Joystiq corrupts youth with PSP porn -- film at 11

35 Comments by Christopher Grant Nov 8th 2006 7:55PM
Filed under: Culture, Sony PSP, Meta (about Joystiq)

I'm not one to normally watch the local news -- especially during November sweeps -- but after recording my dog's evening news' debut Saturday night (she's the fluffy, white one), TiVo recorded the news again on Sunday night. Just in time to find out about the PlayStation "pornable" (a moniker undoubtedly borrowed from Minneapolis affiliate station, Fox 9) from another local Philadelphia news outlet making specious claims about handheld game systems to get a quick boost in the ratings department.

The best part: when they show Google's first result for "psp porn" to be a humble Joystiq post about a pornographer's attempt to bring the online porn world to your PSP ... don't bother, the link in question has ostensibly been dead since June 2005. But what they're talking about is a web browser, not a game system. Type "porn" into Google, sans "PSP" and you're still gonna find porn. A slightly less sensationalistic piece would have discussed the prevalence of web browsers in various devices; or shown parents how to actually, y'know, use the PSP's parental controls to restrict access.

Nope. Instead they rode porn, terrorism, hate groups, pedophilia, sexual predation, and other "pathways to trouble" all the way to ratings heaven. "Eye-opening" clip embedded after the break.

Tags: Fox, November sweeps, NovemberSweeps, PlayStation pornable, PlaystationPornable, porn, PSP

(Page 1) Reader Comments

Aprime: Nov 8th 2006; 8:02PM

Maximum lulz.

Lone Starr: Nov 8th 2006; 8:04PM

Why all the RHCP music? Subtle messages? I think so!

Thomas Quinn: Nov 8th 2006; 8:05PM

Penny Arcade did a comic about this in April... strange how it's back on the news with the same moniker (PlayStation Pornable) all these months later. Make sure to check out the Penny Arcade podcast about this strip, as it's frickin' hilarious. It's called "The Same As It Ever Was."

Greg: Nov 8th 2006; 8:08PM

Im not suprised, if you live in the philly area you know that fox news is sh*t

delldude420: Nov 8th 2006; 8:09PM

sony is teh evil lol

otakucode: Nov 8th 2006; 8:09PM

And evidence that porn has ever affected a single person in all of human history negatively still goes missing...

Eric: Nov 8th 2006; 8:09PM

Since when did you need a credit card to get "hardcore Porn" on the net. Amateurs!

:p: Nov 8th 2006; 8:18PM

I just did a speech on how game culture is viewed through 'popular' or non-gaming culture and in my research I've found that this type of 'news' comes out a little too often for my tastes. The gaming community is always an easy target.

This is how is news cast came to be.

CoWorker: "hey, what are you up too?"
PSPUser: "Just looking at porn."
CoWorker: "What!? Why?"
PSPUser: "Well, I don't want to do any work and there are no new games so...."

// don't flame its just a joke :P

Oh and I can't wait to here a news cast of "Kid uses Wii too look at porn"

Blunt: Nov 8th 2006; 8:20PM

OMG MY EYES ARE SO VERY OPENED!!11!one!

I'm getting kinda sick of hearing this crap. It's called RESPONSIBLE PARENTING!

Neeks: Nov 8th 2006; 8:24PM

I love how it just randomly shows the swastika, "how to build a bomb", and KKK. Just to strike fear into the hearts of parents.

Nice job News, you've ruined Christmas for Timmy once again.

Sieg15: Nov 8th 2006; 8:32PM

They do know that you can put porn on anything nowadays right? Hell, GBA even has a video add on that can easily put porn on. Cell phones, TV (not just that fuzzy channel you get but don't get), anything with a screen, etc.

Also love how they showed Runescape and labeled it "dangerous for children". Not in those exact words but yeah, funny.

sith: Nov 8th 2006; 8:32PM

I like how at the end they're like "you can set parental controls...but beyond that you must TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN!!!!!1111OMG OMG THE SKY IS FALLING!!!"

Parents actually caring about their kids? Thats crazy talk.

John: Nov 8th 2006; 8:33PM

The school's WiFi connection doesn't have a porn filter? noobs

Tim: Nov 8th 2006; 8:37PM

The Internet is for PORN!

http://forporn.ytmnsfw.com/?ecc1c0f0ef911b04e5e52d31a5d6cdeb

Lone Starr: Nov 8th 2006; 8:38PM

@ :P

"CoWorker: 'hey, what are you up too?'"

Hahahahaha. Most appropriately amazing typo EVER. Someone needs a star.

:p: Nov 8th 2006; 8:52PM

WOW! Ha Ha the best part is I did it two times in the same post! Hawaiian education FTL :P

Pal: Nov 8th 2006; 8:55PM

Of course, Nintendo's DS with Opera is completely ignored. PSP, however, is the Devil.

Forget laptops, where kids can be anywhere in the house and look at mind warping porn (which, thankfully, cannot be viewed without paying...right).

Chris: Nov 8th 2006; 9:04PM

Ah, I love the smell of sensationalism in the morning...

