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Venezuela Bans Hostile Videogames and Toys
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to 'help improve child education and prevent misconduct,' the Venezuelan government began enforcing a law on March 3rd banning war videogames and toys, imposing a fine and 2.5 years in prison on the production, distribution, sale, hiring and use of video games and toys inciting violent behavior. Alberto Federico Ravell, former director of opposing news network Globovision, has already come on twitter denouncing the authorities for seizing imported Gameboy, Wii and PlayStation 3 consoles, due to considering them violent."
As a gamer this saddens me. As a parent I applaud the effort. However, seizing the consoles seems overboard. Many non-violent games exist. Seize the games, not the consoles.
Where genius and insanity become confused true wisdom is found
Tinpot dictator does something stupid. Story at 11.
Prohibiting things that are not proven dangerous is plain stupid. Why would you want kids in venezuela to go out, if its one of the countries with the most terrible urban security problems in all of latin america?
NO SIG
Nice Troll, but if you want responses you should create an account. Also you might want to add some stuff about how these games are clearly for children.
What are they going to do when a kid picks up a stick and pretends it's a gun?
He was elected to being with, and that election seems to have been fair. However since then he has been taking increasingly underhanded methods of retaining power, stifling dissent and so on.
Do remember that a large number of dictators are elected to power initially. They then just misuse the power and suppress freedom. That someone was elected initially doesn't mean they aren't a dictator now.
Media terrorist, eh? All those poor DVDs and storage viciously butchered in his attempt to influenece their policies by fear...
Words have meaning. The meaning of terrorist is not "someone I don't like", despite US policy to the contrary.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
This is exactly the direction the United States is headed. Everyone expects the government to protect them from everything, because we claim no responsibility for our own behavior. I had no problem telling my kids they couldn't play certain games because they were too violent or offensive, but unfortunately good parenting skills and responsible people seem to be harder and harder to find.
Fortunately, we have our government to protect us from ourselves....
Palestinians electing Hamas? That's not democracy. Venezuelans electing Chavez? That's not democracy. Bolivians electing Morales? That's not democracy. Spain leaving Iraq because 95% oppose the war? That's not democracy.
Pinochet taking over Chile? Triumph of democracy! America invading Iraq? Triumph of democracy! The CIA and the Shah taking over Iran? Triumph of democracy! Turkey supporting the Iraq war against the will of it's populace? Triumph of democracy!
All you have to do is replace "democracy" with "American interests" and it all makes sense.
hypocrisy
Perhaps so, but reasons and what-ifs aside, I wonder how they plan to block the vast amount of browser games that are certainly violent? How do you stop the internets?
Do they really think it's possible to put a block on every violent game link? What about phone games? I seem to recall that Quake 1 just got ported to Andriod or iPhone?
Interesting stance for a government to take, but really, honestly, truly. Goodluckwiththat.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Im Venezuelan, linving in Venezuela. And the seizing of gaming consoles is a lie.
You're a Venezuelan living in Venezuela, and the only thing you have to say is that the government is not seizing consoles? How about some outrage at the absurdity of this law? How about some disgust at the fact that your government is passing laws that shift parental responsibility to the state?
This is a silly ploy to make it look like the government is tackling crime. In actual fact, they are just trying to get political points at the expense of their citizens' freedoms and on the back of their citizens' fears.
Amnesty International
He's not responding like an American because he isn't American.
People from different cultures have different priorities.
So, in your crazy little head, assassinating someone - which the CIA and our proxy Mossad do regularly - is the activity of a thuggish dictatorship...
I guess when Chavez plots an assassination of a government we subsidize, that's a crime. However, when we carry out plotted assassinations against our enemies, it's justice. Yes, it makes perfect sense to me now!
Hypocrisy? What's that, a new Morrissey cover band?
Sadly, the real world is nowhere near as depraved and decadent as it is in the mind of conservatives.
As much as I hate censorship, I do agree with this sentiment. Has anyone actually sat down and watched a kids' show? Ben10 has something like 10 violent acts every 3 minutes.
Being anti-censorship does not mean "anything goes". I am the primary carer (uncle for my adopted nephew) for a 4 year old, and I can tell you there is a marked increase in hyperactive behavior, aggression and general lack of control for hours after watching Nickelodeon. Consequently, I have banned TV in my house. It was a few days of tantrums, but he's gotten over it, and the improvement in behavior is astonishing.
