Reappearance of RapeLay on CNN prompts world of stupid

Posted by Helvetica | April 26, 2010

Horrifying as it is, to defend freedom of expression and the freedom to access expression one must often discover themselves defending the expression of the indefensible. In a culture that horror and fantasy games garner a great deal of attention sometimes truly scary, socially worrisome games emerge.

And then people get stupid.

Meanwhile, in Australia, a member of the NSW Rape Crisis Centre is using the reconfirmed existence of Rapelay as a means to justify Internet filtering for the whole country, according to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald. Karen Willis “absolutely” believes in Internet filtering and told the paper, “While I don’t think that playing games causes people to go out and

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Ratings Board Leaves Australia Unprepared For Zombie Armageddon

Posted by Nelson Williams | October 9, 2009

The upcoming zombie survival game, Left 4 Dead 2, will be released short of a few features thanks to the actions of the Australian media censorship board. This board controls media by ratings and classifications, much like the American ESRB we’re all familiar with. Because we’re all Americans. Unlike our superior, more or less voluntary ratings board, the Australian version has the force of law behind it, and media without a proper rating cannot be sold.

The board has refused to give a classification to Left 4 Dead 2.

Features edited out to meet the board’s arbitrary standards include, “depictions of decapitation, dismemberment, wound detail or piles of dead bodies lying about the environment.”

Now that dead people have been thoroughly scrubbed out of a BRAIN EATING ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE WHERE THE DEAD RISE TO FEAST ON THE LIVING (ahem), the Australian ratings board has …

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