Baby Shaking Persecution

Glamador

Glamador

New member
Today Kotaku posts this article about a baby-shaking app. for the Apple iPhone:

http://kotaku.com/5227450/apple-approves-quickly-removes-baby-shaker-app

Now, while the application was quickly removed I see need to question if this decision is ethical or necessary. After all, free speech and all that jazz is one of the United States' most treasured freedoms and while this is obviously just a company trying to save face, it's still a tad offensive.

But that's the poor man's argument, here's mine. In this "title" one shakes the iPhone, activating it's accelerometer, and eventually the baby virtually "dies". Now think on this for a moment. I assume the opponents of this app. think it implies one of two things: You are a hater of babies and want to shake and kill them for fun; Or you think that shaking a baby is harmless and is a great way to stop it crying.

Now here's where my interpretation comes in. If you fall into the first category, then you are likely to still want to shake babies and kill them regardless of whether you purchase this app. or not. If this is the case then the company that created this "game" is profiting from a morally bankrupt subsection of society while simultaneously doing NOBODY any harm whatsoever. They are simply draining the coffers of baby shakers everywhere.

But what if these people actually aren't aware of the dangers of shaking babies? If you play this game with that notion in your head then you should (if you have half a brain) realize where you have erred. And is this not a good thing?

So my point is, there are no clear negatives to making this app. available, and at least one clear positive. So why the hell should it be taken down?
 
How is that "all" Tim? What are the moral implications? Are they any more vile than murdering people in any other video game? And what line was crossed? No babies were harmed in the making of the game, or anything else for that matter.

The content is "offensive"? That word is an atrocity. I think I made a strong argument against the censorship of this application. Simply accusing it of "crossing a line" is a pitiful response. Take a minute to think on WHAT line was crossed, and WHY was there a line to begin with?

It's useless comments like that Tim that prove our culture is blindly following some hypothetical and hypocritical set of invisible laws that say things like "sex sells" then freaks out over that breast slip during the Superbowl. A society that cards you to buy an M rated game then airs CSI on daytime television. A society that overlooks the ideas of freedom of speech where the content is simply "crossing a line".

There is NOTHING inherently wrong with this app. and it angers me that you can try and pass that line off as a reasonable thought. It's sickening.
 
Why not talk about community games on the Xbox 360? There're applications that mimic masseuses and the field of chiropractic health. Yet, the practice of chiropractic-i-ness proves to deteriorate posture and stance more than it helps. We could apply this same idea to the baby-shaking thing with regards to how some people know it harms and yet some people don't.

EDIT: Sorry, I'm not that good at being smart. We'll leave that to Glam-Kabam
 
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No Prophet don't sell yourself short, that was fine. While chiropractic-i-ness is not as inflammatory to most people as baby shaking the analogy is still fairly strong. Obviously however there aren't even any perceived benefits to baby shaking (aside from stopping it crying) as there are with chiropractic-i-ness.

But this is blatant censorship of something without any inherent wrongdoing on it's part. What about all the movies that promote violence? Movies like Saw, where I see little-to-no redeeming artistic value other than people ENJOY watching other people DIE. And in horrible ways. Is this "game" made to be something more terrible (when it shows absolutely no gore) because it's interactive? Because people are living out their baby-shaking fantasies? Because people might find it funny and that somehow drags down your sense of morality? Does it make you lose faith in society? Been there, done that.
 
Everyone makes racist jokes, everyone's a little bit sexist, everyone makes gay jokes, everyone is uncouth.

The sad truth of it is, Glam, is that people are liars and hypocrites. They will never accept that this app was made to appeal to them. There's this invisible "line" that they see crossed, but they never realize that they themselves cross other peoples lines, and maybe even their own.
 
Must be a really slow news day, or people have their heads up their ass, if everyone is worried about a ****ing phone application when we have an economy in a tank that our government wants to spend their way out of.
 
ARGH. What's the economy got to do with it? There's so much dancing around the actual subject at hand. Does nobody want to discuss the moral implications of virtual baby shaking!?
 
I'm sure I read on a Fable article that it was illegal to allow a player to kill a child in a videogame.
TBH, although I'm against censorship on a wide scale, I can't see why anyone would actually want to download this app.
Yeah, sure, you mentioned that a lot of games allow you to murder countless people, but with very few exceptions that isn't the whole point of the game. GTA gets flamed because you can kill prostitutes, but there's a rich storyline and the characters aren't usually particularly bad people, just people who are in a bad situation and aren't willing to lay down and take it. Then there's games like MK, which gets flamed for the fatality system, and the friendships, mercies etc get completely overlooked.
But in this app, there aren't any redeeming qualities, it is just simulated murder, and to a child no less. And I don't think there's any place for that. It brings me to Manhunt 2, which at the time of banning seemed like a pointless move to make, and the concept seemed ridiculous. But after it was finally released, I played it, and after I was urinated on and had excrement thrown at me, then was forced to kill as guard with a syringe, I realised this was a game that was made to be banned. They seemed to forget everything just for the shock value.
And you mention violent movies. In films like Saw and Hostel, yeah, they are pretty much glorifying murder, but you aren't actually taking part in the act. Like you, I don't think killing a baby in a game would ever make me decide to do it in real life, but that's how a rational mind works. There are plenty of people out there who don't have a rational mind. You can't expect everyone to think like you.
And you have to understand where Tim is coming from, he's a parent.
In conclusion, while I don't care for censorship, certain things shouldn't even be concieved to begin with. It seems like this was made purely to bait the censors, and it succeeded, along the way attracting far more attention than it usually would have. No publicity is bad publicity.
 
