How To Debunk A Fact-Free Fox News Fearmongering Piece About New Video Game
from the a-few-options dept
I'm admittedly late to the game in discussing the (unintentionally) hilarious Fox News fearmongering attack on the new video game BulletStorm, that (among other things) quotes someone suggesting that it will lead children to rape women because certain actions in the games (which includes no sex) include "sexual" names. For example, shooting someone's torso off is called "topless," while killing a bunch of enemies in one shot is called a "gang bang." A bunch of folks submitted this story last week, but I only had a chance to read it now, and... wow. It's a "classic" in the almost totally fact-less genre of how video games will lead children to their doom.Since I'm so late to the story, rather than directly going through all of the laughable (or downright false) claims directly, I'll simply point to three of the best debunkings that were done to show you how to properly debunk this type of thing:
- There's the straightforward debunking, done by folks like Winda Benedetti at MSNBC, which calmly and rationally responds to many of the claims that Fox News reporter John Brandon made in the original review (or quoted people to make). For example, Brandon quotes Carole Lieberman, a psychologist, who claims that "The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games." The only problem? As video games have become more popular, rape rates have gone down.
- If that's not enough of a debunking, John Walker, over at the RockPaperShotgun blog went with a dig deeper debunking, in which he contacted folks quoted by Brandon in the article, and discovered (surprise, surprise) that Brandon appears to have selectively chosen his quotes in at least some of the cases, to make "experts" say something quite different than what they really said. Walker got the full email interview that Brandon did with Billy Pidgeon, a video game analyst with M2 Research, which Brandon uses to suggest that the game won't sell well, since people aren't interested in such violence. But that's not what Pidgeon said at all. In fact, Brandon mixed and matched parts of Pidgeon's answer to have him "say" something quite different than what he actually said. On top of that, Walker's research shows the way that Fox News approached this story, asking incredibly leading questions.
Update: In the comments, Patrick points out that Walker has posted another "dig deeper" debunking of Carole Lieberman's "research" to attempt to prove her claims. It's a long and thorough takedown.
- And, finally, we have the absolutely epic takedown debunk, as done by Eddy at Botchweed, where he did a giant image of the entire Fox News piece, overlayed with his own commentary (including a chart showing the rape rates declining next to the quote mentioned above). Here's just a snippet of the image, but you should see the whole thing:
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Filed Under: bulletstorm, debunking, fearmongering, fox news, video games
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Fox News? Really? Can't be...
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It's Fox News
I was just reading their article on how Anonymous release the source code for stuxnet. They spent the entire article saying how it's practically going to destroy the planet. Didn't even once mention that now the source code is out, it can be protected against. I bet security companies are dancing at the release (well, not HBGary who had it in the first place).
The really sad thing is that some people believe their crap. The writers don't believe it, but some of their readers are dumb enough to.
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Re: It's Fox News
I appreciate the debunking, but unfortunately some people will believe what they want even when given facts.
As for some of the conservative commentators not believing what they say, yes, I'm sure of that. Sometimes, when you compare their private lives to their public lives, there's quite a bit of disconnect.
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Re: Re: It's Fox News
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Re: Re: Re: It's Fox News
Maybe relative to your reactionary politics it is. Also real journalism is not simply reiterating facts from two sides especially if one side repeatedly spouts lies.
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With all of that said, I fully support the game developers decision to make and market these types of games even though I don't play them myself.
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John Walker debunks the story (again)
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/02/15/bulletstormgate-lieberman-offers-evidence/
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Rating systems
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Re: Rating systems
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It's true, I sent a 9 year old to the mall by themselves, and they were able to get bulletstorm with his 50$ (which I gave him for the experiment of course, no 9 year old has that kind of money) but when he tried to get killbill out of the 2 for 6$ bin, a gang of security tackled him because of the rating.
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Damn it!
Oh Christ, here we go....
(j/k Rose! Please don't kill me!)
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Re: Damn it!
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Re: Damn it!
She's probably far more forgiving than I would be. Probably.
