8 ms·

Ten people arrested in Gujarat for allegedly playing banned game PUBG

89 points by karambir 8y ago

viraptor 8y ago
The interesting bit for me is: how did regular police find out who was playing the game? Were they spotted in person, or is there good enough network surveillance in India to implement filters and pass subscriber information to the police? (Or is this some kind of hoax to make more people comply?)
- winningcontinue 8y ago
  it's 2 people, so they've gotta be two people who were caught on their screens flaunting the rules or being ignorant of it. If it was network surveilance, you'd have numbers in the thousands easily.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    I've seen some are mentioned as caught on the street. Just wondering about the rest where the situation was not listed explicitly. > If it was network surveilance, you'd have numbers in the thousands easily. That doesn't have to be true. If you want fewer people playing the game, it's easier/cheaper to catch a small number and make it known in media than actually arrest thousands. (Unless arrests are your goal that is)
    - winningcontinue 8y ago
      That's not how you control the behavior of a population. You'd post the entire number of people caught, warn the violators and make them pay a small indemnity. Having a small number of people reported caught makes enforcement seem ineffective in finding the culprits.
- rvnx 8y ago
  They were playing in the street
jstanley 8y ago
It's illegal to play a video game? What world is this?
- divs1210 8y ago
  This is Modi Kaka's New India. Many websites like reddit, alexa.com, etc. have also been banned by ISPs over the last few months.
  - _jgdh 8y ago
    Haha, Modi fans are downvoting you for pointing out that the obvious. This incident took place in Gujarat. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat for more than a decade before becoming Prime Minister of India. The BJP has now been in power in Gujarat for nearly 20 years. If Modi/BJP isn't responsible for this idiocy, then I would invite the BJP bhakts (devotees) to tell us who is. Before you speak, let me establish two facts. Modi and the BJP are synonymous since 2014. When the BJP wins an election, it's called a "Modi wave". The flipside of taking credit for everything and micromanaging everything that the BJP does is that he is responsible when they fuck up... like they have here. Second, the police ultimately report to the Chief Minister who is answerable to Modi. Now say what you have to say, without resorting to the downvote button.
    - tintintin 8y ago
      Hi. Please go through HN's [guidelines](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) once again: > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, and we ban accounts that do it. Your comment crosses into political flamewar. As dang puts it, please do not use HN for that or call names in comments here, regardless of how right you are or feel.
    - sbmthakur 8y ago
      From the article, it looks like the local police banned PUBG after locals complained about its addictive nature(in the exam season). Not saying that this is legit, but I don't think Modi would've called the local Police chief and said, "hey bro, please ban PUBG because kids won't do well in exams in my state". As for the sites ban, I couldn't find any Government order banning these sites. For all we know, it might be the courts issuing these bans.
modi15 8y ago
Its Indian version of tabloid news. AFAIK some local enforcement agency passed a rule banning PUBG near to school exams.
- kranner 8y ago
  News18 is not a tabloid website. But just in case you're not convinced, here's the BBC reporting the same arrests: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47238545 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47238545
  - youeseh 8y ago
    This reminds me of the time when my friends ran a fake contest on Facebook in the early days. Someone won. Then they told their local newspaper. Other small papers picked it up. Then it got picked up by bigger publications. Everyone treated it like it was a legitimate contest. Sometimes a story is so juicy that even the big fish can't ignore it.
    - kranner 8y ago
      I think 16 people being arrested for playing a banned video game is real news that deserves to be widely published. Your friends' fake Facebook contest is not quite comparable.
      - youeseh 8y ago
        I disagree. This story is far too insignificant for people who are nowhere near the incident to be alarmed about. We have a lot to think and worry about all the time much closer to our homes. Stories like this being reported by an outlet so far removed from the situation on the ground don't serve the people receiving the news apart from triggering them.
        kranner 8y ago
        HN is a global community and if something is insignificant for you because it's too far away or something, it's quicker to just ignore it than to go into the discussions and tell people that are actually engaging with the topic that it's not worth their time. A little disrespectful as well. I can tell you why it's relevant to me: I live in India, so it's local, and it's related to the social effects of technology. Now the front page has news about California being drought-free. It's not of interest to me, so I will just ignore it.
Gonzih 8y ago
> the ban was necessary as these games were leading to violent behaviour among children and youth Ah another claim that video games cause violence not backed by any sciecific data.
- draw_down 8y ago
  I don’t think I’d like this arrest any better if it came with data attached.
- SkyBelow 8y ago
  Isn't the result more mixed? There are some studies that found no relation and other studies that found a relation, and no sufficient explanation why repeating the same studies end up showing different results?
  - Chilinot 8y ago
    Considering the amount of people (myself included) that have grown up playing video games and shooters. I think we have enough empirical evidence that violent video games do not in fact raise violent people. Im only looking at the crime rates in the US using wikipedia [1], and the crimes are going down. Im certain that this trend is similar in other developed countries that have a long history of violent movies and video games. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
    - atomi 8y ago
      Yeah no kidding. All of my friends and I grew up on Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem. None us grew up to be the least bit violent.
    - SkyBelow 8y ago
      >I think we have enough empirical evidence that violent video games do not in fact raise violent people. How so? One could easily make the claim they cause a small increase in violence but changes in our society (such as better ability to find criminals using DNA and video recording, more tolerance of displays of violence that harm no one, removal of lead from gasoline, etc.) have a larger effect in the opposite direction for most individuals. Science won't toss out such large sets of poorly collected data, but neither will it make definite judgments off of it.
calvinbhai 8y ago
Looks like a tactic orchestrated by parents-cops to scare other kids from playing PUBG, because: Exams (:rolling_eyes:) Will certainly backfire (more kids will get onto it). Highly clickbait news item for Indian/International media to report on this.
srean 8y ago
I wish the cops had showed more interest in recovering the cell phone that was snatched from my wife recently. I wish they show more interest in the rise of snatching jewellery in than arresting kids for their questionable choice in games. Its common practice among Indian cops to refuse to register such crimes. But when it comes to pandering to politically blessed agendas, many fall over themselves to please. I dont think I had much choice in the matter when I had to sign up to pay for their salaries to do the job of parenting.
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  >many fall over themselves to please fall over themselves to please someone in power
  - srean 8y ago
    Indeed ! Thanks for completing my sentence. What is rather intriguing is the downvotes, not that I mind but curious about the point of view they are coming from.
HHalvi 8y ago
I am super glad that Doom, Wolfenstein, Mortal Kombat, Shadow Warrior have not got as popular as PUBG else I would have a really hard time with India.

