The United States’ Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has provided $699,763 to terrorist and security researchers, to study the proliferation and growing movement of ‘radicalism’ in videogames, citing the rise of “white nationalists” as one of the causes.
This grant was first publicly announced on September 15th.
Just days after this grant was announced, The WinePress reported how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was looking into a hacking group that stole private videogame files and clips from an up and coming Grand Theft Auto game.
For more on the DHS’ current expedites, The Gamer reported on more of the details:
The US Department of Homeland Security has just issued a &700,000 grant to fund research that aims to determine how best to help monitor and prevent extremist activities stemming from video game communities. White nationalists have seen success in recruiting people through video games, and this grant shows the US is acknowledging this type of radicalisation.
As reported by Vice, the DHS posted a statement on its website.
Over the past decade, video games have increasingly become focal points of social activity and identity creation for adolescents and young adults. Relationships made and fostered within game ecosystems routinely cross over into the real world and are impactful parts of local communities. Correspondingly, extremists have used video games and targeted video game communities for activities ranging from propaganda creation to terrorist mobilization and training.
The grant is being given to a joint venture comprised of the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, mental health non-profit Take This, and Logically, a company that’s trying to solve the issue of bad behaviour in online at a large scale.
[The DHS states the aim of the project is to create] a set of best practices and centralized resources for monitoring and evaluation of extremist activities as well as a series of training workshops for the monitoring, detection, and prevention of extremist exploitation in gaming spaces for community managers, multiplayer designers, lore developers, mechanics designers, and trust and safety professionals.
Providing resources to game developers will help communities ensure they weed out extremism at its root, rather than waiting until its too late to notice the problem and relying on authorities to spot extremist behaviours as they occur.
Dr. Rachel Kowert, research director at Take This told Vice,
I realized this was an area that was very under-researched (and by under researched I mean there was literally none) and it was then that I pivoted my work towards looking at hate, harassment, extremism, and radicalization in gaming spaces.
Gaming’s links to domestic terrorism and violent extremism aren’t new. Twitch and Discord are being investigated by the New York attorney general after a terrorist attack in Buffalo saw ten people shot dead by Payton Gendron who planned it on Discord and streamed it on Twitch.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
[24] Teach me, and I will hold my tongue: and cause me to understand wherein I have erred. [25] How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? [26] Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? Job 6:24-26
No pun intended, but gaming is a vice and a harmful addiction, so I recommend against it. Be that is it may, not surprisingly, however, if the Feds and world are bent on mitigating speech, then videogames chats certainly count as well.
Are there actual “terrorists” grouping up in these videogames? I highly doubt it is as bad as the DHS and mainstream would make the public believe, if this actual exists. The government and media never give us examples of this “terrorism.” They just say it, and then it becomes gospel.
China Cracks Down On Video Gaming And Freezes New Gaming Licenses. 14K Gaming Firms Shutdown
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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I’m so thankful to God that I gave up video games. I was more a classic retro game player like Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, PlayStation 1, older systems, but I have to give that up too, because I must redeem the time.
These modern video games are so complicated with their live chat systems, their accessories, map packs for Call of Duty, and so forth, I feel like I need to be a pilot to understand the mechanics and physics of these games.
One game I dabbled in but never got into and I repent of, was Grand Theft Auto, such a devilish game franchise, I can’t wait until that series falls apart!
I don’t know much about gaming directly. For that I am thankful, I had enough other sin hooks and hangups pre and post salvation for the Lord to deliver me of & to chasten me over.
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So, my experience with them is only by watching indirectly. I never liked the themes in the ones that I saw, immodesty and such promoted, androgyny with a ‘super’ mentality rather like Marvel comics promoting dissatisfaction & coveting things never meant for men & women, and the underlying Eastern philosophy I now realize is that pagan all-is-one garbage (Romans 1) & ascending to godhood perfection by works & knowledge (Genesis 3), balancing the ‘light’ and the ‘dark’ components of personality, which is hardly limited to the East, & just craft & idolatry in general. God separates the light from the darkness, even as the sheep from the goats.