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"news"
As for sexual references to non-sexual things...I've lost count of how many times the "mainstream" media has referred to members of the Tea Party as Teabaggers on news shows - I wonder if any of the reporters have a clue what that term refers to.
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Re: "news"
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Re: "news"
So yes they do have a clue, just not to the totality of the first Amendment to the Constitution.
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Re: "news"
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Re: Re: "news"
Is anyone doing that? I get the impression that most commenters here don't trust either 'side' on such issues. Most seem to hate Fox, but that's hardly the same as taking political sides.
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Re: "news"
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Wow just look at their logo and laugh
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Re: Wow just look at their logo and laugh
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Re: Wow just look at their logo and laugh
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Who's looking at this data?
Granted video games are a recent addition to comics, music, sexual orientation, they are all the downfall of our society if we don't pass law "x".
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Consider:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/18/us-soaring-rates-rape-and-violence-against-wo men
Further, you have to consider the lack of reporting of rape, the acceptance of rape in certain segements of society as "normal", and related issues.
The numbers aren't exactly adding up.
Not to support Faux News, they are lying pieces of left over poop. But sometimes people run to fast to slam them by doing the same thing that they do, misusing data. Sort of the Masnick Effect at war with itself.
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Re:
Err, wouldn't you want to use a rate for comparison, rather than a total? Otherwise your results won't make sense.
Which country has a bigger problem with rape: The country that has 1,000 rapes in a population of 10,000,000, or a country that has 999 rapes in a population of 1,000?
Further, you have to consider the lack of reporting of rape, the acceptance of rape in certain segements of society as "normal", and related issues.
You think rapes are reported less often these days than in days gone by? If anything, I would think they would be reported more often, which would make this graph even more compelling.
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Actually, if you dig around, you can find plenty of reports and news pieces regarding the decrease in reporting of rapes. Snitches get stitches and all that crap plays heavily in many parts of the world.
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Why in the world would that be "the question"? It makes no sense to make that comparison, as it doesn't tell you anything useful.
Snitches get stitches and all that crap plays heavily in many parts of the world.
In many parts of the world? Yes, I'm sure BulletStorm is prepped and ready to increase the rape rate in the Sudan. That's clearly the measuring stick we should be using . . .
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What we have here seems to be two groups using the same numbers to prove totally opposing points of view.
There are more rapes. There are less rapes PTP. Which number do you prefer?
The point is that the original author, in this narrow little area, is correct. There are more rapes. Slamming them for it is misleading.
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No, he's not "correct". He was either "wrong" (if he was intending to refer to the rape rate), or "misleading the public" (if he was using total rapes to prop up his argument).
Ignorant or malevolent. Take your pick.
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There are also many other things you have to take into account. The study you posted is off, to say the least. It only covers domestic violent acts (not just domestic rape). It also only covers a vary small group of people that they chose to ask. When you have a group of people that only make up less then one third of a percent of the total population, the numbers will be wrong. Multiply that mistake by 300 or so, you get vary bad numbers (How do you get 248,000 people raped out of 74,000 people asked?).
The only numbers you can trust are the ones from the police (to an extent). They had x number of rapes this year compared to x number the next. I can't say for sure, but I believe those are the numbers used in the last report I read about the drop of rape.
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Statistically, the number you ask matters, not really the percentage of the population you're drawing inferences about. The real problem here is that you need the sample to be a random sample of the overall group you're interested in, which is extremely unlikely in this situation. And that's assuming the people you ask all tell the unbiased truth.
I wouldn't have felt the need to bring it up, except that you were already correcting someone else. I agree with you about the rates, not the totals, being the useful numbers.
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Thank you for beating me to it =)
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While you may find something misleading about the linked article, the actual study does distinguish between domestic violence and rape.
A Dan has already corrected your basic misunderstanding of statistics (I'm no expert either).
"The only numbers you can trust are the ones from the police (to an extent)."
I can't make any sense of this statement; why do you trust the police statistics and no others?
"They had x number of rapes this year compared to x number the next."
Are you talking about reported crimes? Because that would preclude any unreported rape, let alone incidents where victims didn't classify it as rape.
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It's a good sign if your population goes up, but the percentage of rape victims goes down.
