Sunday, February 26, 2006
Media Stuck on Stupid About Videogames
Philadelphia’s ABC affiliate WPVI-TV Channel 6 ran a report on 11-year-old Emily Keel who was approached in a DS Pictochat session by someone asking for personal information. Scared, a very smart Emily left the chat room, turned off the DS and told her mother.
Too bad WPVI is not as smart as Emily.
The report turns what could have been a helpful notice to parents about a potentially dangerous situation into a three minute panic show complete with television shock value and expert inaccuracies:
“Strangers can use this toy to lure unsuspecting children to dangerous places.”By dangerous places they must mean from one side of the room to the other."Predators are using Nintendo DS anywhere in the world. And it's going to be really hard to track down those individuals because of course, they're on a wireless network from a hotspot such as a coffee shop.”The guy carrying a DS would be a likely candidate.“Or if they're in a wireless environment, say a coffee shop or whatever, they jump on the wireless network so now you have predators who are trying to get at our kids."Get at them in Mario Kart? Nintendo is one of the few compaies, gaming or otherwise, that actually takes precautions in their online services. Of course, the funny thing about this item is it disregards the fact that Pictochat is not a online enabled program. It only operates directly from DS to DS. Even when presented with this fact, the report brushes it aside as a “claim”, and ignores it for the entire segment.
In the process of spreading falsities, WPVI missed the real story. Emily, in what could be imagined to be very creepy, could very well have physically seen the person who was chatting with her. He had to be within range of her DS, and if his intentions were malicious and had Emily been alone, he may have been able to approach her immediately using the DS chat to convince her he was safe.
The message to parents, which WPVI missed, is they should monitor what their kids do with their handheld devices, learn about the systems’ true capabilities and instruct their children on what they should and should not do. Both children and adults should only use Pictochat with people they know and trust, and should understand that anyone they speak with is likely in the same room. When used properly (such as to cheat on midterms) Pictochat can be a fun and innovative program.
My question is why is the media so blissfully incapable of even trying to get correct info about games and whatever controversies there may be about them? Like last summer with the Hot Coffee and Jack Thompson for example. He was able to say anything he wanted with nary a hard question to him and now this station is ignoring that pictochat is entirely unusuable unless you are within close proximity to another DS.
The media needs to get their facts straight about videogames are just shut the hell up about them.