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It’s antichrist. We must acknowledge sin, the darkness, repent, to be born again….not ’embrace’ or ‘balance’ it…. for faith to be saving faith & the power of God known & manifested in our lives, our will submitted to his. Not power as the world seeks, but that assurance & peace with God we get by the word & prayer, walking with him. Then we must freely choose to mortify the flesh & it’s deeds to walk in the Spirit, living by faith. That is the antithesis of ALL of these games. It’s also why it’s so much visual imagery & sound, not literate & intellectual which is too soulish, with too much potential to interact with evident truth by conscience to the seeking of God in his revealed word. Meditating upon that.
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As for the ‘terrorist’ and ‘radical’ elements…anything true, right, pure etc is going to offend the self-righteous…at any level; and those violent & militarized games, especially the ones where they were communicating & competing with one another…are just a natural for gangsters, ‘orders’, or whatever to get involved in & to organize by. Hoist by their own petard, perhaps? Fostering these things?
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The people most likely to get involved in those things that I knew of were first responder, police, and soldier types. Firemen have a lot of time on their hands between bursts of emergency. And throwing women in there created much confusion & resentment, frustration at the pretense of their being capable of what a man is, in real situations with deadman carries required & such, and unhappy wives & home situations. On the other hand, the women have to live lives of denial & pretend positivity….& end up undergoing rebuilds of their shoulders, their knees etc over and over again as they try to be men & to do what they were not designed to do. Futility. Saw some of that within our own extended family.
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The games, drinking, and in some cases, drugs, or extreme gym activity or ‘extreme’ hobbies, daredevil stuff… became the ‘escape’ many resorted to. No doubt by design as the psychmeisters watch and learn, as the familiar spirits they are informed, oppressed, and possessed by ‘guide’ them: they refuse the guidance of the word of God, or receive only the game of the versions pretense, picking and choosing what to believe or obey as King Saul. The whole ‘mancave’ withdrawal thing they cause, games, porn, substances & influences opening to MORE devilish entre & control, then which they blame a la the spirit they are of…..as well as the leap into witchcraft & whoredoms of the women. The pattern of Romans 1. Any sign of self-hatred is actually a GOOD sign with those involved in these things, for it shows a vestige of conscience remaining to which a soul winner might appeal or reason with.
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The goal of upper level and deepest in to craft is to destroy that with more and more extreme ‘initiations’ and demands. Like ritual abuse. Or to extort it to their ends. Everything’s a competition…but even the winners lose. Nothing is ever enough because only Christ according to the scriptures and his righteousness is sufficient. Futility.
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Psych-meisters go broke if there are no troubled people to get paid to string along….and they must be kept sinful, and abnormally sinful, in exaggerated ways…if they are not to come to their senses to realize they’re being ‘handled’, and that their ‘handlers’ are as sinful & messed up, or far worse, than they themselves. Freedom indeed in Christ according to the word is a threat to them all riding the crony gravy train at any level. The ‘arts’ included, even and especially as they ‘merge’ all into their ‘one’. It is confusion, and it is antichrist.
I never was drawn into the gaming world much, so what I comment is what I observed with others near and around me. And, I am thankful, for I had plenty of other sinhooks I scratched with other chosen behaviors. After the Lord saved me, I used to wonder that the games weren’t used by the evangelicals who tolerated them to create Bible learning & reinforcement since they were so obviously either utterly frivolous & vain, or very mystical & antichrist in what they taught & reinforced. Permeated with what often gets called Eastern mysticism though it’s universal & just sin and idolatrous responses with devilish input and control. Of course, they couldn’t do that since they have no sure word & are into subtle forms of witchcraft themselves as a result of their pretense that they do….knowingly or unknowingly.
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They’re full of porneia and violence, androgyny and exaggerated & unnatural role-playing, creating dissatisfaction and covetousness like the Marvel ‘supers’ thing & androgyny. The ‘solutions’ to the crises and such they create is all mystical & all antichrist all the time. Like Disney, but even more powerful & addictive, more targeted & the targets selected out, isolated. People cut themselves off & immerse themselves in it…becoming antisocial in the name of social, and unjust in the name of justice….it’s perverse. But it so draws the flesh, and in the dumbed down ..dulling of the literate & intellectual, soulish capabilities of men, and demoralization relativism….the deception snares many.
