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With addictive gameplay and a last-man-standing style of battle, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds has rapidly become the world’s most popular mobile game. However, it now faces a ban in one of the world’s largest markets for mobile games, on the basis of inducing psychopathic tendencies within its players. To say that India has taken a hardline stance on the game would be an understatement; there have been at least 16 arrests of people who decided to ignore the ban and continued in pursuit of “Winner Winner Chicken Dinner”, and a fed up 11-year old boy even took the game maker Tencent Holdings Ltd. to court for encouraging violence and cyber-bullying.
The nature of the game might be hugely entertaining for fans, but the National Child Rights Commission (NCPCR) was understandably horrified. It ultimately decided to recommend banning the game. According to the Navbharat Times, “There are dangerous consequences to this game. Many children have lost their mental balance.” That is not a far-fetched thing to say, as the story of a boy who decided to jump to death off a building like PUBG characters goes to show. While the paranoia that Indian traditionalists harbor with respect to violent video games might not be entirely justified, the influence that PUBG has managed to amass among the youth of the nation is undeniable, and that is always a red flag.
While there is a grand total of half a billion potential users in the nation, it is still relatively new to the world of gaming. This explains the disturbing absence of regulatory measures that can be found in countries such as China, where Tencent currently bans under-13 children from playing PUBG and requires all players to register with their real names. While there is no hint of any official gaming regulation to be passed, the backlash that PUBG has faced in India indicates that the nation is either going to crack down on gaming altogether or take the smart step of making gaming a more responsible endeavor.
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A WhatsApp-Reliance Jio representative displays key chains with the logo of WhatsApp for distribution during a drive by the two companies to educate users, on the outskirts of Kolkata, India.
JAIPUR, India: On a hot morning in India's tourist mecca of Jaipur, an open truck painted in the signature lime-green colours of Facebook's WhatsApp messaging service pulls into a dusty lane, where five men spill out and begin to perform a skit.
The event is part of a major grassroots effort by WhatsApp to battle fake news, which has triggered numerous lynchings in a country where 200 million people use the service, more than anywhere else in the world.
The actors soon draw a crowd as the play unveils how spreading misinformation online can stir up mob violence, especially in the countryside, where caste and religious prejudices run deep.
“Our society is better than theirs and that's why you should hate them,” says one, citing one example of an incendiary text circulating on WhatsApp in India. “If you are truly one of us, spread this message.” Such texts, pictures and videos aim to sow discord, warns another, as the viewers in the capital of India's western desert state of Rajasthan are then told how to identify forwarded messages and use WhatsApp responsibly. The drive follows intense government pressure for both Facebook and WhatsApp to fight fake news and rumour-mongering that have led to more than 30 deaths in about 70 lynching attempts since Jan. 2017, data portal IndiaSpend says.
WhatsApp-Reliance Jio representatives perform in a street play during a drive by the two companies to educate users, on the outskirts of Kolkata, India. — Photos: Reuters
The campaign is not entirely altruistic. It is being run in conjunction with Reliance Jio, the fast-growing telecom carrier controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani that recently made WhatsApp available on its US$20 (RM83) JioPhone.
Instructions on how to install and use the app on the JioPhone, which has connected tens of millions of low-income Indians to the Internet for the first time, are also a part of the 10-city roadshow. Hundreds of people from WhatsApp and Jio are helping drive the campaign, with some WhatsApp employees having flown in from California, a WhatsApp spokeswoman said in an emailed statement, adding that the company did not reveal financial details. A source familiar with the matter said the costs were mostly being paid by WhatsApp.
Political heat
WhatsApp's efforts to battle fake news in India include a limit on forwarded messages in a market where more users pass around messages, photographs and videos than any other.
It has launched newspaper and radio campaigns and tied up with Delhi-based non-profit Digital Empowerment Foundation to develop a digital literacy curriculum for India.
The company is also training police and law enforcement officials to use WhatsApp in helping them do their jobs.
A WhatsApp-Reliance Jio representative explaining how to use Facebook Inc's WhatsApp messenger to a woman during a drive by the two companies to educate users, on the outskirts of Kolkata, India.
“Our goal is to drive one of the largest coordinated public education efforts on misinformation to date anywhere in the world,” WhatsApp said.
India's technology minister has demanded the company do more, including working out how to trace the origin of “sinister” messages. But WhatsApp says it will not take such steps, which would require it to weaken encryption and other privacy protections. It is not clear how much the public information campaigns will change people's behaviour. But in Jaipur, at least some of the messages seem to be getting through. “I learnt how to quit a WhatsApp group created by strangers,” said Bhawani Singh Rathore, a 35-year-old teacher, who began using the service just months ago and attended. “And I also learned how to identify a forwarded message and to not send it ahead without checking its accuracy,” he said.
