2,100 more sex offenders banned from online games
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
THQ, NCSoft, Gaia Online, and Funcom join growing list of companies agreeing to remove New York's registered sex offenders from online platforms.
An additional 2,100 registered sex offenders have been removed from online gaming platforms in New York, attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman announced today through his website. The bannings are part of the "Operation: Game Over" initiative, which earlier this year removed more than 3,500 sex offenders from online networks in the state.
New York had the cooperation of five new game companies for its latest round of sex offenders purges, including THQ, Funcom, NCSoft, and Gaia Online. The fifth company was not named. These publishers join a growing list of firms agreeing to remove sex offenders from their online networks that includes Microsoft, Apple, Blizzard Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Disney Interactive, Warner Bros., and Sony.
"The Internet is the crime scene of the 21st century, and we must ensure that online video game platforms do not become a digital playground for dangerous predators," Schneiderman said in a statement. "That means doing everything possible to block sex offenders from using gaming systems as a vehicle to prey on underage victims."
As part of New York's Electronic Securing and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP), convicted sex offenders must register all of their e-mail addresses, screen names, and similar identifiers for the purposes of limiting their access to certain online networks. Operation: Game Over represents the first time the law has been invoked relative to online gaming.
By
Eddie Makuch, News Editor
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
350 comments
1 Like good plan. the pedobears will have to go to PC cafes/arcades full of lil kids to play video games. real good plan indeed
2 Like So now not only are they named and located on a publicly available list to be shunned from physical society, but now they can't even participate in online social networks.
America sure likes to give it's criminals no prayer at rehabilitation.
3 Like can we just move all the SO's to their own island and they can just focus on each other?
These sex offenders might be able to sue these companies and the state for violation of their constitutional rights. More importantly they can actually win. Very interesting.
@x_hunter00 Constitutional right to play World of Warcraft?
BLIZZARD MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE ANY BNET ACCOUNT OR WORLD OF WARCRAFT ACCOUNT AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE TO YOU. For purposes of explanation and not limitation, most account suspensions, terminations and/or deletions are the result of violations of this Terms of Use or the EULA.
@ztype85 Any good lawyer would use these two statements from the TOU and can have a good case. Especially with the second one.
1) "Subject to your agreement to and continuing compliance with the Blizzard Agreements, you may use the Service solely for your own non-commercial entertainment purposes by accessing it with an authorized, unmodified Game Client. You may not use the Service for any other purpose, or in connection with any other software."
2) If any provision of this Agreement shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from this Agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
So if a court finds that Blizzard can't delete an account for no reason then guess what, these child molesters will win.
@x_hunter00 but it can be argued that if not removed, they would not use the medium for its intended use and instead use it for criminal activities
1 Like @Xellos976 It can also be argued that they would use it for it's intended use. The problem is that you can't punish a person for something they haven't done.
3 Like Police States always start in the name of "Safety". Who in their right mind would be against safety? We do this for the common good and soon only those who can be above the law will have freedom.
2 Like Great now these sex offenders will have more time on their hands to molest children.
This is seriously the dumbest shiit I've ever seen in my life.
1 Like @Cable_mvc2 You're an idiot. Child molestation isn't the result of being bored. The stupidity of some people is simply baffling.
@Cable_mvc2 Oh look at that, a news article just today saying that parents are rounding up violent video games and destroying them. NOW you've seen the dumbest shit in your life. Oh, it's only the second day of the New Year. Prepare to see something even stupider real soon.
2 Like I think the better option would have this only apply to "Offenders" who committed their crimes online or if they show a disposition to commit a crime again. Because of the way the system works there are plenty of people in every state with the S.O. label on them who don't deserve to be. I know because it happened to my brother-in-law when he was 19 with his 17 year old GF, with the mothers consent and blessing, but the state threw the book at him anyway.