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I’m not real familiar with the most current things because I separated myself from it as I had the television & ‘fiction’, then movie, story-telling world as the Lord revealed to me by the word these things. Ditto the world’s music, sensual you’re- a- victim ‘blues’ and unstructured, no boundary ‘jazz’….lowest level fleshy, animal lust rock and roll with its utter rebellion…..both visual and musical influencing of the flesh part of the power of gaming. Non-literary.
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But back some years ago I noticed in our extended family that the more technical and connected games drew a lot of trained people in fields like first responders, policeman, and soldiers …..mostly men. It was part of their world & they thought it added to their training, honing their skills etc, and also provided escape & a sort of ghettoism, clubs, orders if you will.
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Sending women into those professions created a lot of trouble & tension, pretense, and frustration. Confusion. Take firemen for example. Living in close quarters 24 hours a day, with down time waiting, involved in maintenance & readiness training…those sort of games were both an escape & pretense of honing training. Women added a layer of temptation causing friction at home, & frustration at the pretense & natural tendency to protect women at work….say in the terribly dangerous situations they might find themselves in, or the sheer physical strength required to deadman carry someone to safety in a rescue or partner assist.
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The pretense is absurd & vexing. Women go into mystical, witchy pretense: pretending it just ain’t so even as they undergo surgery after surgery for broken down shoulders & knees, torn this and that doing things for which they weren’t designed, learning to manipulate men & situations by wiles in order to continue the delusion, taking drugs to manipulate their own emotions & turn off their consciences. But the men tend to withdraw to escapism and good old boy stuff: the ‘Gentlemen’s Club’/’mancave’ thing, which gaming contributes to vicariously & subtly. As well as porn, booze and drugs…extreme sports, hobbies, gym & exercise activity etc, with that clandestine comradery in the connected stuff feeding & amplifying it & its effect.
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Isn’t that what the social media manipulation is all about? Recipe for furtively exposing oneself to devilish influences, then opening further & further to full possession, evidenced by extreme machismo & the ‘he-man-womanhating-club’ stuff (Little Rascals, original version), then sodomite ‘brotherhood’ and so forth as it grows, ‘progresses’. Tempting, manipulating, blaming…setting targeted groups against one another & then purposely clashing them to crisis, fornicating union. Dialectics….aka pagan evolutionary philosophy, cultism, idolatry. Babylonian.
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It all becomes about more and more, better and better, ‘super’….and a competition, which is also a natural draw for men as God designed them. But in this case, even the ‘winners’ lose. It’s folly, and futility. Fruitless. Empty. Pointless. Vain. Only the Bible exposes & shows the way out of that stuff, with Christ’s power and righteousness alone sufficient for truly breaking the bondage…..by salvation first of all, and then faithful chastening as one continues in the word & obedience, or otherwise until God takes ’em out.
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It’s much easier to do this to people after purposely dumbing down & dulling soulish intellect more capable of literacy & rational, ordered thought connected with evident truth and conscience. Purposeful demoralization is to the dulling & searing of conscience…the initiations demanded becoming more and more extreme & vile. In the order of Satan’s temptations to Eve via the serpent.
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Relevant to that, I keep thinking how that all came about. The Bible says in Ezekiel 28 that the cherub Lucifer was created perfect, until iniquity was found in him. Pride in his beauty & brightness, and the multitude of their merchandising. Whose? And how did that serpent become more subtle than any creature of the field which the Lord God created? There’s more to that corruption & sons of God, daughters of men thing ….impurity, confusion, fornicating union, almost universal corruption…
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That bringing back the wooly mammoth thing really troubles me. I think it’s a huge part of the antichrist agenda & what triggers judgment even as in the days of Noe and Lot. Add to that the closing verses of Daniel 2. I wouldn’t mess with either gaming or CRISPR genetic-seed-corrupting and intermingling ‘confusion’ technology no matter WHAT positive spin they put on it. They are illegitimate means to illegitimate ends….gaining only Hell & the lake of fire ultimately so far as I can see by the word. Would appreciate hearing what the brethren make of these things scripturally…and I believe the confusion & denial of evident truths such as the observable and provable, demonstrable curvature of the earth really IS part of the mockers’ game, delighting in setting up and mocking, accusing the brethren. Science falsely so-called set as truth to misdirect & stumble people, destroy their testimony & fruitfulness. Layers of confusion & webs of ensnaring diversions, and purposeful misdirection. Inner core antichrist devilish Jesuit subtilty and craft.