Video Games Seen becoming a new Frontier in Digital Rights
Article content By Avi Asher-Schapiro
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) 30 July 2018 Video games are emerging as an "new political venue" as critical digital rights fights over privacy and anonymity are being battled, experts and insiders declared on Thursday.
Video games seen becoming the new frontier of digital rights Back to video
Participants at RightsCon an event on digital rights, said that the industry is predicted to double its annual revenue to $300 billion by 2025. This means it is imperative to ask what designers, operators and government agencies deal with sensitive issues.
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Article content In the last few months, a Hong Kong activist staged a protest against Beijing's rule inside a well-known social simulator game called Animal Crossing, and a member of the U.S. Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also campaigned in the game too.
The game Minecraft, meanwhile, has been utilized to circumvent censorship with groups using it to create digital libraries and to smuggle banned texts into repressive countries.
"Video games are now a political arena," said Micaela Mantegna who is the founder of GeekyLegal GeekyLegal, an Argentinian group that focuses on tech policy.
Game designers are also known for developing games that deal with sensitive issues, like mental illness or refugees.
"Video games are a powerful tool for starting conversations about difficult subjects in real life." Stephanie Zucarelli, a board member at Women in Games Argentina, which is a non-profit organization.
Article content Rights of the user can be at risk of being violated, said Kurt Opsah, an attorney working for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group.
Law enforcement agencies can request from game companies for their user's personal information operating companies are able to restrict gaming users, and governments can press game makers and operators to remove content, he added.
He provided an example of the U.S. military deleting critical remarks that were posted on recruitment channels it hosted on Twitch, a popular streaming platform.
He said, "They didn’t want people to have an anti-military view on their recruiting channels."
He added that governments could exert pressure on videogame companies. This is evident in the case of Activision Blizzard Entertainment, which last year suspended the player from a tournament because of political remarks about Hong Kong in an interview.
Tencent Holdings, a Chinese gaming giant, has a stake in Blizzard.
(Reporting by Avi Asher-Schapiro. Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please acknowledge the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable part of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the globe who struggle to live their lives freely and fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)
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