Red Cross wants to regulate war crimes in video games
TT sends a link to the stupidest shit I ever read, about the International Conference of the Red Cross decided to influence governments to pass laws that would require video game makers to comply with the Geneva Conventions;
“While the Movement works vigorously to promote international humanitarian law worldwide, there is also an audience of approximately 600 million gamers who may be virtually violating IHL,” according to the event’s description. “Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of IHL in video games. In a side event, participants were asked: ‘What should we do, and what is the most effective method?’
So I suspected that the story may be a plant and went to the website of the Conference and found nothing of the sort there. I did notice, however, that they discuss “Promoting a culture of non violence and peace“, so it’s entirely possible that they did discuss the issue.
The article continues;
Reached for comment earlier this week, Alexandra Boivin, head of the Civil Society Relations Unit’s Department of International Law and Cooperation for the committee, declined to discuss their findings yet.
“Unfortunately, it is too early in the discussion to share our views publicly,” Boivin told Kotaku. “We will be posting some information on the ICRC’s website in the weeks to come, with a view to stating and explaining our interest in the topic.”
Alexandra Boivin is a real person at the International Red Cross, so the quote may be accurate as well as the rest of the story. We’ll be keeping an eye on it.
In the meantime, that clique of gamers who hang out here, we’ll be expecting you to set the example and conform to the Geneva Conventions during your virtual exploits.
Category: Dumbass Bullshit
That just makes me want to slaughter a village full of farm women in Skyrim.
[…] last, but not least, This ain’t Hell… exposes what the Red Cross wants to regulate says. It’s a serious […]
Meanwhile, Taliban, Tamil Tigers, North Korea, Iran, et al, are committing wholesale atrocities and from the IRC on those issues we hear crickets.
Fuck ’em.
It’s fine being the bad guy in a game, and its actually kinda fun. Of course games make it clear that if you are the bad guy you’re not going to get all the cool rewards.
Try spending hours in an open world building up trust and friendships, then kill a random villager. See how quick everyone hates you. kinda like real life in a way.
Let’s concentrate on non-issues instead of the heaping pile of problems facing us, sounds like an US Senator or presidential candidate is running the Red Cross these days.
Let’s see. World in Conflict, no, the allied soldier shooting at the civilians did it in error, was punished for it and regretted his actions. Um, Modern Warfare 2. No wait, that was the badguys and the idiot ball in the running. Modern Warfare 3, no wait, that chemical attack is the badguys and gives you a reason to stop them. Command and Conquer.. wait no that was the badguy again. C&C Generals maybe? No, those are the badguys again, it’s motivation to stop them. Sure you could play them, but you know without a doubt they’re badguys. Fallout New Vegas -… no, wait that’s alternate history with 50s sci-fi style science. And mini-nukes are funny. Rainbow 6 and Ghost Recon, no wait, those were all bad guy plots you were out to stop again.
Okay guys, I’m stumped. Most games either make you try to stop the war crimes, or make it well known that you’re playing an evil bastard. Why are they sticking their fingers into this?
I thought I donated to the red cross for real world problems.
Does that make me a war criminal if I go on vacation, don’t use the internet for a week and come back to a city that starved because I did leave enough food?!?!? If so I’m on the first thing smoking to some remote island!!!!!!
Probably, Mikey! At least now we know who to blame for all the ills of the world.
Hope they’re not looking for me for all the innocent “people” I slaughtered on Hitman. (I routinely reached “Deranged Slayer” status on Blood Money) Usually the idiots who can’t tell the difference between reality and a video game end up either shooting up their school or going to their local recruiting office uttering stupid shit like “i’m level 23 4th prestige on black ops, i’d be really good at killing people”, while we looked at them thinking WTF? Looks like the idiots are approaching it from a different angle now. Such a waste of friggin time.
Unfortunately, once again the asshats at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) show their stupidity and people confuse them with our own American Red Cross. They are not on in the same; the share two words in their names and nothing else.
Please don’t withhold your support for the Anerican Red Cross because of the shenanigans at the ICRC.
Thank you for the distinction TopGoz.
When the Japanese earthquake hit we wanted to send some money to help. But then we found out that if we gave to the American Red Cross for that cause that they would deduct a fee for handling the cash and as I recall the International would have gotten its hands on some of it too. We found a way to wire it directly to the Japanese Red Cross and saved wasting a couple of hundred out of the thousand. It left a bad taste in our mouths and we took the Red Cross off our charities list and substituted the USO in its place. You guys seem to know the fine points about everything military. Was this a bad choice?
fab–I’ve got my own (personal) reasons, but nothing with “Red Cross” in its name gets a dime from me. Ditto with United Way after the ex and I gave a good chunk of change to them post-9/11.
My wife’s cousin’s husband was wounded in the ‘Nam. The Army sent her a letter that didn’t include how bad he was hit, his condition or anything to tell her she wasn’t a widow or whatever. So she contacted the local Red Cross and was told, basically, if the Army wanted her to know they would have told her.
That’s one of the reasons, among many, no older vet gives the RC a stinkin’ dime.
I hope this doesn’t affect any future war game developement. I was kinda hoping for a waterboarding Sim.
Expect left/libtard Demo-rat douchebags to take this seriously… real violence they can’t do anything about, so they’ll just ban video games and self-defense.
FWIW, the ICRC has issued a statement concerning this story, denying the initial allegations.
Forgot to add the link.
http://kotaku.com/5866359/red-cross-wont-go-after-you-for-playing-war-games
[…] war crime prosecution December 10th, 2011 TT sends a link to from Huffington Post which updates the bit I wrote about the red Cross wanting to regulte war crimes in cideo games; The International Committee of […]