Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has encountered a major blow on her move to ban the US Military from using gaming services like Twitch as a recruitment tool. The motion was slammed down by members from both the Democratic and Republican parties which should lead to interesting times going forward.
103 Democrats just joined Republicans to continue the military's predatory recruiting practices on Twitch pic.twitter.com/qhfngU5bke
— jordan (@JordanUhl) July 30, 2020
War is no joking matter. And it definitely isn’t a game. No matter how realistic modern military shooters and games are trying to portray it, the reality of war and combat is a harsh and brutal reminder of the fragility of life and peace. Millions of servicemen and women are facing the consequences of war every day and will until the end of their lives.
“This amendment is specifically to block funding for recruitment practices on services such as Twitch.tv, which are live streaming platforms largely populated by children well under the age of military recruitment rules. Children as young as 13…are targeted for recruitment forms that can be filled online.”
It’s this sobering truth that made the US Military’s attempts to use Twitch among other gaming platforms as tools to recruit new soldiers so tasteless at the least. Games are games. They are not reality and the improvements in terms of visuals and physics might blur the lines but a war game will never be comparable to real war.
AOC among other politicians thought similarly and tried to ban the US Military from luring naive gamers via Twitch etc. Yesterday the motion went up and was thoroughly slammed down. It will come as a surprise that a large group even in the Democratic Party voted against it. This means you can look forward to future official US Military streams and more.
You can watch the very brief speech by AOC on the motion here.