Unfair blanket legislation like this won't just stay in NY nor will it stay confined to just S.O.'s. It will widen to other states and then widen more to encompass all "criminals" until we end up chipping people like human cattle for even the smallest crimes.
WAKE UP PEOPLE!!! This isn't about keeping children safe. It's about finding excuses to lay down more controll...and eventually it'll encompass us ALL.
1 Like Also, it's worth noting that there was no *legal* basis for this action. The Attorney General basically leaned on a few of gaming's biggest companies and they quickly complied. My guess is that they figure it's less expensive to boot a few thousand people now than to deal with bad publicity or potential lawsuits if something happens down the line.
3 Like Legislation like this is driven by the same false assumption that tries to restrict violence, sex, and other mature content from being presented in video games and comic books -- that video games and comic books are for kids.
If you start with that assumption, then of course you don't want convicted pedophiles roaming about in the virtual worlds with your children. But I doubt that most online gamers are kids, and I doubt that many of them could be "seduced" by someone in World of Warcraft, for instance. As was pointed out below, it's not easy to tell who is really male or female, let alone their age.
Parents of young, impressionable children should restrict their access to *all* networks online, not just games. To keep sex offenders from playing a videogame seems excessive and not at all productive.
3 Like Since they have no way of determining how or why a particular person has made it to a sex list; To blanket ban people from a game just for being on the list, seems a far cry serving any good purpose. It just seems wrong to me. Its like being persecuted without due process, or excess punishment. I hope they combat this with lawsuits about excessive public punishment. But still, I don't believe that this will server any good purpose. People that want to do harm, will do so, regardless of such measures, and only punish the law abiding.
5 Like lol yea i'm sure this is prevention and not just punishment. how about giving lazy irresponsible parents less reasons to feel easy about having their kids babysat by a fucking computer or TV?
3 Like These politicians are idiots. If the people they are worried about were playing online games, good job, you just forced them out of the house!
Laws like this just make it harder for the ones that aren't pedophiles to live normal lives (or try). If someone is going to commit a sex crime he will regardless of the stipulations you put on them all you do is beat the dog and eventually that dog will just snap and bite you!
While we are at it since 1 of 3 African Americans will end up in jail/prison, lets make them register on a list too. People that don't file taxes that raise my own... You see?
@dra1985ny One in three huh? It's good to see that people aren't letting facts slow down their ability to make up statistics on the Internet.
1 Like @theKSMM @dra1985ny
He's not far off. You want a citation? Here you go:
%s
This information was taken from the National Institute of Justice.
Quote:
Nearly one in three (32%%) black males in the age group 20-29 is under some form of criminal
justice supervision on any given day -- either in prison or jail, or on probation or parole.
A black male born in 1991 has a 29%% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his
life. The figure for white males is 4%%, and for Hispanics, 16%%.
This comment has been deleted
2 Like @Venatorcruiser The internet is the place where men are men, women are often men, some women are women but get paid and little girls are FBI agents.
I have kids....I think this is a great idea....How many of you peeps complaining read only this article and did no research before being stupid on the internet? i'm sure there are a lot more details about this new law than this 4 paragraph article contains...
1 Like @zombiedriveby As a whole, it might be a good idea, though, there are some folks who slip through the cracks that I think they should give some consideration towards if they're going to implement this.I think the real solution is to have proper levels of people considered sex offenders, just for cases where an 19-year-old who gets arrested for sleeping consensually with his 17-year-old girlfriend doesn't get counted as the same league as a perverted man chatting in kids' chat rooms or whatnot.This kind of case certainly is not the majority of such sex offense cases, but sadly, it does happen more than folks realize--and rather hypocritically, at that, since the law in some states will allow some teens of the same two-year gap under 18 to sleep together legally.There's no sense in banning a guy who got arrested because of a sheer technicality and has exhibited no predatory behavior before from online gaming. It's probably worse enough they're going throughout life with that on their heads--no sense banning such cases from ALL forms of social activities, simply because of lazy law definition. It's that kind of overboard stuff that drives people to REALLY doing something crazy.So I do agree that something like this is useful for most cases (esp. since most sexual predators use the internet for engaging in their activities), but I think there needs to be a little more clarification in the law for those few cases where they clearly exhibited no predatory offenses but simply fell to a technicality, like where barely-legal-aged teens consensually sleeping with barely-minor-aged teens.In other news, the best thing to do to avoid many problems online, including this problem (as well as online bullying, "sexting," violent environments, etc.) is to monitor their online activity. Even without sex offenders online, it's still a dangerous world online.
