After we thought Uber had killed it, stranger danger is back again, and in an unlikely form. Pokémon Go is well on its way to being the most successful augmented-reality application, especially among kids, but adults like it too — because it isobviously awesome. Yet some parents have blanched at the idea of theirs kids wandering the streets hunting for an Oddish, often alongside childless grown-ups hunting for the same creature. It’s easy to imagine defenseless youngsters, their heads in the Poké-cloud, falling victim to IRL predators.
Before the game was even out a week, we were already asking “Can ‘Pokémon Go’ Be Exploited by Child Predators?” and writing tutorials on “Keeping Kids Safe While Playing ‘Pokémon Go.’” A Missouri police department has issued a press release warning about robbers targeting unaware Pokémon players. And Twitter is full of jokes about pedophiles who use the app to kidnap kids, or else about Poké-men who worry they’ll look like pedophiles for walking around parks alone. Based on the public reaction, you might think the default relationship between strangers and children is kidnapper/kidnappee.
[For more of this story, written by Malcolm Harris, go to https://psmag.com/pok%C3%A9mon...ccf23306a#.naxhbpukr]
Comments (0)