I just went over a year worth of updates/release summaries and nothing suggest that Oct 7 attacks were added! If it's judging by this [1]:
> The game drew the attention of terror police because it included scenes of players paragliding into an Israeli army base and killing soldiers.
That's the only connection to the Oct 7 attacks.
Also when you look at the graphics and gameplay, the 'combatants' are all in military style uniforms. Nothing even remotely suggest there are civilians involved.
It doesn't have to represent anything. Just as CS 747 map (CounterStrike, 747 Hijack map [1]) represents nothing, even though "we have seen that before".
"I'm not sure what counter-terror objective blocking this game actually has."
This, plus, what authority does Counter Terrorism Command over commercial enterprise in the UK?
Can any police force in the UK just arbitrarily block things for sale?
The article provides the CT comment:
"The CTIRU works closely with a range of technology, social media and online service providers, but we do not comment on specific content or any communication we may have with specific platforms or providers."
But nowhere do they state an actual law being broken, or law under which CT command can block things for sale.
I'm not a lawyer, so maybe this one is obvious, but this looks like authoritarian overreach.
Pretty wild guess but maybe to prevent radicalization and recruitment? If you have a game like this and get the players onto your discord, you might move over some of them to do something in real life.
I was skeptical about whole thing, but then getting Jewish pogroms in the middle of freaking Amsterdam in 2024 wasn’t on my bingo card. Some things are better be blocked for good.
And before I get “but Counter-Strike!” - it is set in imaginary universe with made up factions.
A pogrom with zero casualties. What’s next, a holocaust of taunting? When a government is committing genocide, you can expect people will have strong feelings about it.
Paul Barry - very much a veteran Australian news reporter and on again off again host of Media Watch for decades - an Australian weekly short that rips into print, tv, radio, and internet media reporting across the board and takes it to task for accuracy, dodgy deals, misrepresentation, etc.
The facial expressions are great .. the weekly shows are only 20 minutes or so and still soak up the time of 10 staff or so, including KC's (King's Counsel Lawyers (top ranked in Commonwealth countries)) that donate a fair bit of time gratis to double check statements and liabilities.
They do f*ck up on occassion but it's a solid show for ripping into the (media) pricks with substance and receipts.
That segment is from the very last of Barry's hosting sadly, he's retiring after a storied career that includes being fired (and later rehired) for asking tough questions.
