mediajunk

According to the BBC News website, China has set up a "censorship committee to monitor games," and has already banned a Swedish game called Hearts of Iron, which portrayed Manchuria, Tibet and Xinjiang as independent nations. "The committee is charged with banning content that 'could threaten national unity', said the state press. "'Online games with content threatening state security, damaging the nation's glory, disturbing social order and infringing on other's legitimate rights will also be prohibited,' said a Chinese Ministry of Culture statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency." While this seems like a typically extremist move by the Chinese, they do have a point when they say that the contents of computer games "are often related to sex and violence", and may even have a point when they say that such content could "adversely affect young people's mental health". Of course, social science has found it notoriously difficult to establish clear links between the consumption of certain types of media content and social behaviour (for example, a common counter-argument is that watching violent programmes reduces our desire to behave violently in real life). The governor of Washington state doesn't buy that argument, however. He recently signed a bill "that bans the sale of certain violent video games to minors". That is, video games that contain a specific type of violence: Tacoma's News Tribune reports that "House Bill 1009, which goes into effect in late July, will make it a civil violation to sell or rent to youths under age 17 video games that graphically depict violence against law enforcement officers. Violators can be fined up to $500."