After the tragedy in Paris we reported on the comments made about the PlayStation 4 used as a communication device. It appears that the rhetoric against video games is continuing, especially games that are classed as violent.
In a new comment by Criminologist Christian Pfeiffer he says that says that it is plausible that online games are being used to radicalise young people:
“The terrorists could be as virtual characters in online games like ‘World of Warcraft’ taken at a particular location as a group and have planned the attacks in Paris.” To communicate via computer games, was “clever” because this exchange could be difficult to control by security agencies and the online community. Player groups would be able to foreclose from the other teams in online games.Other groups are often distracted and would get suspicious activity with hardly. Playing violent video games on the Internet and on consoles wear according to the criminologists’ the radicalization of young Muslims “in and lead to disinhibition killing. Pfeiffer: “It is quite conceivable that the assassins of Paris virtually trained killing before the attacks and have drunk it.”
While this does come across as quite sensational, reading between the lines there is some truth to what is being said here. These games are communication devices that can be used for people to contact each other. Thus, if certain people wanted to contact others to influence them it can take place in that type of scenario.
The problem though is when we get to games being used to train terrorists in methods of how to kill. This is where fearmongering tends to come in, and these comments are being used to attack games just because of the content they hold. I doubt World of Warcraft as an example would be a good training ground.
Hopefully focus can be turned to more important things and that is dealing with the threat to the world and to the people displaced by the atrocities in Paris and around the world. Rather than speculating what roll video games have in all of this.
