Islamic State Hijacks GTA V for Recruitment Video

[kael013]

[quote/]The introductory text translates broadly as an appeal to the viewer, showing that ISIS does 'the things you do in games, in real life on the battlefield.'[/quote]

Somehow I highly doubt that ISIS uses magical martial arts to beat up spirits, run and hide from eldritch horrors in nigh-inescapable complexes, solve mysterious crimes in communities made of fairytale characters, and come to peaceful compromises to complicated interfactional crises using understanding and compassion. (to name a few examples)

See, this is why I don't like games based on the real world. Shooting an alien in the face? Fun. Shooting a simulacrum of a police officer just doing his job/a soldier defending his country/a young man who's lived in poverty (compared to my country's standard of living) and grown up with a steady diet of extremist, hateful dogma? Also fun, but I always get an undercurrent of uneasiness; since these enemies are based on real groups I can emphasize and thus I get a tad uncomfortable after playing for a while.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Inb4 fox news turns this into another anti gamer rant.

I'm not sure they'll even convince themselves but it will probably get them attention and therefore profit, so what do they care?

 

[Middle_Index]

I was willing myself to be radicalized but the production here is just terrorble (see what i did there?)

Now if they had done a vid like this then sign me up!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0b6D6WmecY4

 

[Casual Shinji]

Wait, how does ISIS expect to maintain their pure Islamic values by using unclean media from the Evil Western Empire?

In my time terrorists had some diginity, man.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It doesn't help that I'm pretty sure most of the commentary that's spliced over the footage can be reduced to religiously-motivated and Arabic versions of the old soundbyte of kids going apeshit over someone's Noscope, or of others yelling "WHERE YOU AT?!" after landing something epic in one CoD or another.

"Sick explosion, man! Allah be praised!"

Yeah, right. Tell me how Fundamentalist Muslim gamers are better off than Western gamers, again?

 

[Racecarlock]

This is pure genius. Think about it. Using our own tech against us, most likely causing a media censorship shitstorm over video games, thus getting games censored. Then they do the same to books, then movies. Once they get here, we'll already be oppressed and under control. Only thing that would change would be the holy book.

Seriously, what better way to take away our freedoms than to use those freedoms to spread propaganda so we lose those freedoms voluntarily?

 

[sleeky01]

Wow, thats dumb. You think trained terrorists would know the difference between real life and video games. Welp, lets all hunker down for the media shitstorm. Been getting way to many of these as of late.

Well...They weren't the first to try really.

 

[Saltyk]

Morals of the Mujahideen - Its ok to kill, behead, crucify anyone that believes something different to you - regardless of age and gender. Especially after seeing pictures of a 6 yr old iraqi christian who was beheaded and the head stuck on a fence. Evil group that i wish would be obliterated by world forces.

Not surprised if this vid is IS. They are recruiting from western countries so wouldnt be surprised if they use GTA to do that. I think anyone who fights for them from a western countries should be considered traitors and locked up for life.

Is that a real thing? I've heard of some horrible shit that ISIS has done, but that is really bad. And yet... I'm not shocked. I've already heard of them beheading people, sticking the heads on pikes, and even crucifying dead bodies (I think they were dead). And half of that was before ISIS became Public Enemy #1. That would merely be a new low.

And that was already set pretty low considering I've heard of them forcing people to convert, then beheading them. Oh, and selling "converted" women to their fighters as wives. I believe calling these people barbaric might be an insult to barbarians.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Whatever happened to good old fashioned kidnapping and brainwashing these days?

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Ok so ISIS made another recruitment video. Whats special about that?

This one has games in it? Ok, now how does reporting on it, and thus bringing that video to potential tens of thousands more than would have actually watched it, seem like a good idea?

Now i know its not just here, but if youre going to jump on some clickbaiting sensation then please stick to the ones that dont involve spreading a terrorist recruitment video. Seriously, you should know better.

This. "Oh hey look, ISIS did something game-related" is not a valid reason for continuing to spread their crappy propaganda around.

I'm amazed at how many media outlets have just gobbled up anything ISIS offers. There was a radio presenter in Melbourne who got all excited because he thought he was speaking on-air to the commander of ISIS after finding his contact details on twitter, but it turned out to just be some guy in Scandinavia trolling gullible producers.

 

[Dalisclock]

Thank God ISIS hasn't discovered the saints row games. You know, the series where you work your way up from abject poverty, killing everyone in your way and stealing their stuff, then blowing up buildings and winning a war against the US military.

And then you fight aliens in the matrix.

So not a perfect metaphor, but neither is flying a tank and hitting people with a dildo bat.

