MS, Apple, Blizzard, EA, WB and Disney ban all NY sex offenders

[waj9876]

I have absolutely no idea how I should respond to this...

Spoiler

...Well, other than that.

 

[renegade7]

Look I'm all for keeping sex offenders away from children, but this doesn't seem right. Mostly because it's punishing beyond the sentence. Unless the court ordered the offender was no longer to play online games, there is no reason for this. Those companies don't get to be judge jury and executioner in a case where a conviction has already been reached.

Also, can't they just make new profiles? Duh.

 

[Smithburg]

Hmm I really don't know how to feel about it, it brings up questions about if a person is truly rehabilitated or not, what they're sex crime actually was (like someone said pissing in public is one, which is vastly different from rape) and if the sentance they were given was actually enough. I never really agreed with the sex offenders have to go door to door and tell people who they are rule, always thought that was too much but I can see the point. You'd think murderers would get the same treatment though.

 

[Thyunda]

Looking at the thousands of 'sex offences' in this country and in the US, and the fact that all 'offenders' go on the same damn list, I can say in complete sincerity that this is bollocks.

But then, even for the most severe of severe crimes, it seems pointless. Why release them from prison, and then strip them of their lives? It'd probably be more merciful to just shoot them in the back of their heads as they leave. Save them from being lynched later on.

But let's look at what this law would actually accomplish. Would the frequency of abuse go down? Yes. Do you know what else would bring down abuse? Banning everybody with a criminal record of any kind. And anybody with a microphone.

An exaggerated slippery slope, I know, but let's face it - what slippery slopes AREN'T exaggerated?
What I'm trying to get at - if you're prepared to punish 'innocent' people for the crimes of the actual criminals they share their list with, you might as well punish anybody with the capacity to abuse other people. If you're going to have the dragnet mentality, then really, there's nothing to stop you going too far.

 

[Netrigan]

Unless we are talking about sex offenders that have been CONVICTED of crimes against minors, then this is wrong.

As previously mentioned, peeing in the street could be classed as sex offense, drunken rape could be, however wrong or right they are, they will have been punished and do not serve to cause harm to anyone since it was blatantly a one off.

So, as I said, unless it is a very specific group of sex offenders, this IS a slippery slop, and a dangerous one at that.

I think we need to have different classes of sex crimes. Make something like public urination a minor sex offense, something that only puts you on police watch lists, as this is behavior that could esculate; but its most likely harmless so no need to publicly censor them. If you get labeled as a habitual offender or a predator, then monitoring is needed and limits can be imposed.

 

[Epona]

Unless we are talking about sex offenders that have been CONVICTED of crimes against minors, then this is wrong.

As previously mentioned, peeing in the street could be classed as sex offense, drunken rape could be, however wrong or right they are, they will have been punished and do not serve to cause harm to anyone since it was blatantly a one off.

So, as I said, unless it is a very specific group of sex offenders, this IS a slippery slop, and a dangerous one at that.

So people convicted of crimes against minors should be punished for the rest of their lives? I mean, if they are free to play video games then they must have already served their time and been released.

 

[Kair]

What about the many whose sentence as sex offender is unjust?

 

[Vrach]

This is kinda weird. Why are they punishing people beyond their court sentence?

Also, why only sex offenders? What about murderers?

Because a murderer doesn't need internet to find and lure a random target. A sex offender does.

seriously? a sex offender could just as easily use a van, and a murderer could just as easily put an ad on craigslist.

Yeah, because no one suspects a damn fucking thing when a guy's just standing around a van or leading you to one. Nope, not a damn thing. And when the government sees a registered sex offender (because we ARE talking about THOSE, you know, the registered ones) buying a van, they go "oh, he must need the extra space in a van to carpool to work or bring some extra groceries back from the market!".

This is kinda weird. Why are they punishing people beyond their court sentence?

Also, why only sex offenders? What about murderers?

Because a murderer doesn't need internet to find and lure a random target. A sex offender does.