Goraka said:
I'm sure I read on a Fable article that it was illegal to allow a player to kill a child in a videogame.
Click to expand...

What about harvesting the Little Sisters in BioShock? Those are little girls.... demonic little girls, but little girls nonetheless.

I know there was a change in Fable 2 after launch so that there would never be an assassination attempt on one of your in-game children, maybe that's what you're thinking of?
 
Ah but Goraka, Manhunt was never going to BE banned. That was simply a side-effect of receiving an AO rating. They could have still released it on PC just fine.

So Goraka, as I see it, your argument is that this app. could conceivably influence somebody into child murder. But while I am painfully aware that there are those that do not think as I do, consider that situation. This person owns an iPhone, an expensive item, and is therefore likely able to hold down a steady job with a reasonable paycheck. This is not the usual profile for a baby-shaker. There are two reasons for shaking a baby. One, you want to stop it crying and eventually become frustrated (or were just stupid to begin with). Or two, you want to murder a baby. Now, unless we're talking about a person who is breaking into other people's homes or perhaps babysitting it is likely this person is the child's parent. A person who owns an expensive iPhone, likely has a steady job, and has an infant child is goaded by an iPhone application into murdering his child for the hell of it? In a readily detectable manner that will almost surely see him arrested? Nope, not a chance.

"Certain things shouldn't even be conceived to begin with"? That is 100% just as bad.

Now, I have yet to see any Manhunt related crimes on the news. And I am certain if it related to video games it WOULD be on the news. It has been quite thoroughly disproved that watching and even simulating acts of violence lead one to commit those acts of violence. Many clinical trials have been conducted on the subject. And anybody using that as a point of argument is either ignorant or fear mongering.

I say that people simply don't want to think that there's a market for this kind of "game". It's covering up the problem. As I said, there is NOTHING inherently wrong with this application. It will not goad people into killing babies unless they had been inclined to do so already. It is NOT illegal, at least not in the U.S.A. (free speech and all that jazz). And it is considerably less graphically violent than any R or M rated media.

The only reasoning left that I see behind pulling this app. is simply people found it offensive. And I again call that word an atrocity. If you don't like it, don't play it. If somebody else buys it, they obviously have no problem with it. And if YOU are trying to tell THEM what they can or can't watch/play/say/do then YOU are a pretentious, arrogant, prick with a god-complex who think you know better than everybody else.
 
Don't really care about this... We've all endured the stupidity of censorship afterall we follow MK. A game is a game is a game is a game. They come in different forms, I'd not buy the game because it sounds boring anyway, but if it wasn't I wouldn't care. Not a real baby after all. Wouldn't do that to a real baby anyway,
 
And that's a reply with sense. If only companies, and people in general, just stopped caring so god damn much what other people think. So much double talk and never any honesty.

----EDIT----
And will ya look at that. Dave from Snafu-comics.com agrees with me. Made a long blog post about it. Of course he's somewhat less intellectual about it than I am. Telling people "it's just a joke". But he has a youtube video of the "game" in action.
 
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Glamador said:
How is that "all" Tim? What are the moral implications? Are they any more vile than murdering people in any other video game? And what line was crossed? No babies were harmed in the making of the game, or anything else for that matter.

The content is "offensive"? That word is an atrocity. I think I made a strong argument against the censorship of this application. Simply accusing it of "crossing a line" is a pitiful response. Take a minute to think on WHAT line was crossed, and WHY was there a line to begin with?

It's useless comments like that Tim that prove our culture is blindly following some hypothetical and hypocritical set of invisible laws that say things like "sex sells" then freaks out over that breast slip during the Superbowl. A society that cards you to buy an M rated game then airs CSI on daytime television. A society that overlooks the ideas of freedom of speech where the content is simply "crossing a line".

There is NOTHING inherently wrong with this app. and it angers me that you can try and pass that line off as a reasonable thought. It's sickening.
Click to expand...

First off, I respect your argument against censoring this application. Having said that, with regard to your initial post and your response to Tim, I think it's a little too black and white. There is a SIGNIFICANT difference between this application and other forms of entertainment/media because in addition to what you have already pointed out, one also has to consider social context and intent. While I agree with you that this application by itself and inherently, as you point out, may be no more violent than what you see on the six o'clock news or in any other video game, one must go beyond an application's inherent traits and look at its context and intent in order to ascertain whether it morally and/or ethically crosses a line, and in my opinion, this one does. In fact, this applies to ANYTHING in life.