You have a very nice dog, by the way.

george: Nov 8th 2006; 9:42PM

I live 30 minutes from philly and heard about this on the "previews" for that nights newscast. I dont watch fox news anymore though as its an hour long here in the philly area and i am not too found of them anymore. I really dont care about the negative press video games get sometimes. It wont hurt sales as long as some politician doesnt ban one someday.

mountain_rage: Nov 8th 2006; 9:43PM

Oh ya forgot to mention this is also why Nintendo is using friends codes, since allot of kids play videogames they were thinking in terms of preventing communication with anyone. Because if they lost their kids market it would be a big blow.

Chris Lawton: Nov 8th 2006; 9:48PM

I hate the fact that these people give my business a bad name.

NOT ALL JOURNALISTS ARE SENSATIONALISTS!

(Just the ones on TV)

See, I work for radio. We can't do stories about the dangers of porn. We can't have that "killer" video to back it up.

Just a word of caution...don't blame the "news media" for this. We aren't all like that. Most of us actually care about what we tell people in our newscast.

drsilverworm: Nov 8th 2006; 10:19PM

Ha, is that "Animal Bar" by RHCP I hear playing in the background? Since when does sensational news bits have such good taste in background music?

Epsilon: Nov 9th 2006; 12:06AM

Ya got that right Blunt.

mountain_rage: Nov 9th 2006; 12:15AM

Anyone going to question why the schools isn't blocking porn from their wireless network??? Anyone wanna explain why the school needs an open wireless network???

angelsnecropolis: Nov 9th 2006; 1:03AM

I'm hardcore Nintendo. But when I saw that video I had some mixed emotions. On one hand, I want another reason for Sony's PSP to go down the toilet. And in the other hand, I'm outraged at the ignorance and bad name that news article gives to gaming. And of course, it is Fox. If anyone has seen Outfoxed, you know what I mean. If you haven't seen that documentary, I highly recommend it.

As it is, I don't watch anything on the Fox “news” channel and I feel that Bill O'Reilly should be put down for spreading more ignorance. The last thing we need is more ignorance and negative press about gaming, or anything for that matter. Fox news just pi$$es me off.

Robot: Nov 9th 2006; 1:31AM

There are girls and violence on a gaming platform?!
Much less, the Internet?! Oh. My. God...
I need to get off this site right now.

Shore: Nov 9th 2006; 7:55AM

Angelsnecropolis,

Local Fox affiliates and Fox News are two seperate animals.

Bill O'Reilly has nothing to do with this piece.

And considering you've probably never seen an episode of his show in your life, please stop talking about ignorance.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Teco: Nov 9th 2006; 8:35AM

"3. Penny Arcade did a comic about this in April... strange how it's back on the news with the same moniker (PlayStation Pornable) all these months later. Make sure to check out the Penny Arcade podcast about this strip, as it's frickin' hilarious. It's called "The Same As It Ever Was."

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/06/02

Prof-KOS: Nov 9th 2006; 8:47AM

Wait a second, isn't this the same Philly Fox News station that ran the piece about pedophiles using the DS' chat function to defile the nation's children? Remember? The one where the reporter interviewed Gamerdad.com about the story, which he shot to pieces, then decided not to air any of his more salient points. That's not news, it's editorial content. Misinformed editorial content at that.

This kind of sensationalistic journalism is exactly what's wrong with news stations lately. I swear sometimes that these people won't be happy until we all stay inside 24 hours a day, never talk to our neighbours and not allow our children to play with friends. The ironic part is that when that happens we'll have no choice but to play videogames more.

C. Grant: Nov 9th 2006; 9:27AM

Prof-KOS: nope, that was Philly's ABC affiliate (linked in the post under "another local Philadelphia news outlet." Yeah, locals news is vile stuff ... but they did show my dog! :)

Thanks, Chris. She's the sweetest thing you'll ever meet.

Lil' Tommy: Nov 9th 2006; 9:28AM

Mommy, I was just surfing the inturnet and I went to this site about video games.. I think it was called joystick dot com. but, it wasn't about games mommy! they showed me naked girls and naked boys and the boys were doing stuff to the girls with their pee pee! mommy I am forever scarred!!!!!!!!

My. Eyes. Have. Been. Opened.

Joystiq, shame.

trujillo: Nov 9th 2006; 10:51AM

AAAAHHHHH! sorry i just crapped my pants. How long till they find out you can put porn on an iPod too?

PhillyRampage: Nov 9th 2006; 11:46AM

I live in Philly, and I saw this too and I am so ashamed that my local news actually did a piece about this.

Xiath: Nov 9th 2006; 4:03PM

So parents are gonna watch this, swear against Sony and buy their kids an iPod video. Which of course you can still put Porn on, any device that can hook up to a computer and can display pictures or photos can display pornography. Parents just need to supervise what their kids are doing.

Zamzoph: Nov 9th 2006; 5:21PM

I'm actually more surprised that the school's network doesn't have a WEP key on it or anything.

...and I recognized one of those porno-video screenshots the clip flashed for a split second...

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