Christian Group Prepares To Mark Wii as 'Porn Portal'

Citing the Wii's ability to browse the internet via the Opera browser, a Christian group based out of California is planning on targeting the console with a smear campaign, Kotaku reports. The site has gotten ahold of a leaked press release from the upcoming 'Porn Talk' media event. From the release: "Like many new gaming technologies, the Wii's wireless internet capabilities make it a portal to porno. 'Parents think the computer is the only way for their kids to get porn on the internet. Unfortunately, they are dead wrong,' says Mike Foster, founder of ThePornTalk.com. 'Gaming devices like the Wii and the PSP aren't just for fun games anymore. You're able to surf the net, chat with friends, email, and view porn because of its internet access. Kids know this but parents don't!'"

So?

[maxume]

The hysteria is silly, but it's not like they are making up the fact that it enables access to the internet at large. It sucks for the kids, but with crazy parents, lots of stuff sucks for the kids.

Inflamitory nature aside...

[RingDev]

I don't think this is all that bad. Sure, people will say "The parents should read the label", but how many of those 'caution' labels do you actually read? The damn things are like Vista UAC warnings, you don't Actually read them, you just acknowledge them.

Anyways, if this group's inflammatory campaign motivates parents to better monitory their children's online behavior, then all the better. If Sony/MS/Nitendo lose a handful of sales to far right wing conservatives, I doubt it will make or break the bottom line.

-Rick

PS: Link for those "Label lovers" out there: http://engrish.com/ [engrish.com]

Uhhh ... parental security features?

[KillaBeave]

Did these people not know that, in order to use the Opera browser on the Wii, you first have to download it from the Wii Shopping Channel ... In order to get to the Will Shopping Channel, you must input a PIN number. To use Opera once it's downloaded ... you must input your PIN.

That was put there so PARENTS COULD HAVE CONTROL OVER WHAT THEIR KIDS DO WITH THE MACHINE! (Sorry for the yelling...) "Wii == Porn Portal" makes a much better headline than "Parents too busy to take responsibility for thier kids."

I mean seriouly, it takes all of 2 minutes to setup a PIN number on the Wii. It takes even less time to not tell your kids what the PIN # is. If you can't trouble parents with that level of responsibility, what are they there for?

Re:Parents Should Be More Concerned...

[Anonymous Coward]

Porn >>>> Dying of Wii boredom

Rather than using your Wii to surf for adult materials (which is of questionable utility anyway, seeing as how you have a hires computer screen in front of you), why not point it toward one of the many online gaming sites that cater to the Wii?

The most popular is probably WiiCade [wiicade.com], as they have the largest selection. There's also WiiArcade [wiiarcade.com] and WiiFii.net [wiifii.net].

You're welcome.

Re:give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

After digging through all the links I finally think I found the article [theporntalk.com] all this blogging is about. Seems pretty calm reasoned and nonsensational to me.

Re:As a Christian myself...

[AKAImBatman]

So out of curiousity, when he was asked what one must do beyond knowing and following the 10 commandments in order to be admitted to heaven and he replied "One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor", do you think he didn't mean it, or are you just not that interested in eternal life?

You are mistakenly quoting the law. Under the law it was incredibly difficult to get to heaven. Under grace, it's as easy as:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." --John 3:16

A reading of Galatians backs this up.

"We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." --Galatians 2:15-21

Re:Yes, this is reactionary....however...

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your router/firewall/linksys to build your white list based on IP address of the Wii.

Re:Uhhh ... parental security features?

[the_wesman]

you know, the "N" in "PIN" stands for "number" ... so a "PIN Number" is a "personal identification number number" ... similar for the "M" in "ATM" (which stands for "machine") so, going to an "ATM Machine" doesn't make sense either ... I also hate when people talk about "DNS Servers" .... I just thought I should tell you

Re:Uhhh ... parental security features?

[An ominous Cow art]

Just FYI, 'DNS' is the 'Domain Name System', so 'DNS servers' isn't redundant. Rant on, I agree with the rest of what you said :-).

Re:As if Wiis weren't already hard enough to get..

[whatever1856]

actually the christian group said that it is a fun console to play, but parents should be aware that it has internet access, and then explain how to turn on and use the parental controls. if you read the actual article by the christian group, which was linked to in previous post by someone else, you'd see they didn't actually have anything bad to say about the wii.

