Missouri media warns of Animal Crossing "dangers"

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http://kotaku.com/5172152/mainstream-media-animal-crossing-mayor-could-be-a-sexual-predator

Kotaku said:
The Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force is warning parents that Animal Crossing could be a haven for sexual predators, with ABC 17 News warning that Mayor Tortimer may want to see your child naked.

Is Mayor Tortimer actually a man in California that asks for naked images from Missouri children? That's what Missouri's ABC 17 News suggests in a story posted on March 11th regarding the increasing use of game consoles as tools for sexual predators. The report, which you can view in its entirety below, suggests that Animal Crossing allows children to interact with complete strangers, encouraging them to exchange notes, items, and "favors" in order to reach the next level in the game.

Another example of the sort of sensationalist television "news reporting" aimed squarely at terrifying parents into tuning in. In case any parents are actually reading this, Animal Crossing: City Folk only allows other players to visit each other if they exchange friend codes. Your task, as a parent, is making sure your children aren't posting their codes on forums, or sharing them with strangers.

The whole situation isn't helped by the Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, who seem to be aware that internet crimes are going on, but don't seem to have any real knowledge of how communication on the Wii occurs to impart to our newscaster friends. All they know is Animal Crossing is a kid's game, and adults shouldn't be playing it.

"I cannot come up with any legitimate reason that an adult would be playing that particular game," says Andy Anderson, Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force. Um. How about game reviews? Is that legitimate? I don't want to be playing for the wrong reasons here. Either Andy Anderson just isn't trying hard enough, or I am a sexual predator.

I don't mean to downplay the dangers of online play for children. As we've seen recently, it's an issue that's becoming more and more widespread. My problem here is that ABC 17 News is combating a real problem with misinformation. I know that news programs make a great deal of advertising revenue off scaring parents senseless, but a certain amount of actual "journalism" isn't too much to ask from our well-paid television news personalities.

Is Mayor Tortimer an internet predator from California? No. That's ridiculous. Everyone knows it's Tom Nook that likes them young.
Click to expand...
Just.... what.
 
The Sheriff said only pedophiles would play Animal Crossing. He can go to hell.
 
Everyone knows the pedophiles are busy playing Doki Doki Majo Shinpan.
 
...what the hell? Do people actually believe this shit? Like the guy says, children need to be careful online, but this is Animal Crossing we're talking about. Animal Crossing.
 
Wow.....Animal Crossing? You can't be serious........
 
As Neku said: "What?"

Don't they know all the animal characters are NPCs?
 
Someone push Missouri away! I don't want to share a border anymore...
 
Animal Crossing? Seriously? I thought the media had reached the depths of stupidity with the "Pedo PictoChat" piece.

At this rate it will not be long before Pokémon gets the pedophile label.
 
Considering the playable characters actually have stated ages, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't already.
 
Actually, there is an element of truth. Someone said he repeatedly bumped in a female NPC, and she eventually said if he didn't stop, she'd scream. Later, another NPC said he heard about what he did to her.

Of course, Animal Crossing has just as much risk to going online as any other game, from Pokemon to Street Fighter to Grand Theft Auto. They technically can't do anything to Nintendo, at least, because they specifically condemn posting friend codes publically. Of course, everyone takes it with a grain of salt.

Really, though, either the one going online would need a complete lack of intelligence, or the pedophile/stalker would need to be dead set if he/she wants to find some random person's information. It can be as easy as using Facebook to search for the email address, or as hard as modding their console to record the IP addresses of consoles it communicates with, tracing it to find the person's general location and ISP, and hacking the ISP's database to match up the IP Address to a home. If those kind of people are lurking around, I think a Gamertag is going to be one of the least likely things to help them find someone, much less a bunch of random numbers that's different for each game. But if someone is dead set, they're going to find it sooner or later. The worst anyone casual could do would be verbal harassment, which there's a lot of in various other forms anyway.
 
This transcends lunacy. It's pretty clearly stated that pedophiles are not legally allowed to use and abuse the Wi-Fi system, and besides, If Nintendo thought there was a problem we needed to know about, they'd tell us, right?
 
There was a pretty big uproar here created by a ACA segment stating that paedophiles use the Nintendo DS to talk to their victims, using the 'built in wifi chat function' (must be referring to pictochat, which is not wifi enabled in the very least).
 
I'm filing this under "Why are people stupid?". As I may have mentioned elsewhere, it's a very large file. And I would call everyone spreading the hysteria idiots in person if I were anywhere near there.
 
I can't believe this. I mean Animal Crossing. . . COME ON!!!!.

It reminds me of the uproar that FOX News caused with the "sex scene" in Mass Effect was "porn".

What's next the soccer moms want to ban Pokémon games because it has Game Corners and it "encourages" kids to gamble. . . on second thought I'll just be quiet I don't want to give those people any ideas afterall. LOL.
 
Averted.

Battle Arcade says hi. They're even finding "roulette" too offensive now... I wonder what would have happened were RSE published today.
 
So they can't find any reason an adult would play a kiddie game...I guess "because it's fun" is out of the question, eh?

nnnnnnnn people like that piss me off. Not just people who claim that any adult who playes a kiddie game must be a pedo, but people who insist that adults don't play kiddie games out of fun or because they honestly like them. Seriously, the ratings say "and up" for a reason.
 
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