89 points by karambir 8y ago

The interesting bit for me is: how did regular police find out who was playing the game? Were they spotted in person, or is there good enough network surveillance in India to implement filters and pass subscriber information to the police? (Or is this some kind of hoax to make more people comply?)

winningcontinue 8y ago
it's 2 people, so they've gotta be two people who were caught on their screens flaunting the rules or being ignorant of it. If it was network surveilance, you'd have numbers in the thousands easily.
- viraptor 8y ago
  I've seen some are mentioned as caught on the street. Just wondering about the rest where the situation was not listed explicitly. > If it was network surveilance, you'd have numbers in the thousands easily. That doesn't have to be true. If you want fewer people playing the game, it's easier/cheaper to catch a small number and make it known in media than actually arrest thousands. (Unless arrests are your goal that is)
  - winningcontinue 8y ago
    That's not how you control the behavior of a population. You'd post the entire number of people caught, warn the violators and make them pay a small indemnity. Having a small number of people reported caught makes enforcement seem ineffective in finding the culprits.
rvnx 8y ago
They were playing in the street

jstanley 8y ago

It's illegal to play a video game? What world is this?

divs1210 8y ago
This is Modi Kaka's New India. Many websites like reddit, alexa.com, etc. have also been banned by ISPs over the last few months.
- _jgdh 8y ago
  Haha, Modi fans are downvoting you for pointing out that the obvious. This incident took place in Gujarat. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat for more than a decade before becoming Prime Minister of India. The BJP has now been in power in Gujarat for nearly 20 years. If Modi/BJP isn't responsible for this idiocy, then I would invite the BJP bhakts (devotees) to tell us who is. Before you speak, let me establish two facts. Modi and the BJP are synonymous since 2014. When the BJP wins an election, it's called a "Modi wave". The flipside of taking credit for everything and micromanaging everything that the BJP does is that he is responsible when they fuck up... like they have here. Second, the police ultimately report to the Chief Minister who is answerable to Modi. Now say what you have to say, without resorting to the downvote button.
  - tintintin 8y ago
    Hi. Please go through HN's [guidelines](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) once again: > Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle. This destroys intellectual curiosity, and we ban accounts that do it. Your comment crosses into political flamewar. As dang puts it, please do not use HN for that or call names in comments here, regardless of how right you are or feel.
  - sbmthakur 8y ago
    From the article, it looks like the local police banned PUBG after locals complained about its addictive nature(in the exam season). Not saying that this is legit, but I don't think Modi would've called the local Police chief and said, "hey bro, please ban PUBG because kids won't do well in exams in my state". As for the sites ban, I couldn't find any Government order banning these sites. For all we know, it might be the courts issuing these bans.