I flatly refuse to accept that what we watch does not affect us. Movies like Saw and Hostel simply cannot be psychologically inert, the content is just too potent.
"Down with censorship" and "down with psychologically and socially destructive media" are NOT mutually exclusive in the same way that "down with government control" and "down with harming your neighbor" are also not mutually exclusive. Lets grow up past the idea that any control of media that has a negative social impact is censorship and should be fought. Media *can* have a negative impact on social behavior and mental health. Get over it.
I hate printers.
I am not American, nor am I living in America.
If such a tepid response to an obvious overstep by the government is a cultural difference, it certainly isn't a good one.
Amnesty International
When a headline writer can employ the incoherent phrase "hostile videogames and toys" with a straight face, the battle is already lost.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Violence in media is not the issue, its the acceptance of violence as a resolution in society that it.
I know a guy growing up, extreme fundamentalist family who filtered everything he watched, as 12 yr olds when we started watching Aliens and Terminator he was barely permitted to watch Blinky Bill. He was shipped off to a religious school as soon as was permissible and the last I heard, he'd spend his life since 18 in and out of rehab. His family of course pretends he's dead.
An anecdote yes but with a point, his parents neglected their responsibilities to prepare him for the real world. Violence is part of the real world and parents need to teach their children how to respond to it. This means teaching them the results of violence. Not all portrayed violence is bad, your examples of Saw and Hostel are extremes but when you look at other examples, even action movies like Terminator and Batman they portray the repercussions of violence (people getting hurt) and are meant to invoke the correct emotions associated with this (empathy, pity, fear).
There is also the difference between real violence and fantasy violence, games like COD which are fairly mature do not portray things in a very realistic manner, that being said it's still unsuitable for a young child (less then 12). Once again it is the responsibility of the parent to ensure a child can tell the difference between fantasy and reality the same as right and wrong. A lot of games do not have you fighting other people (humans) rather using a proxy (aliens, zombies, nazi's) to obviously abstract the idea of harming other people in the minds of the player.
In the west, we are fairly lucky (esp here in AU) where violence is not prevalent because it is not accepted. If we look at places like Thailand, culturally maintaining face is important, one way to do this is to simply kill the person who made you lose it. As violence is repugnant to the Thais and admitting to violent society would be a loss of face they simply turn a blind eye to this, ending up with one of the highest murder rates in the world. I'd be willing to bet there are similar stories of a social acceptance of violence in South Africa and Venezuela.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
You can argue away anything to "public interest".
Really? I can't say about Hostel, but I saw Saw once (didn't have anything much better to do) and was bored as fuck. And the large popularity of these movies (and their sequels) does not seem to have been accompanied by the spike in violent crime theories like yours would seem to predict. Actually, the fact that half a dozen Saw movies have been made without the world ending would seem to strongly argue against this.
As has been often quoted, "reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, does not go away". You can "flatly refuse" to accept it if you so please, just like lots of people "flatly refuse" to accept that you can allow children to see nipples without the fabric of society crumbling, or "flatly refuse" to accept that the universe is older than a few millennia. We call these people idiots.
With regard to your little anecdote, I could think of plenty of possible alternate explanations for the same behavior, given the available data. It could be just watching TV that causes the behavior. It could be something other than violence on TV that causes it. It could be something coincidental to the TV-watching that was causing it and stopped with it. It could be any of the myriad flaws of the average person's unconscious perceptions of statistics. A proper, rigorous scientific study, of the sort you'd need to be confident on things like this, controls for problems like these; Random Internet Anecdotes do not.
And sorry, but censorship of things you personally think should be censored is still censorship. Censorship of things lots of people think should be censored is still censorship. It's not only "censorship" when it's of things you like any more than it's only "murder" when it's of people you like. Get over it.
Media terrorist, eh? [...] Words have meaning. The meaning of terrorist is not "someone I don't like", despite US policy to the contrary.
Well I'd think that a propagandist fits within the definition of media terrorist. Which fits what Ravell is doing here.
An interesting thought to hold in mind is that information always has two main meanings; the information itself and the information of what your interlocutor wants you to believe.