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Video game websites IGN and Game Informer post and then retract support for Palestinian civilians
May 17, 2021
Video game and entertainment media outlets IGN and Game Informer published and then retracted articles encouraging readers to donate to charities for the Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire of the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On May 14, IGN
posted an article titled, "How to Help Palestine," which provided links to five charities and organizations that provide humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians living in the West Bank and Gaza. The article featured a graphic of the Palestinian flag in IGN's masthead.
"Palestinian civilians are currently suffering in great numbers in Jerusalem, Gaza, and West Bank, due to the active Israel-Palestine conflict," IGN staff wrote. "The NYTimes reported that most of the deaths so far have occurred in Gaza. Below are charities and organizations on the ground in those areas where you can donate funds to help those most in need. We will continue to update this article with other ways you can help."
Game Informer staff published a similar article on May 15, citing the IGN post and linking to the same charities. Several top gaming outlets posted their own pro-Palestine stories, following IGN's lead.
But on Monday, the IGN and Game Informer articles were taken down. IGN released a statement about the removal, apologizing for appearing to take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"We have a track record of supporting humanitarian efforts and charities across the globe. In the instance of our recent post regarding how to help civilians in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, our philanthropic instincts to help those in need was not in-line with our intent of trying to show support for all people impacted by tragic events," IGN said.
"By highlighting only one population, the post mistakenly left the impression that we were politically aligned with one side. That was not our intention and we sincerely regret the error."
Game Informer has not yet released a public statement on why its article was taken down.
Kotaku reported that after the IGN article went live, IGN Israel shared a statement on its social media accounts condemning the U.S. IGN article and social media posts supporting Palestinian charities as "misleading."
"We at IGN Israel support the State of Israel (obviously) and support IDF soldiers who do everything to keep us all in these tough days," IGN Israel stated. "We work in every way possible to remove this misleading and offensive content from the American edition which does not represent our views."
That post by IGN Israel has since been deleted.
Reacting on social media, various game industry journalists and media figures were critical of the decision and speculated that IGN's Palestinian-sympathetic editorial staff was under orders from the website's corporate owners to take down the post.
Understand how important this is: clearly @IGN and @gameinformer editorial posted this under their editorial freedom. If these posts are gone, it very likely means their corporate owners stepped across the editorial barrier & forced the censorship of those humanitarian resources.pic.twitter.com/u51BTQ8hQz— Rami Ismail (\u0631\u0627\u0645\u064a) (@Rami Ismail (\u0631\u0627\u0645\u064a)) 1621188125
Can't begin to imagine what kind of hell IGN editorial is going through right now, as I'm sure pulling that piece was NOT their call. So many levels of horror here, and points to how corporate can control journalistic freedom. This is so harmful.https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1394176331668070401\u00a0\u2026— Elise Favis (@Elise Favis) 1621268887
i work for their parent company and feel compelled to speak out regarding this response.\n\nthere are posts on IGN on how to support Black Lives Matter charities. when you published that, based on this statement, did you also share donation links for cops?https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1394176331668070401\u00a0\u2026— Matt Binder (@Matt Binder) 1621267105
The decision to pull that post from IGN was without question made by people above the editorial level. Whether you agree with the post or not, you should be pissed it got pulled.— Susan Arendt (@Susan Arendt) 1621261796
"https://GamesIndustry.biz\u00a0 understands the decision to pull the IGN article was not made by editorial staff." - I imagine they're absolutely fuming about this disgraceful decision.https://twitter.com/GIBiz/status/1394318428069154817\u00a0\u2026— Colin Campbell (@Colin Campbell) 1621267562
solidarity with the ign editorial team who got completely blindsided and screwed over by this decisionhttps://twitter.com/ign/status/1394176331668070401\u00a0\u2026— dylan haas (@dylan haas) 1621261361
Another shameful example of spineless corporate censorship, especially when the original post was simply promoting a genuinely good cause. These cowards put this out late on a Sunday night, no less. I feel for IGN\u2019s editorial staff, who were just trying to do the right thing.https://twitter.com/ign/status/1394176331668070401\u00a0\u2026— Brad Shankar (@Brad Shankar) 1621258959
This is not ok. It fails to address the sudden removal of humanitarian content without context. It appears to be a corporate reversal of editorial process.\n\nI trust @IGN's editorial staff. I love many of them. I don't think this mealy-mouth heartless mishmash speaks for them.https://twitter.com/IGN/status/1394176331668070401\u00a0\u2026— Jared Petty (@Jared Petty) 1621259333
Israeli-Palestinian fighting began again after weeks of tensions boiled over into violence when Israel's Supreme Court approved the evictions of six Palestinian families from a neighborhood in East Jerusalem to make way for Israeli settlers. On May 7, Israeli police were deployed to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, where conflict with Palestinian worshippers there led to rocket strikes on Israel by Hamas and retaliation by Israeli Defense Forces.
President Joe Biden on Sunday spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raising concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza amid the ongoing violence. Palestinian health officials claim at least 140 civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, while nine people, including two children, were killed by Hamas rockets in Israel.
More than 25 Democratic senators, led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) have called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestine to "prevent further loss of life and further escalation of violence."
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