modi15 8y ago

Its Indian version of tabloid news. AFAIK some local enforcement agency passed a rule banning PUBG near to school exams.

kranner 8y ago
News18 is not a tabloid website. But just in case you're not convinced, here's the BBC reporting the same arrests: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47238545 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47238545
- youeseh 8y ago
  This reminds me of the time when my friends ran a fake contest on Facebook in the early days. Someone won. Then they told their local newspaper. Other small papers picked it up. Then it got picked up by bigger publications. Everyone treated it like it was a legitimate contest. Sometimes a story is so juicy that even the big fish can't ignore it.
  - kranner 8y ago
    I think 16 people being arrested for playing a banned video game is real news that deserves to be widely published. Your friends' fake Facebook contest is not quite comparable.
    - youeseh 8y ago
      I disagree. This story is far too insignificant for people who are nowhere near the incident to be alarmed about. We have a lot to think and worry about all the time much closer to our homes. Stories like this being reported by an outlet so far removed from the situation on the ground don't serve the people receiving the news apart from triggering them.
      - kranner 8y ago
        HN is a global community and if something is insignificant for you because it's too far away or something, it's quicker to just ignore it than to go into the discussions and tell people that are actually engaging with the topic that it's not worth their time. A little disrespectful as well. I can tell you why it's relevant to me: I live in India, so it's local, and it's related to the social effects of technology. Now the front page has news about California being drought-free. It's not of interest to me, so I will just ignore it.

Gonzih 8y ago

> the ban was necessary as these games were leading to violent behaviour among children and youth Ah another claim that video games cause violence not backed by any sciecific data.

draw_down 8y ago
I don’t think I’d like this arrest any better if it came with data attached.
SkyBelow 8y ago
Isn't the result more mixed? There are some studies that found no relation and other studies that found a relation, and no sufficient explanation why repeating the same studies end up showing different results?
- Chilinot 8y ago
  Considering the amount of people (myself included) that have grown up playing video games and shooters. I think we have enough empirical evidence that violent video games do not in fact raise violent people. Im only looking at the crime rates in the US using wikipedia [1], and the crimes are going down. Im certain that this trend is similar in other developed countries that have a long history of violent movies and video games. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
  - atomi 8y ago
    Yeah no kidding. All of my friends and I grew up on Wolfenstein, Doom and Duke Nukem. None us grew up to be the least bit violent.
  - SkyBelow 8y ago
    >I think we have enough empirical evidence that violent video games do not in fact raise violent people. How so? One could easily make the claim they cause a small increase in violence but changes in our society (such as better ability to find criminals using DNA and video recording, more tolerance of displays of violence that harm no one, removal of lead from gasoline, etc.) have a larger effect in the opposite direction for most individuals. Science won't toss out such large sets of poorly collected data, but neither will it make definite judgments off of it.

calvinbhai 8y ago

Looks like a tactic orchestrated by parents-cops to scare other kids from playing PUBG, because: Exams (:rolling_eyes:) Will certainly backfire (more kids will get onto it). Highly clickbait news item for Indian/International media to report on this.

srean 8y ago

I wish the cops had showed more interest in recovering the cell phone that was snatched from my wife recently. I wish they show more interest in the rise of snatching jewellery in than arresting kids for their questionable choice in games. Its common practice among Indian cops to refuse to register such crimes. But when it comes to pandering to politically blessed agendas, many fall over themselves to please. I dont think I had much choice in the matter when I had to sign up to pay for their salaries to do the job of parenting.

NullPrefix 8y ago
>many fall over themselves to please fall over themselves to please someone in power
- srean 8y ago
  Indeed ! Thanks for completing my sentence. What is rather intriguing is the downvotes, not that I mind but curious about the point of view they are coming from.

HHalvi 8y ago

I am super glad that Doom, Wolfenstein, Mortal Kombat, Shadow Warrior have not got as popular as PUBG else I would have a really hard time with India.