A Bishop in Italy is prepared to go to court to ban Pokemon GO, citing the game as “diabolical” and “alarming” and comparing it to Nazism. Bishop Antonio Stagliano of Noto in Sicily, says the popular monster hunting game has “alienated thousands and thousands of young people” who have been addicted and are like “the walking dead”. He believes that banning the game will help to “preserve the social stability of the men and women” in his region. Stagliano has reportedly consulted with lawyers as he investigates taking legal action against Niantic, the game’s developer.
Recently, Fabrice Beauvois, mayor of the small French village of Bressolles, demanded that Niantic remove the game from his village. The app has been removed from from locations like Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Cambodia’s genocide museum. In Iran, the game is banned countrywide. Authorities in New York state said they would ban some 3,000 registered sex offenders from playing Pokemon Go while they are on parole in order to safeguard children who play the game.
This isn’t the first time that Pokemon has been compared to Nazism. In the 1990s a Pokemon card featuring a manji, a symbol used in Buddhist imagry, was criticized for its resemblance to a swastika.
Source material from comicbook.com and RNS
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Although I’m 59, I attend college with a number of young people. There is definitely an addictive quality to the game, and when I ask, they say the only reward is “picking up” Pokémon pieces. innocent enough, but just one more thing in Western society to pull us away from higher pursuits, be they learning, the arts, physical activity, or spirituality.
I think it’s only a matter of time before predators get in to the game.
I believe there are reports that predators have already started following the game: not sexual predators, but thieves, happy to take advantage of the distraction to steal money and those valuable phones.
There are lots of “stories” going around – mostly unfounded and alarmist. It is a fun game to play with all ages, gets people out in public spaces. Some will always take advantage. Does not mean it’s “from the devil.”
Oy vey, this is a story which SHOULD have the dateline “April 1” attached to it, but doesn’t.
[Full-disclosure: I don’t play “Pokemon Go”. My phone is too old! (like me ;-p)]
Geez louise, all these social ills (lack of “social stability of the men and women”, people misbehaving at solemn sites, sex offenders crossing paths w/ children) do and WILL happen, with or without this video game! ***Underlying causes***, you oh-so-concerned. Talk about missing the forest for the trees…
Well… Personally, I wouldn’t mind that restriction on sex offenders myself (for context, this is speaking as a young adult with one of those new-fangled iPhones. ;p) You’re more than welcome to convince me that the law is *unnecessary* in this case, but I personally feel like every little bit helps on this kind of thing. It’s not something that impacts the average person’s enjoyment of the game (unlike the other restrictions proposed), and I feel it’s something minor enough that the offenders themselves wouldn’t be overly inconvenienced either. That’s just my own two cents on the matter, though.
(But I understand your real point was just that the game ought not to be scapegoated. Maybe I too was missing the forest for the trees with that tangent!)