Fox Hosts Support Gamer Facing Prison Time, Are Kind Of Jerks About It

Kotaku - Some days, solidarity comes from the unlikeliest places, with the unlikeliest of tones. Sometimes your most ardent defendants can be a total dicks about it. For one gamer facing prison time, that happened this morning.

[Majin-vegeta]

Newd centers are a bunch of uneducated retards nuff said.

[jeeves86]

I would hardly call RedEye a news program. They're a satirical late-night show, they even acknowledge it when they get themselves wrangled up in controversy.

These guys were pretty nasty about the Canadian military a few years ago, three days after four Canadians died fighting for US interests in Afghanistan. It was in particular poor taste due to the fact that four deaths in one attack just doesn't happen all that often. They said a bunch of other stupid and insensitive shit too, calling Canada a joke of a nation and that we're "not a smart people."

I believe it was Jon Stewart who had this epic response to it too, I wish I could find it. He was forced to apologize, and acknowledged he didn't even know that the military was currently fighting.

So in short, I wouldn't call these guys any kind of news outlet.

[SpideySpeakz]

What? A Republican network said this? I am truly shocked /s

[WeAreLegion]

Yeah. It's totally just the Republican network...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301...

http://www.nbc26.tv/story/2...

[creatchee]

Wow was that study bad science or what? First of all, they deliberately exposed 13-15 year olds to Manhunt, which SAYS ON THE BOX that it is not a game for them. Then they measure stress levels. I don't know about any of you, but Manhunt was a stressful game without the violence. Add in the violence and the fact that 13-15 were playing (and I can't say this enough) A GAME INAPPROPRIATE FOR THEM, then added stress levels should fall under the "no shit" category of findings.

Here's an experiment - put the evening news on for kids before bed. Let them see wars people fight over godforsaken pieces of land or families being murdered or genocide in Africa. Show them the real world and then check their stress levels. I'd be more worried about the ones that weren't elevated after that.

[zeal0us]

What do you expect its Fox News?

[brettski]

This program, Red Eye always makes light of ridiculous stories to show how stupid some things are in our culture. That shows host has a strong libertarian streak and believes in more freedom and liberties not less

[madpuppy]

"That dangerous jazz music", Rock and roll is corrupting our children", "protect your children from the evils of comic books",
"Violent movies are dangerous and should be banned", "TV makes one lazy and will "rot your brain"

Conservative...Liberal, different sides of the same coin.

Politicians and the media will sensationalize anything to forward their agenda and get more votes/readers/ratings.

It all comes down to the acquisition of power and money and we all know that money makes the world go 'round.

That is why nothing ever comes of these rants, there is too much money pouring into the economy from the gaming industry.

The Tobacco industry is a great example of a giant tax payer, everyone knows that Smoking is a deadly habit, 443,000 people die annually in the US from smoking related disease http://www.cdc.gov/chronicd...
that's hundreds of thousands more people than any death that you could even remotely connect to gaming or even all the things I mentioned above combined.

So, these articles are all smoke and mirrors, if they were really worried about corrupting influences they would go after the real threat to human society. But, like I said...money and power....

[Shad0wRunner]

Any decent lawyer could get this kid off, easy.

It's clear the kid's statement was taken out of context, was intended as sarcasm...and was in no way, an actual threat.

[LeCreuset]

It would make it a lot easier for me to come to the kid's defense if just one of the many stories I've seen on this included the entirety of what was said in one quote.

Every time we get the bulk of what he said: the threat. On it's own I'd say that it is deserving of investigation. The father says he added immediately after "LOL" and "JK" but none of the reports I've seen so far have included that along with the original quote. They claim the father said as much, or claim he said after "LOL" and "JK," but why not present it all as one quote if the "LOL" and "JK" came immediately after? That seems odd.

To clarify, every story I've read or heard has been reported in this manner:

"Carter was playing Riot’s hit MOBA game in February and jokingly responded to another player’s comment. His words, according to Carter’s father Jack, were 'Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,' followed by 'lol' and 'jk'."

If the "lol" and "jk" immediately followed, and this claim can be verified by those reporting on this, why not quote the whole thing together like so:

"Carter was playing Riot’s hit MOBA game in February and jokingly responded to another player’s comment. His words were “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts. lol jk.”

[Anon1974]

I don't know what his full quote was, but I do know placing jk at the end of a heinous threat doesn't excuse the threat in the first place. With or without the jk, he still broke laws regarding uttering threats. People need to realise the internet isn't their own little playground where they can break whatever laws they want without repercussions.

And consider this. Police not only arrested the guy, they locked him up awaiting trial and confiscated his computer. If law enforcement felt he needed to be locked away in the interest of public safety, isn't it safe to assume there was a reason beside one stupid internet threat? Last I checkek, some pretty horrible things are said on the net. Few see people locked away awaiting trial. We're missing something here that the parents aren't telling us and the police won't reveal until his day in court.

[ExPresident]

Without going into specifics on whether he was in the ok or not regarding his quote, I think the amount of responses either bashing the Republican party, and or Fox News is pretty short sighted.

Fact is numerous other sites have reported on this same incident. And if any of you think your precious Democratic party isn't going to go after your video games you are either clueless about recent history, and or completely in denial because they will come after them.

[B1uBurneR]

I guess we should start placing lol's and j/k's in the beginning of our dark sarcasm

[jjb1981]

If this guy had actually gone through with what he said then everyone would have been pissed off that nobody took him serious and the signs of a sociopath were obvious and blah blah blah. He should be punished but it is pretty harsh. You can't expect less from a conservative state.

[Deltaguy]

You could lose brain cells watching Fox and friends...

[brettski]

Really? This wasn't even about that show. Nice try parrot. Keep repeating ignorant talking points