The article actually does mention PIN numbers

[jchenx]

Apparently a lot of people haven't read the actual article in question [theporntalk.com]. In fact, they do mention PIN numbers and parental controls. However, parents need to know that they have to turn these features ON, since it's default to off.

Also, the "Wii == Porn Portal" is actually something the gaming press came up with. The actual site itself doesn't appear to be "blaming the Wii" for any problems.

Unfortunately, this appears to be a case where the gaming media is blowing something out of proportion, and stands a good chance at doing more harm than good. If I were a regular parent who came across the article on this site, I would have thought, "Oh, the Wii has a web browser? And I have a way to turn on parental controls? Excellent!". However, if I had come across the Slashdot or Kotaku article instead, I might be thinking "THE WII IS A PORTAL TO PORN!? OMG!" . Gee, thanks gaming press.

This is ridiculous.

[FiloEleven]

This article should really be tagged "slownewsday." Look, some random Christian group that no one has heard of decided to make a press release that hardly anybody outside of their sphere would have seen. This press release is not geared towards the general public, but towards a subset of Christians who share the group's beliefs about porn. Somebody decided to stir up contention by "leaking" the press release to Kotaku, and somebody else decided it deserved a place on Slashdot. It doesn't.

This is not a Jack Thompsonesque nationwide crusade against Wii or anything like it, which is apparent from reading the actual press release. It's merely a piece written by Christians and for Christians, with the now-typical sensationalist attention-grabbing headline. Most of us recognize sensationalism as such when the topic is more mundane, and I expect that the skewed view of Christianity that is prevalent here on /. is responsible for taking this one more (and too) seriously.

Sometimes Christian groups do things that are worth talking about because they're stepping on the rights of others. This is not one of those times. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:In other news....

[kripkenstein]

It's also worth mentioning that many of the Catholic church's oft-mentioned errors are in the past, not the present. For example, they accept evolution. Creationism is a Protestant thing, not a Catholic one, for the most part (although there are also Jewish, etc., creationists, perhaps under other names).

Yes, the Inquisition was wrong, and persecuting scientists was wrong. But, interestingly, Catholicism has moved past that. (Perhaps Americans are not aware enough of that fact given the strength of Protestantism in their country, hence Protestantism is often considered simply 'Christianity'? No idea, I don't like in the US.)

Re:FYI The blog from the origin

[d3ac0n]

OK, and here's an injection of Sanity into the rampant Christian/right wing bashing that's certain to occur. Here's a post by the Admin of the site clarifying a few things:

Wow. Thanks for everyone's lively comments. We appreciate it and think the discussion is great.

It might be important to point out that we are Wii fans. We have the console and love it. The release certainly got the conversation going but our aim was to be more educational than confrontational. Obviously, the latter seemed to come across :) Also we are technology fans. Not haters. That's why we use the web.

We also want to point out that this site is to help parents be informed about the issue of porn and the internet. Our goal is to help parents talk to their kids about these issues. Sadly to say we come across a lot of parents who simply dont understand technology and are not engaging with their kids period. This site is to help them. Turn the light on for them.

Finally, we would like to direct you to the page on the site that talks about parental controls that seems to have gone unnoticed on our site. We should of been more clear on the homepage Wii banner. Again, our point is to help parents, not attack Nintendo. For goodness sake, we love the thing.

Heres the link:

http://www.theporntalk.com/critical/wii.asp [theporntalk.com]

So thanks for the great discussion, feedback, and comments.

PS: In regards to this being some Christian Right Wing Republican site, I'm afraid that is way off. Unfortunately, Kotaku.com has really misrepresented that point. But all is forgiven and no worries. I can just assure you were not Republican and were not Christian right wing. Those who know us have actually got a good chuckle today out of that one :)

Posted by Porn Talk Admin
2/27/2007 @ 6:24 PM

We all cool now? Breathe deeply, allow the hatred of all things religious to wash out of you.

They are simply trying to inform parents about the need to use the Parental controls and to engage their kids in an active discussion on the topic of pornography. In other words, they are trying to foster GOOD PARENTING. They just erred in selecting an ad-campaign by picking one that was a tad too combative in presentation.