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You have to also consider whether the rate is changing consistently across the population. If rape has gone down for the majority but increased significantly in a certain segment then that may be evidence of a bigger problem than a flat increase.
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I'm telling you, you're making it worse....
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Rape reporting statistics are really hard to do because apart from the obvious issue of victims not reporting rape possibly not wanting to mention it at all, some incidents may not be considered rape by the victim due to varying definitions.
While I believe that rape per capita has decreased significantly overall (at least in western society), it is easy to overestimate that decrease by presuming that the reporting rate has gone up with a similar trend to the rape rate going down.
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Re:
It's not misleading. Notice how it's referred to as 'rape rate' rather than 'rape count'.
"Further, you have to consider the lack of reporting of rape, the acceptance of rape in certain segements of society as "normal", and related issues."
Yes, you do. For example, the there are serious questions (PDF warning) about the methodology behind the US rape reporting statistics.
"Not to support Faux News, they are lying pieces of left over poop. But sometimes people run to fast to slam them by doing the same thing that they do, misusing data. Sort of the Masnick Effect at war with itself."
While some of what you've brought up is correct, the majority of it appears to be a moronic attempt to make Mike look bad. Notably, how you keep insisting that the distinction between rape count and rape rate proves Mike is being misleading, despite the rate being the more appropriate statistic. If you genuinely care about the issue then please work harder to understand it.
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Cars are getting worse gas mileage every year as is indicated by the increase of overall gas consumption. :)
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The problem isn't the article, the problem is the amount of attention its getting. The author of the piece knows full well what he's doing because this shit gets repeated a couple of times a year.
A totally over-the-top negative piece is written about videogaming. Add oversensitive fans rushing to set things right to the author, author sits backs and laughs while his piece shoots to the top of the op/ed charts with very little work on his/her part. Traffic peaks at Fox.com and the author gets a pat on the back.
??=
Profit
In other words, the guy just trolled game-dom and many fell for it.
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Video games are no more to blame than comments on internet forums. There might be a more compelling argument for internet porn, but again there is no evidence to back it up and again the porn tends to seem more of a symptom then a cause (a rape insensitive society produces rape insensitive porn). Fox of all places needs to stop hating on free speech and start setting a better example than employing a bunch of sexist assholes.
Calling them out as attention trolls seems right on the mark.
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Postal
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Of course, if that were the case here, there wouldn't be the deliberate misquoting on Fox News' part. Still, I wouldn't call that last one a "perfect template for debunking".
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First they came for my energy drinks...
At some point, I'm going to have to grab the kids and barricade the house before my possession of entertainment console is used as exhibit A that I am unfit to be a parent or part of general society.
I'll argue that I have a proudly un-hacked PS3 but it won't matter. They'll find the little "M" on half my games and that will be enough.
The only saving grace is that "they" are pretty busy right now, chasing down every pirate and infringer in the world, hastily assembling various Internet SWAT teams and trying desperately to plug every leaking hole in their rapidly sinking ship with subpoenas and empty threats.
I did notice in the comments that there seems to be some actual enforcement of the rating system at the game shoppes, so I shan't be sending my little ones out to pick up the latest in mass murdering entertainment. Shame, too. They seemed to like the bright lights and membership cards of the various entertainment purveyors. I guess they'll have to settle for the dimly lit and malodorous thrills of picking up my usual pack of filterless Camels and contraband energy drinks down at the local 7-11.
Late in the evening we'll gather round the LCD and cheerfully mix metaphors carelessly late into the night. The winner gets to write an incoherent essay in the guise of a comment at their website of choice.
(I won last night.)
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http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/comment/9/2011/02/4edd089487f9d44dd87c938b56134f2f/ori ginal.jpg
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You can't fix stupid
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too bad my wife watches them
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Re: too bad my wife watches them
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Re: too bad my wife watches them
Step 2: Once she gets hooked she won't have a problem letting your son play, because she'll feel the need to legitimize her addiction.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit (except for whatever monthly subscription fee(s) you end up paying).
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Re: Re: too bad my wife watches them
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