Noise and others still trying to paint video games as the current worst societal plague.
And finally, this, concerning emails that she has received after the Faux Noise article:
For the effort of sharing her perspective with Fox News, Lieberman has suffered the brunt of gamers. They’ve bombarded her with negative e-mails. She plucked one at random for me, a missive from someone who signed their name as JohnnyMassiveHomoCunt
The e-mailer wrote: “I played Bulletstorm demo, and like I felt I need to rape someone. So I went into this kind of deep trance, which caused me to rape 10, 15 years-old girl. [sic] What do I do now? The game made me do it. Please help me. By the way, you look like a fucking deadbeat pornstar. Yours truly, JohnnyMassiveHomoCunt OMG LOL my shift broke. P.S. Playing Mass Effect gave me a sudden need to shoot you in the head. Would you please come here so I can fulfil my needs?”
Lieberman was able to laugh this off as she read the e-mail over the phone. But, she sighed, “The irony is here are people trying to say video games don’t cause people to be violent, but the ones I’ve read are very violent. They’re out of control.”
I can't believe it actually needs to be explained that just because people are sending her snarky, sarcastic emails concerning her utterly retarded stance that video games cause rapes, it does not mean that said people are themselves violent or rapists. Sheesh. Still, I don't doubt that she probably did get a lot of actual death threats from moronic 4chan trolls trying to generate some "lulz," which doesn't help matters at all. Mr. JMHC above was bordering on that, himself. The bookstorming on Amazon is pretty dumb too. If you haven't read a book, don't leave a review for it, no matter how much you may not like the author. Even so, that kind of crap is pretty much going to be par for the course when it comes to things like this. Welcome to the Internet, Dr. Carole Lieberman.
(EDIT)
Oh, and here is EA's response to the Faux Noise article.
Still doesn't sound like a game I'd care to play myself, but good on EA for standing up to Faux Noise and calling them out on their nonsense.
(/EDIT)
The Doctor Who Said Video Games Cause Rape Explains What She Meant
Fox News didn’t really get Lieberman wrong. She’s been pushing back against what she sees as the harmful influence of violent video games and other violent media for years. In a chapter of a book written for TV host Larry King, she bundled video games with violent movies, toys, rap lyrics as “modern weapons of mass destruction” that “are causing us to destroy each other – on playgrounds and battlegrounds.”
She believes that violent media does encourage more aggressive behaviour and says there are “thousands” of studies that support the view she and others share. “The thing is that all these thousands of studies relate violent media,including video games, to an increase in violence in general.”
At least she's not singling out only video games and is also going after movies and music and such as well. That makes her slightly better than most anti-video game crusaders I've seen.
Still, in response to the above, in particular the "increase in violence in general" bit, I would like to post a few links of my own, as noted by Mord in my previous post on this topic.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/rape.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/hmrt.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/cv2.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/offage.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/aslt.cfm
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/viort.cfm
Also, there's this, from the Kotaku article:
Lieberman is not a gamer, says she’s never even played Pac-Man; though she suspects that Jared Lee Loughner, the man who allegedly tried to assassinate a Congresswoman last month, was a player of violent video games, a theory that has yet to be confirmed. (Emphasis mine)
Right. Didn't some people try do the same thing with Seung Hui Cho? Even though it turned out to be not true AT ALL.
And, anyway, what if Loughner did play violent video games? So what? Millions upon millions of other people play the same games, and they don't then go out and try to assassinate Congresspeople.
I think the bit that comes right after that is most telling:
She doesn’t think games alone trigger any of this. She believes that troubled upbringings are a major factor and explain why so many gamers don’t resort to the awful behaviours that concern her.
This, I mostly agree with. It's pretty much common sense, after all, as opposed to the "OMG vidya gaems r teh evuls!" crap she's otherwise spewing. But besides that, there is also the fact that some people are just flat-out, stark raving loony, no matter what video games they do or do not play, no matter if they had layabout druggies for parents or the absolute best parents in the world.
In the end, I mostly just chalk all of this up as yet more sensationalist bullshit by Faux Noise and others still trying to paint video games as the current worst societal plague.
And finally, this, concerning emails that she has received after the Faux Noise article:
For the effort of sharing her perspective with Fox News, Lieberman has suffered the brunt of gamers. They’ve bombarded her with negative e-mails. She plucked one at random for me, a missive from someone who signed their name as JohnnyMassiveHomoCunt
The e-mailer wrote: “I played Bulletstorm demo, and like I felt I need to rape someone. So I went into this kind of deep trance, which caused me to rape 10, 15 years-old girl. [sic] What do I do now? The game made me do it. Please help me. By the way, you look like a fucking deadbeat pornstar. Yours truly, JohnnyMassiveHomoCunt OMG LOL my shift broke. P.S. Playing Mass Effect gave me a sudden need to shoot you in the head. Would you please come here so I can fulfil my needs?”
Lieberman was able to laugh this off as she read the e-mail over the phone. But, she sighed, “The irony is here are people trying to say video games don’t cause people to be violent, but the ones I’ve read are very violent. They’re out of control.”
I can't believe it actually needs to be explained that just because people are sending her snarky, sarcastic emails concerning her utterly retarded stance that video games cause rapes, it does not mean that said people are themselves violent or rapists. Sheesh. Still, I don't doubt that she probably did get a lot of actual death threats from moronic 4chan trolls trying to generate some "lulz," which doesn't help matters at all. Mr. JMHC above was bordering on that, himself. The bookstorming on Amazon is pretty dumb too. If you haven't read a book, don't leave a review for it, no matter how much you may not like the author. Even so, that kind of crap is pretty much going to be par for the course when it comes to things like this. Welcome to the Internet, Dr. Carole Lieberman.
(EDIT)
Oh, and here is EA's response to the Faux Noise article.
Still doesn't sound like a game I'd care to play myself, but good on EA for standing up to Faux Noise and calling them out on their nonsense.
(/EDIT)
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Date: 2011-02-12 03:32 pm (UTC)From: