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Google's Niantic Labs Sorry Over Death Camps In Smartphone Game
New submitter LunaticTippy writes: For those unfamiliar with Ingress, the game has GPS coordinate portals that correspond to real world locations, players then use smartphones to battle for control of these portals. Many public locations with historical or artistic interest are submitted by players. It turns out some of the sites were located within concentration camps such as Dachau and Sachsenhausen. NBC reports: "In a statement to The Associated Press, Niantic Labs' founder John Hanke said the company has begun removing the offending sites from the game. He said 'we apologize that this has happened.'"
Give people the ability to create things tied to real world locations without any sort of moderation controls, act surprised when they pick controversial locations. Trolls gonna troll.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
So is removing them and pretending those places dont exist is a better solution?
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
The "goal" of Ingress is to get people outside and walking around and looking at the real world.
A lot of players use it trolling around in their cars to hit as many points as possible, but a lot of fat nerds like myself have walked around a lot of parks we might not have otherwise gotten off our fat asses for.
I'd have rather seen a historic site -- no matter the subject -- than a few graffiti mural-ed alleys I've wandered down here in Phoenix.
The damage has been dough, you hurt my feels you insensitive bigot! Reparations for me now!!!
well... how about a cookie? :)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Again why are they needing to apologize for approving portal locations for historic areas?
When did learning about history or using historical figures, locations or groups in games or other activities become verboten? If we are to apply this crap objectively and consistently, then we need to make sure we ban everything that anyone anywhere ever could possibly be offended by, just so nobody suffers from undue loss of self-esteem or panic attacks or feel that their positions are not getting equal respect.
Books with any controversial name? BANNED
TV shows that say certain trigger words? BANNED
Cars named after people or places that someone fears? BANNED
Documentaries about terrible events in history? BANNED
Where, pray tell, does it end? When did people lose all ability to process input on a rational and contextual basis? /smh
So is removing them and pretending those places dont exist is a better solution?
It hurts my head when a geek asks a loaded --- smartass ---- question like this and gets modded up +5, Insightful.
The entire point of portals is that they are located at physical locations that have historical or cultural significance. https://support.google.com/ing...
The list of the top ten most historically and culturally significant sites in the whole world would include the concentration camps.
This is political correctness at its worst, where in seeking sensitivity it in fact hides atrocity.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
This completely explains how Russian troops with smartphones keep accidentally ending up in the Ukraine. Their smartphone game said go take over a site in the Ukraine.
Crap. I've played the game extensively. At high interest sites there are a lot of portals in close proximity, so teams turn them into high level farms to accumulate inventory. You can have team of 10 or 20 people doing circuits, with a 5 minute cool down between hacks and 4 hacks per portal, a farm session generally goes for over half an hour of intensive farming, longer if the opposition shows up and a battle ensues. And this used to happen multiple times a day at the popular sites.
I can only imagine the impact of this at somewhere like Dachau...