Sure, tell that to all the people who've been molested by relatives, family friends.etc.

I didn't say it was the only way for sex offenders to find or lure a target, but it's a damn good one. They've been using IRC channels for years and everyone's aware of it. But in an online game, especially an MMO, it's easy to gain someone's trust over time. They can easily arrange a meeting and lure their target from there.

 

[Something Amyss]

I am pleasantly surprised to see so many in this thread standing up for civil rights, I did not expect it.

I was thinking more on a legal scale. It's one thing to voice support of civil rights here, but in public? Or possibly more specifically, in a court room as a lawyer, knowing you could lose clients because you're associated with "the child molester" (regardless of whether that's the actual crime)? Or the politician who could probably easily do something, but will lose the vote because he's "pro pedophile?"

Or even the format of public activism.

Yeah whatever, give your rights away if you want to.

There is no specific right to smoke, and even if there were, your right to swing your fist ends at the other guy's nose.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

This is kinda weird. Why are they punishing people beyond their court sentence?

Also, why only sex offenders? What about murderers?

Because hating on sex offenders is good for politics. Don't see how these types of things are constitutional. We, as a society, see sex offenders as more dangerous than murderers.

I mean you murder someone in cold blood, at least the person murdered dies and doesn't have to live with the consequences.

A child has to deal with that every day...

Like, sorry... I didn't use to feel this way, but the only thing this society asks of pedophiles is just don't fuck a kid and don't look at someone else fucking a kid. There is hentai, there are legal alternatives in the U.S. to get your kink off too with out harming anyone. It's so fucking easy to not cross that very clear line, there is absolutely no excuse for it. Lack of sex isn't a reason, plenty of us go stretches with out sex and we don't resort to rape. Self-control, they are proving they don't have it.

Also hey, trade off is they get a lighter jail sentence then murders.

There is no way that being molested is worse than not being alive at all. That's just societal programming talking.

It's relative... I mean, from a non-religious point of view, you die thats it. You're not worried about how you died, or angry about the person that just killed you, you're just did. Yeah, you're seperated from everything you loved but you're not able to dwell on it.

Misery and sadness and the rest of the emotions are only felt while we're alive... I mean yeah, sure, you can be molested and still go on to great things but that shit has to haunt you every single day.

No, it doesn't. I am not haunted every day and until topics like this come up, I never even think about it. Think I would rather be dead?

Oh thats a little unfair in a debate, don't you think? To bring up something personal in the middle rather then right out in the beginning when you disagreed with me. How am I expected to retort? I am not you, I don't have control over your thoughts and feelings. You've pretty much just brought that up as a way to shut me up, make a fool out of me as it were. Entirely off topic, I know, but if you were going to play that card it would of been more fair to present it earlier.

 

[FolkLikePanda]

In my own opinion, good, sex offenders should be punished as much as possible.

 

[VonKlaw]

I didn't say it was the only way for sex offenders to find or lure a target, but it's a damn good one. They've been using IRC channels for years and everyone's aware of it. But in an online game, especially an MMO, it's easy to gain someone's trust over time. They can easily arrange a meeting and lure their target from there.

You specifically used the word NEED. If you need it, then it's a neccesity to whatever you are trying to do.

Whilst I accept your point about MMOs in particular, would it not be easier to either
a) ban people on the list from certain things on these services (i.e. multiplayer of games specifically aimed at kids, being able to use a microphone/messaging on XBL). They'd still be able to play CoD or whatever the hell they want to
or
b) actually monitor them (I seem to remember GMs on WoW being able to see pretty much everything you said or did on there, wouldn't exactly be hard to ban them if they start inviting people to IRC channels or chatrooms)?

But they won't, because that would actually take some damn effort and its far easier to just ban them and get support from these silly "think of the children" types.

In my own opinion, good, sex offenders should be punished as much as possible.

