Thai Gaming Sites Ordered Shut Down After Suicide 82
eldavojohn writes "Seventy-two websites have been ordered shut down by the courts in Thailand following the suicide of a 12-year-old boy who jumped from the sixth story of his school after his father banned him from playing computer games. This brings more action from the court: 'Some websites are rumored to take in over 100 million baht from online betting a night at peak periods, causing huge economic losses to the country. To prevent online gambling, the DSI, also a member of the internet safety committee, would notify all Internet service providers across the country about the court order. From now on, any provider found to encourage or provide online gambling will not only face a jail term and a fine, but also have his/her ISP license revoked by the ICT.' Thailand is no stranger to internet censorship of various sites."
so let me get this right... (Score:5, Insightful)
a dad banned his kid from playing games and the kid killed himself.
then...
the thai government says this is bad, we need to stop those gaming sites.
then...
the thai government effectively bans everyone from gaming?
and no one else is supposed to kill themselves?
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
What do gambling sites have to do with the suicide of a 12-year-old?
Also, I find it funny that the response to a boy committing suicide when he was banned from playing games is to ban the entire country from playing games.
Is it just me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not Clearly Related (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:1, Insightful)
People often assume that people become addicted to computer games, and then they neglect their life and it falls apart and the games are therefore to blame. This is backwards, imo. People only become addicted to games when they are already depressed or when their life seems so bad that they crave the escapism games can provide. Gaming attracts unhappy people, it doesn't *make* them unhappy.
Until people learn this lesson and start treating gaming addiction as the *symptom* of an underlying issue, rather than the problem itself, tragedies like this will continue to happen. This poor kids life seemed so bad to him that without the escapism offered by video games, he simply couldn't bear to face it. The games were quite literally keeping him alive, and because people didn't understand that and tried to "cure" him, he ended up dead. In this case, rather than acknowledge that mistake, they compound it by banning the very thing that was helping this kid. I imagine that if he had grown up without access to video games, he wouldn't have been any less troubled than he ultimately was, those trouble simply would have manifested in different ways.
That said, it's a bit odd that Thailand apparently lumps gambling and video games all into the same category even though there's really only occasional overlap.
Could happen here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod me down as a troll if you really want, but I feel like the intellectual zeitgeist in in Western countries is moving in a direction where this could very well happen.
Individualism, "personal responsibly" (often a bad buzzword, but whatever), individual rights, etc, are becoming more and more vilified in favor of "social responsibility" and "community values." Think I'm paranoid? You haven't been to a college campus recently. This applies to both the "left" and the "right" of course, but the "right" in American terms is losing ground particularly among youth so I'll just focus on left-wing politics.
It may yet still be over the horizon, but the notion of protecting people over the greater good is not new and I feel that the overall premise is whittling away at free speech. After all, if people can use rhetoric against hate crimes as having no "social value" or against guns in a similar fashion, what's the stop someone from also applying the same principles to speech and entertainment? They can just ask the same question, "what's the social value of video games?" and really your only answer is that "Well, I and others enjoy them" in which case you're a heartless selfish bastard that won't think of the poor kids. A misleading argument, since "social value" is always their OWN subjective determination of what's good and what's not, of course...
To Spoiled Rotten Children: It's only a game! (Score:3, Insightful)
The court hasn't though about the children and the adults who know it is just a game.
So your dad grounded you from video games. SUCK IT UP! Do your punishment and get it over with. Unless your dad caught you going to some illegal gambling website (which I doubt any 12 y.o. would be doing) or going to one of the nefarious websites that have numbers that are unnecessary and strange suffixes, there is no reason for bratty behavior.
So you are banned from World of Warcraft for a week. Is killing yourself in real life going to resolve anything?
Thailand may think they may have people's best interest at heart but it is foolish to make a federal case out of an incident where parents must be accounable for their children's actions, not the government. Unless the kid steals a PS3 from a shop, mom and dad need to increase their discipline.
Remember, If you love you're children BEAT THEM! [thebestpag...iverse.net]
Re:The only way to prevent these tragedies... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:so let me get this right... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ban *everyone*? OMG Mass suicides!
Re:so let me get this right... (Score:1, Insightful)
Wait... your right! No one else killed themselves... Hmm. Maybe they don't need to shut do--NO IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN YOU BASTARD.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not aware of claims made against game companies for death or damages supposedly "caused by games", but it's waiting to happen.
Re:From someone who cares... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds more like you are trying to ban enjoyment than addiction. People could become addicted to any rewarding behaviour. It is primarily up to the individual to not take that behaviour too far, you can't keep blaming the government or other external factors for everything. They can play a part but if they really did step in you'd realise you didn't want them to after all. Imagine all alcoholics were forcibly restrained from drinking rather than being given a chance to get their shit together themselves. The minute they are no longer being monitored/restrained they will be right back at it, unless they have made their own decision to stop.
I have had periods of my life where I played a lot of computer games - very likely at a level that could be classified as addiction (used to stay up til 6am every night playing Counter-Strike, and later on it was MUDing). Guess what, I am still happy that I played those games, the reason I did it was because I was getting enjoyment out of it. Yes it did detract from other aspects of life at times, but I'd prefer to make my own choices than be forced to stop or limit activities I do in my own free time.