Secondly, in your response to Tim, you oversimplify and overgeneralize our society while, at the same time, drawing conclusions based on questionable analogies that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. You seem to be drawing conclusions based on cultural relativisms, which constitutes a fallacy in your argument because you presented no basis for the assumptions you made in speaking of those relativisms. One thing has nothing to do with the other; whether the news, CSI, or a video game is deemed acceptable or unacceptable has nothing to do with this application, and if you claim that it does, tell us why - don't just post a bunch of fancy rhetoric and fill your responses with endless metadiscourse, as you did with Tim, to get your point across. It confuses most people and makes no sense, because you're not really making an argument at all - it's just a bunch of words.

Thirdly, Tim never never claimed to be passing anything off as a reasonable thought - you said this, not him. He merely stated his opinion. If that angers and sickens you, I suggest you get over it and get used to it rather quickly, because this world is full of unreasonable and unthoughtful people. You seem like a very thoughtful an intelligent person, but based on your response to Tim it also seems like you get bent out of shape pretty easily, have a bit of a rebellious and idealist streak in you, and run a bit hot. Life's too short to have such a low tolerance and to get bent so easily - take it easy!

Please don't misconstrue this as an attack on you; I just wanted to point out that in my opinion, you may want to revisit or just explain your assumptions, because it seems like your argument is based on a really shaky foundation.
 
This is an intriguing discussion, and I can see why you're so passionate about it. We (people in general, not just the forum) need debates like this to continue as a progressive society. While I do find the app to be in poor taste and don't exactly understand the motivation behind it, I give the creators kudos for sticking to their guns and forcing us as a society to struggle with it morally and legally. Many people would just assume label it offensive and not talk or think about it, but what does that accomplish? Without controversial topics like this, we'd simply stagnate and fade into a boring existence as a nation with boundaries that go unchallenged.

To get more down to business, everything in existence offends somebody out there, and as obvious as it may seem to many that this crosses a moral line, the fact is that these lines vary from person to person, and therefore it's an argument that just can't hold its ground. There's no such thing as an infallible moral compass. The only line that really and truly does matter on a grand scale is the legal one, and from a legal standpoint, this would fall under freedom of speech, which only reaches its limit when one's toes are being stepped upon. I don't see any stubbed toes from this game.

Of course, while freedom of speech would rule supreme if Apple had nothing to do with it, they own the store and can do whatever the hell they want with it, so that really has no bearing here. I don't consider Apple's ethical standards to be as tough as they want everyone to think, and if it came down to money, I'm betting they'd cave. We all remember what happened when Nintendo chose to censor MK1 for their home consoles-- Sega's version destroyed theirs in sales and suddenly Nintendo's morality was tossed into the street like a hooker's g-string.

At any rate, the bottom line is that this is Apple's decision to make and no one else's. If I recall correctly, they also made the decision to barre content from South Park and its creators from the Apple store. Nevertheless, this is still an important discussion to have.
 
Moral Issues... In a forum about a game were even heroes can rip the losers heart out after beating them with sticks... I love moral issues! Oh and that babiality glitch... We remember that... Brilliant glitch, lets you turn Stryker into a kid and beat the snot out of him.

About all this ban on the baby shake game has done is give the game publicity it never had before. Saying that, I was tempted once to buy a simulair game where you had the pokemon pikachu in it and for every shake (well actually it was meant to be it charged up as you walked) you gave it he grew stronger. If he hadn't have grown stronger by it dam I'd bought that game for the WRONG reasons. Hehee, but who could blame me, its Pikachu. ;-)

Edit:
I suppose a glitch doesn't count, but lets face all those who knew how to do that glitch did it at some point.
 
Yeah, I find it hilarious that people who salivate over a game with up to 2 fatalities, brutalities, animalities, weapons, etc. inflicted on human beings and other life forms are discussing the moral fallacies of a dumb phone application where you throw babies around.

I still remember when a phone was used ONLY for making a phone call. It's a dumb application. Get with it!

Oh, and censorship is for the weak-minded. Free speech and expression for all. You may not agree with ALL speech and expression, but just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean it should be stifled.
 
Luke Wallace said:
What about harvesting the Little Sisters in BioShock? Those are little girls.... demonic little girls, but little girls nonetheless.

I know there was a change in Fable 2 after launch so that there would never be an assassination attempt on one of your in-game children, maybe that's what you're thinking of?
Click to expand...

Nah, it was the original Fable, your weapons were confiscated wherever children were around. It was in a magazine article, they also cited it as the reason why there is only one child in the whole GTA universe (Vice City Stories), and she's only seen in cutscenes. Touche though.
 
In the europeon version of fallout 2, there were no kids. One of the missions was therefore broken. They released it with kids later on, but I ended up with two versions of the game.
 
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