Great, let's punish them beyond not being able to find reasonable employment or decent living accomodation. Let's remove the ability to do an activity that is pretty famous amongst non-gamers as "loner sitting at a television/pc monitor for hours on end" so that they could...I don't know, reoffend maybe?

You wanna punish them then fine, keep them in prison. But giving them the freedom to do pretty much jackshit is pretty pointless.

 

[Epona]

I am pleasantly surprised to see so many in this thread standing up for civil rights, I did not expect it.

I was thinking more on a legal scale. It's one thing to voice support of civil rights here, but in public? Or possibly more specifically, in a court room as a lawyer, knowing you could lose clients because you're associated with "the child molester" (regardless of whether that's the actual crime)? Or the politician who could probably easily do something, but will lose the vote because he's "pro pedophile?"

Or even the format of public activism.

Yeah whatever, give your rights away if you want to.

There is no specific right to smoke, and even if there were, your right to swing your fist ends at the other guy's nose.

Apparently the rights of the anti-smokers to swing their fist doesn't end at the smokers nose.

 

[Something Amyss]

I didn't say it was the only way for sex offenders to find or lure a target, but it's a damn good one. They've been using IRC channels for years and everyone's aware of it. But in an online game, especially an MMO, it's easy to gain someone's trust over time. They can easily arrange a meeting and lure their target from there.

You said that a sex offender needed the internet for a random target. Granted, "random" in this case is loose enough it might qualify as a "weasel word." Most sex offenders do molest people close to them, be it family or neighbours. It's hard to tell where that falls, because of the vague use of "random."

Targeting the internet as a problem still rather misses the point so to speak.

 

[Something Amyss]

Apparently the rights of the anti-smokers to swing their fist doesn't end at the smokers nose.

You're really reaching to try and find a counter argument. It's kind of ridiculous.

 

[Epona]

This is kinda weird. Why are they punishing people beyond their court sentence?

Also, why only sex offenders? What about murderers?

Because hating on sex offenders is good for politics. Don't see how these types of things are constitutional. We, as a society, see sex offenders as more dangerous than murderers.

I mean you murder someone in cold blood, at least the person murdered dies and doesn't have to live with the consequences.

A child has to deal with that every day...

Like, sorry... I didn't use to feel this way, but the only thing this society asks of pedophiles is just don't fuck a kid and don't look at someone else fucking a kid. There is hentai, there are legal alternatives in the U.S. to get your kink off too with out harming anyone. It's so fucking easy to not cross that very clear line, there is absolutely no excuse for it. Lack of sex isn't a reason, plenty of us go stretches with out sex and we don't resort to rape. Self-control, they are proving they don't have it.

Also hey, trade off is they get a lighter jail sentence then murders.

There is no way that being molested is worse than not being alive at all. That's just societal programming talking.

It's relative... I mean, from a non-religious point of view, you die thats it. You're not worried about how you died, or angry about the person that just killed you, you're just did. Yeah, you're seperated from everything you loved but you're not able to dwell on it.

Misery and sadness and the rest of the emotions are only felt while we're alive... I mean yeah, sure, you can be molested and still go on to great things but that shit has to haunt you every single day.

No, it doesn't. I am not haunted every day and until topics like this come up, I never even think about it. Think I would rather be dead?

Oh thats a little unfair in a debate, don't you think? To bring up something personal in the middle rather then right out in the beginning when you disagreed with me. How am I expected to retort? I am not you, I don't have control over your thoughts and feelings. You've pretty much just brought that up as a way to shut me up, make a fool out of me as it were. Entirely off topic, I know, but if you were going to play that card it would of been more fair to present it earlier.

I did bring it up earlier. I expected that you had read the whole thread. My intent wasn't to play a trump card but to let you know that I can speak from experience that I would rather be molested and alive than dead. I would not be here to have this conversation were I dead. As far as I am concerned, death is the end of everything and can't even be compared to something like molestation because there is no possibility of recovery from death.

