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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 now a "new political arena" as crucial digital rights battles over privacy and anonymity are being fought, experts and insiders said on Thursday.



Video games are seen as the new frontier of digital rights.



With the industry expected to more than double annual revenue to $300 billion by 2025, questions about how video game designers, operators and governments deal with sensitive issues are given greater urgency, according to participants at RightsCon the virtual conference on digital rights.



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Article content A Hong Kong activist protested Beijing's rule in a well-known social simulator game known as Animal Crossing. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (a congresswoman) was also a participant in the game.



The game Minecraft has been utilized to circumvent censorship with groups using it to create digital libraries and to smuggle banned materials into oppressive countries.



Micaela Mantegna, the founder of GeekyLegal (an Argentinian group that is focused on technology policy) said, "Video games are now the new arena for political debate."



Game designers are also known for developing games that deal with sensitive issues, like mental illness or refugees.



"Video games are a powerful method to begin conversations about topics that are hard to talk about in real life," said Stephanie Zucarelli who is a board member for Women in Games Argentina, which is a non-profit organization.



Article content User rights could be violated, according to Kurt Opsah (an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation), a digital rights group.



Law enforcement can ask game companies their personal information about users operating companies can also censor game users and governments can pressure game makers and operators to remove the content, he said.
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He gave an instance of the U.S. military deleting critical comments that had been posted on recruitment channels it hosted on Twitch the most popular streaming platform.



"They did not want people to have an anti-military view on their recruiting channels," he said.



He added that governments could apply pressure to videogame companies. This is evident in the case of Activision Blizzard Entertainment, which last year suspended a player from a competition for making political remarks about Hong Kong in an interview.



Blizzard is owned in part by Chinese gaming giant Tencent Holdings.



(Reporting by Avi Asher-Schapiro. Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please acknowledge the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of those around the world who strive to live their lives freely and fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)


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