Last month, a Turkish ministry began a probe to investigate whether or not Minecraft should be banned for being “too violent”. Today, the results of the investigation were announced: Minecraft should be banned.
Turkish websites Hürriyet Daily News and LeaderGamer report that the country’s Family and Social Policies Ministry is now calling for Minecraft to be banned in the region. The ministry’s report has been sent to the legal affairs department, along with instructions for the legal process for the ban to begin. Ultimately, whether the game is banned or not will be decided in the Turkish courts.
As with, well, everywhere, Minecraft is popular in Turkey. A recent Minecraft book became a children’s best-seller.
“Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses, farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence,” the report stated (via Hürriyet Daily News).
The ministry feels as though children may confuse the in-game world with the real world, and even begin torturing animals, oblivious to the pain they’re inflicting. The report added that not only would Minecraft cause “social isolation”, but that the online component might lead to internet bullying.
Önder Kaplan from the Chamber of Internet Cafes in Ankara told local newspaper Habertürk, “There is not a single country that has banned Minecraft.” There’s a reason for that, you know. It’s that this is silly.
Comments
15 responses to “Calls To Ban Minecraft In Turkey”
Banned? Are you serious? So what other low-level violence games have they banned over there?
My guess is the people running the place…. wait nevermind, i was going to a bunch of old grannies but I’ve seen old grannies playing GTA V and they loved it.
I’m not sure what they are, stupid comes to mind.
Surprised they didn’t list Punching Trees as a form of violence to produce buildings.
Stupid, maybe. I think perhaps narrow minded might be more apt.
Extremely narrow minded.
Isn’t life based around violence? Isn’t Turkey on the border of a pretty serious conflict zone?
I especially love the assertion that being online could lead to online bullying. As if somehow bullying wasn’t already rampant among children before the internet existed.
They need to realize that being online means putting a bunch of different people in contact with each other. It’s the ‘different people being in contact with each other’ part that leads to bullying, not just where it occurs.
This action will save countless lives.
Yeah, the whole world is becoming too much of a nanny state
I will give them the following, there is a lot of accuracy in the statement regardless of the fact it is not unique to Minecraft.
The report added that not only would Minecraft cause “social isolation”, but that the online component might lead to internet bullying
The rest though? children may confuse the in-game world with the real world being my personal favourite. Effectively an 8bit style game can be confused with real life. Congrats Turkey. Mr Shabadoo’s comment about violence and its relationship to Turkey in particular with its geographic location is spot on as well.
To be fair, I’ve played Minecraft and everytime I see a spider in real life I feel like taking a pick axe to it… Repeatedly 😛
To be fair, I’ve never played Minecraft and everytime I see a spider in real life, on TV or in a game I think “Kill it, Kill it, Kill it with Fire you have to be sure.”
It’s absolutely true that children could confuse the in game world with the real world. Next thing you know, they’ll be killing cows, sheep, pigs and chickens, skinning them and then cooking their meat and eating it. Absolutely barbaric I tell you! Heck, they might even start cutting down trees with axes and building things. That’s when we will know society has fallen.
It would be funny to see them punching trees though.
Its especially stupid considering the country saying it is too violent is TURKEY!
It reeks of “we want to ban this wildly popular western product that may constitute cultural invasion, but we don’t want to appear scared of that happening, so let’s fabricate an excuse”.
Wow! They allow COD/Battlefield etc. But Not mine craft? The government of Turkey is even more retarded then I thought.
I now want to render the whole of Turkey in Minecraft.
What the actual hell…..
So here’s what probably happened: Turkish politician gets fed up with his kid spending so much time playing MInecraft, that after many arguments, yelling bouts, and threats of punishment and punitive measures that probably weren’t ever followed through because well, who has time to parent properly, right? He decided it would just be easier to have the game banned altogether.
So after much pocket lining and wheel greasing we end up at the current situation where Minecraft, of all the games available on the market, is seen to be violent and a literal force for evil.
Go home Turkey, you’re drunk.