 

[Epona]

Apparently the rights of the anti-smokers to swing their fist doesn't end at the smokers nose.

You're really reaching to try and find a counter argument. It's kind of ridiculous.

You don't see it? Smokers can't invade the space of anti-smokers but anti-smokers can have smokers kicked from every public place. Even though public places are paid for by tax payers, which smokers are. Smokers even pay more taxes than anti-smokers. See there's a word for that, discrimination. No worries though, it's ok to discriminate against certain groups. Isn't that right?

 

[Gennadios]

Honestly I'd rather play my online games with sex offenders than 12 year olds. Maybe it's just me.

 

[Prosis]

Apparently the rights of the anti-smokers to swing their fist doesn't end at the smokers nose.

You're really reaching to try and find a counter argument. It's kind of ridiculous.

You don't see it? Smokers can't invade the space of anti-smokers but anti-smokers can have smokers kicked from every public place. Even though public places are paid for by tax payers, which smokers are. Smokers even pay more taxes than anti-smokers. See there's a word for that, discrimination. No worries though, it's ok to discriminate against certain groups. Isn't that right?

I wouldn't call that discrimination. That's like saying that not allowing drunk people to drive cars is discrimination against alcoholics.

Smoking smells bad. There is a ton of studies showing that smoking is bad for the health of the smoker and the people around them. In things such as hotel rooms, the scent of smoke lingers for days. In single building apartments, smoke is pulled through ventilation systems to other rooms.

You may argue that smokers have a right to smoke where they please, but I would argue that other citizens have the right to breathe clean air.

Furthermore, a smoker can put out the cigarette, and then go where he pleases. A sex offender, regardless of the severity of their crime, is on that list for life. This is a permanent ban.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

"Operation: Game Over". Heh got a decent chuckle out of that title.

As for do I agree with it? Ehhhhhhhh. I can see what they're protecting against, I agree with what they're wanting to do. But as a conservative I'm against most forms of governmental regulation. On the other hand when it comes to sex crimes, I believe - obviously this meaning what follows is opinion - that you can never be fully rehabilitated. You'll always have the urges to be naughty with people/things you shouldn't be naughty with. And if I had a young child that played on XBox live, I wouldn't want some jackass coming on the mic and asking my kid if he likes going to the gym and watching guys work out, or if he likes professional wrestling, or if he likes movies about gladiators.

Hey, maybe we should just put all the sex offenders on an island then?

They do, in some communities. Sex offenders can't live with in X miles of things like schools/libraries/etc., so occasionally these laws essentially confine all the sex offenders to an island or something.

That's not the same thing and you know it and you totally missed the point. I really fuckin hate how it's ok to persecute certain groups. Sex offenders, smokers, etc...

It's like people in those groups aren't people at all and can have rights removed without backlash. I would say this ban is a civil rights violation.

Wait... What? I think as a smoker the worst thing that's ever happened to me is to be compared to a sex offender. I smoke cigarettes, I don't rape people.

You haven't noticed all the limitations that have been placed on smokers? No smoking in parks, government building, movie theaters, within so many feet of a door, higher sales tax, etc.. Why? What did smokers do to be singled out like this?

uh what? because of what smoking DOES to those around you? would you like it if i hopped on a chair, and let out one big ass wet fart right in your mouth? harsh exaggeration, but as a non smoker, i hate the fucking smell with a passion, not to mention the health problems it causes. when someone rips major ass in public, you bet your ass that person gets some rude looks, hell i've even seen an old lady tell another old fart to go to the bathroom if he's gonna blow air out his ass like that. and that's just for farting, smoking gives off a nasty smell, and can negatively affect those around you.

if smoking didn't have those two effects, people wouldn't give two shits where you smoked, end of story, at least in my eyes. hell you can smoke all you want, doesn't bug me in the slightest, i have plenty of friends who smoke, but if you think for a second that i am required to tolerate it when i have to go places or have to be somewhere, then no, that's horseshit, smoking isn't a requirement.