Sheinbaum speaks out against violent video games

Mexican President Claudia Seinbaum Pardo spoke out against violent video games, while calling for an end to the glorification of crime in music produced and distributed in the country.

“Video games too… which are also about playing at killing someone. What is that?” the president said during the question-and-answer session of her morning press conference on Wednesday, May 7.

Sheinbaum Pardo made a brief comment against violent video games in the context of the discussion about the ban on so-called narco-corridos, specifically in the case of Jalisco. For the president, the decision to ban or sanction the distribution of this type of material depends on the states and rules out a federal plan to prohibit what she called the glorification of violence.

Regarding video games, the president believes that the ban does little to combat this type of media and that it is better to generate alternative content that young people themselves consume voluntarily: “It is better to generate other forms of entertainment, music, and for them to be adopted by society as a whole,” she commented.

Although it has been proven that there is no causal relationship between the consumption of violent content such as video games and violent behavior in consumers, Mexico finds itself in a difficult context in which criminal gangs have used online video games like Free Fire to recruit minors into organized crime. This has been documented in the so-called “Free Fire case.”

According to what was presented by the Secretary of Citizen Security, the violence in these games would be a triggering factor for this type of operation.

“It’s everyone’s decision,” the president Sayes and she repeatedly emphasized citizens’ freedom to choose what they want to consume and again ruled out a possible ban on violent content, making it clear that the federal government has not been calling for a ban, but rather for awareness.