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Student Arrested For Posting Zombie-Killing AR Game Clip Filmed at His High School (yahoo.com)
18-year-old high school student Sean Small was arrested in Indiana on Tuesday and charged with a misdemeanor for posting a videogame clip to social media. An anonymous reader quotes Yahoo Lifestyle:
The clip in question is Sean playing The Walking Dead: Our World, which is an augmented reality game that animates characters into a real-world setting. In this case, players kill zombies. Along with Sean's video he wrote, "Finally something better than Pokemon Go," which is also an augmented reality game....
Sean, who is a member of the Indiana National Guard, pleaded not guilty to an intimidation charge. He was released on $1,000, and his school expulsion hearing is set for next week. The video featured other students walking through the halls as Sean allegedly attempted to kill the zombies the game placed among them.
Realistic footage of shootings in the high school's hallways apparently alarmed the off-duty sheriff's deputy hired to work at the high school -- who then filed the misdemeanor intimidation charge with the county prosecutor.
Sean, who is a member of the Indiana National Guard, pleaded not guilty to an intimidation charge. He was released on $1,000, and his school expulsion hearing is set for next week. The video featured other students walking through the halls as Sean allegedly attempted to kill the zombies the game placed among them.
Realistic footage of shootings in the high school's hallways apparently alarmed the off-duty sheriff's deputy hired to work at the high school -- who then filed the misdemeanor intimidation charge with the county prosecutor.
I can't see a difficulty in differentiating fiction from reality. Zombies aren't real. Shooting them, therefore, cannot be real.
A simple video of someone's game should not garner any response, other than if they are breaking any rules of the place where they filmed it.
I can understand being confused with an AR game, but nothing in this case seems to point at intimidation, harassment or threat. The complaint is, I'm sure, in good faith, but as soon as the kid explains what it was nothing further should have happened.
And I don't think this is about free speech, either. I see nothing about the kid's video hinting at threats, insults, etc. There is no speech of his that needs special exemption because it would otherwise be uncivil.
This is an overreaction to nothing by multiple adults that should know better. If not about the game and games like it, at least about the kid's intent and reactions to the complaint.
Reactions like these cannot become the norm.
To play this game you move around with your smartphone and click buttons in the smartphone's screen to destroy pixels which make up zombie images.
Nobody in the school could have been intimidated by a student walking around waving his phone and clicking on it.
This is not even a thought crime. A thought crime would be "I so would like to kill this teacher who makes such difficult exams". Killing zombies in real life (yes, I realize how absurd that was) is no crime, thus phantasies about it are not thought crimes.
In which case why are they not charging him with that?
There seems to be a grey area between fiction, and really harmful content.
Oh please, it's Pokemon Go with zombies. You walk around with your cell phone and click to kill zombies instead of capturing pokemons. Next thing you know Pokemon Go should be banned for having "battles" in public locations. OMG the carnage...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The fact that this was considered by *anyone* to be a crime is just fucking insane. Those people are the ones who need to be locked away as they obviously can't separate real life from fiction and are potentially dangerous in this state of hallucinatory delusion.
Amen! I would add that "zero tolerance" policies need to go, too. Zero tolerance means zero intelligence. Schools have such policies because it relieves them from having to think. Aren't all the grown-ups at a school supposed to be capable of critical thinking? Aren't they all supposed to be intelligent?
The real crime in this case is that charges were brought against an innocent person in the name of "safety". Bullshit!
Let me get this straight, you think that the guy is rather silly because he posted game footage that also included a public place? What's the real difference between that and a movie about a killing spree in down-town Washington filmed in said location? The actual playing of the game is rather harmless as no guns are wielded, just a (deadly?) phone!
I find it difficult that it is no longer possible for many people and powers that be to distinguish between a make-believe and reality. I am sure that the sheriff's department would be informed had a real incident happened. At least check the facts before arresting people. I think the silliness, if not outright stupidity, is to be found among people overreacting to literally harmless publishings like this.
My conclusion: The terrorists have won!
People are now so terrified of even little things that it is difficult to have fun if it is not entirely PC. Put the terrorist threat into context and look at how many people have died in the traffic in the last few years or from pneumonia or tuberculosis compared to how many people have died in terror attacks in the last 100 years.
I don't need a signature to draw attention to myself.
I'm upping a patch tonight to replace the weapons with grief counselors.
*thrown*
*hits zombie*
Counselor: "How does that make you feel? Did you take the physical contact personally?"
*Counselor pulls out a plush High School Musical doll*
Counselor: "Where on Zach Efron did I touch you?"
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
A few guys in my high school did a similar thing with Doom in the 90s. Made a model of the school and some of the students, teachers etc as monsters and you could play a level killing them all. Nobody thought it was threatening. Don't see why this one would be?
>He filmed people without their consent and posted it online.
Nope.
Scott County Sheriffâ(TM)s Deputy Joe Baker and principal Ric Mann determined after watching the video that it âoedepicted real Scottsburg High School students walking through the hallway along with fictional zombie characters,â according to WDRB-TV.
âoeSuch students could not be identified due to the appâ(TM)s photographic settings,â the station reported, citing a probable cause affidavit.
So apparently the app has a face blurring or obscuring algorithm that protects the identity of real people that happen to appear in game background.