Some years ago, a childhood friend of mine was playing the racing game TOCA on the Xbox. It had, for its time, a decent line in realistic car collisions, allowing an inept driver to ruin the race of a competitor. Such was my friend’s dexterity, an irate Australian man said he hoped my friend would get ‘nonced’. Character building, as my mum would say, though I doubt she’d be entirely approving of the rambunctious culture of online gaming during my teenage years. Playing online in those days meant exposing yourself to commentary that could at best be called ‘robust’. And luckily for today’s denizens of Mumsnet, the government is here to help.
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The luvvies are out for Reform. Is anyone listening?
Recently, the elusive online safety minister Kanishka Narayan suggested the government’s impending plan to ban youths from social media might be extended across the myriad gaming platforms that youngsters are whittling away their best years on. Going further than even the draconian Aussie restrictions, young British players could be barred from speaking to unfamiliar players on Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft, as well as third-party messaging platforms like Discord.
Like his peers abroad, Narayan hopes to stop predatory men from speaking to minors. In the case of Roblox, a kind of virtual Lego world where players can build and play their own games, the risk of stranger danger has become the controversy that launched a thousand lawsuits.