1 Like @zombiedriveby Darn you, Gamespot commenting system--ruined my beautiful, painstaking parsing!
@zombiedriveby @Kickable don't worry about you don't have to apologize it i don't care about anonymous insults as long as someone's making a point, it's the interwebs. You could say I'm just as much of an a-hole for using it to make a smartass remark towards you.
I guess I do sound a bit dramatic and like i'm overreacting, but I promise I'm aware we're nowhere near '1984'. That's really something i'd expect from people who applaud all these new safeguard laws instead of more effective prevention that may be costly or difficult
@Kickable this isn't "1984", bro...but there is obviously nothing I can say to change anyone's opinion on this matter . This isn't a high school debate team showdown....I'm not doing this for fun ....we both shared our views ...Hell ...I even apologized for telling you to go fuck yourself...but I'm done ....hopefully the "internet secret police" don't come and lock us all up for having an opinion...
1 Like @zombiedriveby it could be about any law. you're telling people that questioning extra heavy-handed measures after an offender has already been punished accordingly is "being stupid on the internet". it's not, at all. Where will it stop? They don't need to research the psychology of sex offenders and repeat offenses to know it could snowball into a more strict internet in general for EVERYONE.
The system should be mocked for how easily and often it caves to compensate for lazy-ass parents. We don't let our kids walk out our front doors alone safe in the knowledge there'll be a cop at every corner so we should exercise the same logic with the internet. Tough shit if my 8 year old doesn't think it's fair he can't get online to shoot people in the face on Call of Duty anymore.
@Kickable Look , it's a great idea...that's how I started out my post, it's not perfect ....But people getting pissy about sexual predators not being able to hang out online without any regulations with people's kids is stupid...I see alot of "my friend was 18 and she was 17" stuff posted here, but as far as I can tell NY is the only state rolling operation gameover....where the age of consent IS 17...also in NY the people getting pinched for peeing in public usually get hit with a health code violation...not branded a sexual monster...This is what I meant by doing some research...But there will always be people bitching about how we lose our rights on a daily basis and will always have a problem with whatever the government is doing.Do I think that they should be banned completely, no....but I think a warning system should be put in place....just like when they move to a new neighborhood or apply for a job where children might be a factor .... I mean not a lot of people were seen complaining when these laws were made and enforced .I'm sure that most gamers with kids would agree that something like this is a good thing . I have 4 kids from ages 1 to 6 ...and the first day they pick up those sticks and go online, I will be there ......and I'm sorry I told you to go fuck yourself...I really didn't feel like typing all of this
1 Like @zombiedriveby what? if you're going to call people stupid and call something a great idea shouldn't you shouldn't just assume what you're saying is true. or should I fuck myself for pointing that out to you? in that case ok i will.
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3 Like They ban 2100, good job! The world (at least the online part of it) is a safer place.
We need to do more tho, lets ban the sex offenders from life, thats a solution I think most would agree on.
i dont think sex offenders are going to use online gaming simply as a mean to find prey. i believe sex offenders deserve worse than to just have their online gaming privileges taken from them. it makes sense, but at the same time, its kinda ridiculous in a sense.
