The military in the United States seems to be one of those institutions that is increasingly getting in the cross-hairs of online campaigns.
At least on Twitch, the presence of the US Army doesn’t look to be welcome, and the military will suspend activities on Amazon’s streaming giant, writes IGN.
It was the Army’s attempts to use the platform to direct users towards its recruitment pages – in other words, promote its business, like many others do – that has led to the negative reaction, which eventually convinced it to step down.
Using video games (and movies and other types of entertainment, for that matter) to implicitly or explicitly help bring in new recruits is nothing new, but the times seem to be changing to the point that new legislation is now drafted specifically to prohibit this type of behavior.
The legal initiative comes from Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who wants to prevent the military from spending money allocated to it from the budget to participate on Twitch and other social networks – although it remains unclear if the attempt will be successful.
Some activists also didn’t take kindly to the Army’s channel using the blocking tool when faced with provocative comments.
But it’s not just in the US that the military and military-related things are not “cool” or even acceptable. In Europe, Denmark’s LEGO toy maker said it would not release the 42113 Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey set, a part of the Technics series.
The pressure came from the German Peace Society and some online activists who are opposed to the company licensing military airplanes and producing such sets. They launched an online campaign against the new model’s release and created a petition to bring it to an end. The V-22 Osprey was canceled because of its association with the military.
In a statement, the company said that the idea to include this model came from their intention to highlight its search and rescue capabilities – but the fact that it is only operated by armies, even for such purposes, disqualified it.
LEGO recognized fans’ disappointment – in fact some were looking forward to the release of the V-22 Osprey. To them, LEGO explained that “upholding brand values” comes first.