In all seriousness, It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to join ISIS who already doesn't have serious issues. You know, Considering Al-Qaeda has been calling them out for being too extreme and making Muslim extremists look bad.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

Ok so ISIS made another recruitment video. Whats special about that?

This one has games in it? Ok, now how does reporting on it, and thus bringing that video to potential tens of thousands more than would have actually watched it, seem like a good idea?

Now i know its not just here, but if youre going to jump on some clickbaiting sensation then please stick to the ones that dont involve spreading a terrorist recruitment video. Seriously, you should know better.

I think the kind of people to see this on the Escapist are smart enough to see this as shitty propaganda than their true life calling.

Id like to think thats true, but with the amount of exposure that things getting just because its got GTA5 in it im willing to bet that ISIS has gotten more converts today than they did throughout last week. And thats the optimistic estimate.

Definitely agree with this.

One of the reasons ISIS has been so much more... successful, if that's what you call it, than previous radical Islamic groups is their incredibly pervasive use of modern technology. They originally began as an offshoot of Al Qaeda, but have since broken ties and expanded much more rapidly. Why? They manipulate Twitter feeds. They purposefully act as to attract media attention. Can you imagine a terrorist group using hashtags? Welp, they do. And fairly effectively.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

They should have gone all the way and used footage from Metal Gear Rising. Now THAT would get people interested!

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

This is just like that propaganda North Korea made that used COD footage. Funny how those claiming America to be the land of the Devil are only too happy to use their material.

 

[Benpasko]

They should have gone all the way and used footage from Metal Gear Rising. Now THAT would get people interested!

If ISIS all screamed 'RULES OF NATURE!!!!' as they attacked, it'd be much harder for them to get the drop on us. You wanna get them hyped for terrorism, but not that hyped.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Morals of the Mujahideen - Its ok to kill, behead, crucify anyone that believes something different to you - regardless of age and gender. Especially after seeing pictures of a 6 yr old iraqi christian who was beheaded and the head stuck on a fence. Evil group that i wish would be obliterated by world forces.

Not surprised if this vid is IS. They are recruiting from western countries so wouldnt be surprised if they use GTA to do that. I think anyone who fights for them from a western countries should be considered traitors and locked up for life.

Is that a real thing? I've heard of some horrible shit that ISIS has done, but that is really bad. And yet... I'm not shocked. I've already heard of them beheading people, sticking the heads on pikes, and even crucifying dead bodies (I think they were dead). And half of that was before ISIS became Public Enemy #1. That would merely be a new low.

And that was already set pretty low considering I've heard of them forcing people to convert, then beheading them. Oh, and selling "converted" women to their fighters as wives. I believe calling these people barbaric might be an insult to barbarians.

Yeah, its a real thing, it was on a catholic website. Also a family of 8 Iraqi Christians wouldnt convert and got shot in the face. Also the five year old son of the head of Iraqi anglican church was cut in half. No one hears any of this stuff. Horrible stuff that never gets shown. Because it seems Christians dont matter. Boko Haram does the same thing in Africa and nothing gets down. In the UK a group of muslim men got away with child abuse for over 10 years because those that are meant to protect kids didnt do anything for fear of being labeled a racist. Now i know they are not linked to IS, but the worlds leaders seem to have this knee jerk reaction to anything Muslim - yes there are millions of great muslims that are law abiding and excellent. But there are a number that are not and we cant feel bad about being labeled something to stop them from killing innocents - for starters there are meant to be 500 plus UK muslims fighting overseas with terrorists groups. About time IS got whats coming to them. Hopefully the UK will be involved in a few days and join the USA and the others to blow IS to hell.

 

[Dalisclock]

They should have gone all the way and used footage from Metal Gear Rising. Now THAT would get people interested!

If ISIS all screamed 'RULES OF NATURE!!!!' as they attacked, it'd be much harder for them to get the drop on us. You wanna get them hyped for terrorism, but not that hyped.

But they could learn the ultimate form of disguise: Sneaking around in boxes.

Could you imagine the amount of damage ISIS could do if they obtained cardboard box technology and tactics? My god, I don't even want to think about it.

 

[Darth_Payn]

In all seriousness, It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to join ISIS who already doesn't have serious issues. You know, Considering Al-Qaeda has been calling them out for being too extreme and making Muslim extremists look bad.

Right, like al-Qaeda's the shining example of rational thinking and productive problem solving. I would suggest tricking all these terrorist groups into taking each other out, but since none of them seem to give the slightest fuck about human life, the destruction would be catastrophic.

I wonder if this is how HYDRA finds recruits. Hey, I may have just come up with the plot for an episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.