"convicted sex offenders must register all of their e-mail addresses, screen names, and similar identifiers for the purposes of limiting their access to certain online networks" do you honestly think some sex offender is going to say "yeah my character on WoW's name is Klybor of the Ashen Verdict" during an investigation? sounds like a joke to me.
but regardless how funny it may sound, this is a smart move. i honestly think we should just hang the s-o-bs...
2 Like @Wheelman112 well... yeah, we should hang everyone who commits a crime! now that the sarcasm is over, one shouldn't be able to make desitions that will mark your life forever. ok, someone who commits rape or other sexual offences is bad, I get your point of view. the problem with this is that everyone should be offered redemption if they are willing to repent (in the non christian sense) and assist to therapy or something.
3 Like If this weren't in NY I'd be able to take this more serious, but NY wants to police every little thing nowadays it's scary.
12 Like What does
1.) a person taking a piss in a public space
2.) a guy who just turned 18 and is dating his 17 y.o. girlfriend
3.) an adult who forced a 13 y.o. to have sex
have in common?
The first person is probably drunk or really had to go, the second person is a normal person in high school, and the third person is a horrible human being.
But under the law, they are all sex offenders and are grouped as one entity. Hooray! Nothing can go wrong.
@Dudeinator Um, 17 is the age of consent for women. So a 18 yo guy having sex with his 17 yo girlfriend is legal. And the first one is illegal but would not be made a registered sex offender (unless he was like peeing in a school yard). So you failed.
@TJSpyke @Dudeinator well, you do notice that unless you where in a state of interdiction, no one could "ban" you from having kids... so it's illegal. there are more kids than bars so the chance is OBVIOUSLY higher.
@Dudeinator damn man i've pissed in public numerous times mostly after leaving the bar. Hell i pissed on the side of the interstate the other day. When ya gotta go ya gotta go. Guess i'm getting banned.
@Dudeinator For the most part I share your concerns. Additionally, I am not quite sure I wholly agree with our system's way of treating "ex-criminals". What I mean by this, once you serve your sentence/punishment, your debt to society is theoretically paid. Yet we continue to want to punish old offenders even afterwards.
Not knowing a lot about this bill though, I am hopeful that NY has enough data on this issue that more good is being achieved from this than harm.
2 Like @BlackaliciousX @Dudeinator Well, I get your point of view there, BlackaliciousX, but statistically-speaking, the rate of repeated sex crimes among sex offenders of the last sort in Dudeinator's example is rather high.Many sex crimes of a predatory nature occur with people who already were previously convicted of such, and with such the brand looming over them, they sometimes figure they've got nothing more to lose in continuing in their predatory behavior. Many rapists are repeat rapists. Many chat room predators do it again after a conviction.But at the same time, you can't help but want to have people who have had such a criminal history to bear a brand, to better keep your own kids safe from risk of being around them. To be honest, there's no real "paying debt to society" when the crime is something that indelibly damaged that society. In keeping tabs on such individuals, society's not continuing to punish the offenders even after serving time--they're dealing with the reality that such an offender causes.That's the reality of the difficulty such crimes cause to society. That's the high price to pay for such the crime paints on you onward, and thus, that's probably the best possible deterrent society can have towards such crimes that society's generally willing to agree upon. Sex offenders (again, speaking of those of an actual predatory offense--rapists, stalkers and molesters--not the teen adult who slept with his almost-legal girlfriend) put society in a catch-22 situation. You don't want them around you and your women/children, but then again, if you as general society's going to release them back into society, you don't want to encourage them to do crimes as an outcast.It's not an easy solution in dealing with sex offenders of a legitimate predatory nature, but then again, it's not easy dealing with the problem such sex offenders are and potentially pose to society. As for this bill, I'm all for it with convicted sex offenders of a predatory sex crime, but I think it's a bit unnecessary for those who are registered sex offenders due to a technicality.
2 Like @BlackaliciousX @Dudeinator People who committed sex crimes with kids should not be allowed to interact with kids since they have a high rate of being repeat offenders. It's like how recovering alcoholics should avoid going to bars.
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