More Than Half of Users Have Seen Extremist Content in Online Games – By Tess Owens (Vice News) / May 19, 2023
A new report says most gamers are encountering user-created extremism content or propaganda within multiplayer games.
The video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons is supposed to be a bucolic, adorable utopia where the player’s chief concerns typically include catching butterflies, designing clothes to sell in an online marketplace, and landscaping their islands to impress visitors.
On one recent day, an Animal Crossing player took to Twitter to complain about an upsetting incident. They’d unwittingly welcomed two visitors, whose avatars appeared dressed in KKK robes and a T-shirt emblazoned with a swastika, onto their island.
Animal Crossing is widely considered a “sandbox game”, meaning players are given a lot of freedom to build their own worlds—and in some cases, create their extremist fantasies, which they seek to lure others into.
That’s just one way extremists use gaming spaces to spread their propaganda, and reach, radicalize, and recruit young followers, according to a new report by New York University.
CONTINUE > https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3m4m3/animal-crossing-online-games-extremist-content
