The video game Milo Tosser, wherein players throw Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos off a roof to a bloody death by Islamic State jihadists, has come under fire for being “homophobic” and “anti-Muslim,” according to Newsweek.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish human rights organization which tries to censor the Internet by “removing hate speech,” urged YouTube on Wednesday to take down videos involving footage from Milo Tosser on the premise that they are offensive to the Islamic and LGBT community.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaVPjwWWTU8&spfreload=10&bpctr=1461608597
YouTube has since displayed a trigger warning to users warning them that the content may be “offensive or inappropriate.”
“YouTube’s policies prohibit hate speech against individuals or groups based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” a YouTube spokesperson told Newsweek. “However, we allow content when the intent is satire or to expose hateful views. When a video is identified as being potentially offensive, we’re careful to apply warnings for users before the video plays.”
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the associate dean for the Wiesenthal Center, has argued that the video should be removed. “It just touches so many points. It’s homophobic and anti-Muslim and violent—the fact of the matter is that Riff Raff Games made a game out of killing an actual, live human being,” Cooper said. “This is really outrageous. And you thought you’ve seen it all.”
However, the game — which is closely related to a column written by Yiannopoulos titled “I’m a Gay Man and Mass Muslim Immigration Terrifies Me,” has been endorsed by the Milo himself, who said he “loves” the game.
“It’s an interesting moral question: Whose right comes first?” Yiannopoulos says in regard to gays and Muslims. “The game shines a light on an awkward victim hierarchy created by the progressive left.”
The creator of the game is Michael Garber, a software engineer based in California, who describes himself as a “video game enthusiast, anti-theist, [and] freedom of speech advocate.”
Garber said that although the game was originally created as a general portrayal of homophobic ISIS-style killings, he chose to focus it on Yiannopoulos after a suggestion from a friend.
“It was a game to spread awareness about what’s happening and have a laugh,” Garber told Newsweek. “We sort of live in an outrage culture. I think people get too worked [up] over jokes or things they shouldn’t be.”
“I think we need to be able to criticize bad ideas,” Garber says. “Fundamental Islam has a lot of bad ideas. In the United States, fundamental Islam is not a problem, but in Muslim-dominated countries, it is a problem. I do this because I care about human rights.”
Milo Tosser is available for download on Windows, Android, and Mac.
You can follow Ben Kew on Facebook, on Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at ben@yiannopoulos.net
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