ISIS has been recruiting
in new and strategic ways using video games to lure in children and teenagers.
Game players in general can utilize ISIS-based games to recruit soldiers.
ISIS supporters are
distributing a sickening video game that allows users to play the role of
Islamic extremists on a mission to murder Westerners.
Supporters of the terror
group, which has brought rape and massacre to vast swathes of Syria and Iraq,
have modified the popular video game ARMA III to create characters based on
ISIS militants.
Also, thanks to ISIS, the
successful video game franchise Grand Theft Auto now has an unauthorized sequel
in its series: “Grand Theft Auto: Salil al-Sawarem (Clang of Swords).” The ISIS
bootleg features the same carjacking, pistol-whipping mayhem-entertainment as
the original, but now players detonate roadside bombs and execute Iraqi police
officers.
Of late, ISIS has
combined brutality with social media acumen to become one of the most feared
and reviled organizations on earth in recent months, publicly releasing videos
of beheadings of American and British hostages in addition to broadcasting
other unspeakable acts of violence.
Their latest video isn’t
that horrific or extreme, but it is three and a half minutes of Grand Theft
Auto 5, cut and edited in a way to try and recruit new, young members into the
extremist organization.
The video uses clips from
Grand Theft Auto 5 to demonstrate that they “do the things you do in games, in
real life on the battlefield,” according to a loose translation of the
introductory text.
Children who play violent
video games may experience an increase in aggressive thoughts, which in turn,
could boost their aggressive behavior.
Studies have shown children
who played a lot of violent video games showed an increase in aggressive
behavior — such as hitting, shoving and pushing — meanwhile, those who
decreased the amount of time they spent playing violent video games saw a
decrease violent behavior.
Children and adolescents
who play a lot of violent games change over time, they start to see aggressive
solutions as being more reasonable.
The games were created to
"raise the morale of the Mujahideen, and the training of children and
young teenagers to fight the West, and throw terror into the hearts of
opponents of the state," according to Egyptian news weekly El Fagr.
According to Arabic
journalists, the concern is that these images turn into recruitment propaganda aimed
to train children and youth how to battle the West and to strike terror into
the hearts of those who oppose the Islamic State. The fear is that children are
already vulnerable to developing aggressive behaviors after excessive game play
and those who suffer from addiction are even more susceptible to developing harmful
attitudes and violence against Western cultures.
