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FriendCodes mean you can't sue Nintendo when a Halo-loving frat guy rapes a 15 yr old
JihadJesus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
The title pretty much says it all: a guy drove across the country to stalk and threaten to rape a 15year old girl he met through voice chat on Halo 3. A choice excerpt from the article:
In short: pedophiliac fuckheads and an overly litigious society combine to fuck over millions of sane gamers.
Spokane Police recently arrested a 20-year-old New York man who had traveled cross-country to stalk and harass a 15-year-old girl he met while playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live.
Joshua Stetar, the perpetrator, had apparently been sending flowers and gifts to the girl's home along with thousands of text messages before he decided the best course of action would be to drive 40 hours to Spokane to see the girl in person.
On arrival, Mr. Stetar began driving by the young girl's home, while sending text messages detailing his obsessive activities. When this wasn't enough to make everyone nearby feel like they needed to take a shower for a week, Mr. Stetar sent the girl a text message saying "Tell the cops that I'm gonna rape you and your sister."
In short: pedophiliac fuckheads and an overly litigious society combine to fuck over millions of sane gamers.
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Also, this will only fuel the "gamers are all closet sociopaths" argument.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
What's her address again?
Why don't you have a seat over there?
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
I mean, I hope not, but part of me fears that this could lead to some changes in the way console networks function down the road.
Obviously Halo's fault...
Edit: What Einhander said.
Well, she's the idiot, he's mentally ill.
the articles and his myspace say nothing of the sort
Generalisations are fun.
Because you don't have to be an ambulance chasing lawyer or a clueless media figure to make grossly inaccurate generalizations about video gamers.
Steam / Bus Blog / Goozex Referral
Well... He plays Halo.
And yes, I'm genuinely angered by this.
Also, the thread title is misleading a bit - he didn't actually rape her.
There was a thread about this on something awful forums a few days back and another article mentioned she gave her info to him a few years ago but then realized he was creepy so she changed it all. He then went through and found all her stuff by googling her (this is all according to him) and that's how he ended up stalking her.
Give me a bit to find the full article.
XBL - Follow Freeman
Whilst I agree in principal, research on rapists/likely potential rapists that have had their penis cut off shows that they are more likely to rape with a foreign object in future.
Just to slightly nitpick, the dude found out her personal information by googling her. It doesn't appear that she gave this information to him willingly.
Then again, you gotta be pretty naive/stupid to make your personal information publicly available on the internets.
Here's a more complete report.
Edit: Based on what xWonderboyx says, it looks like she did. Tweenage stupidity ftw!
I forgot to include locking them up forever and ever. Well, okay, that'd cost taxpayer money, blah blah. But I hope whatever community he moves into after he gets registered as a sex offender (which he should) has it in them to give him as hard a time as possible.
I'll be honest, I almost wrote out that I hope they lynch him. I hate scumbag rapists, and anyone stupid enough to threaten it is just as bad.
XBL - Follow Freeman
No, that's OK.
Okay, I'm gonna go cool off.
Hmm, after further reading, I see he did not kill her. My bad.
There's no girls on the internet.
"My bad"?! So your joke would've been okay if she was? NEWS FLASH. ITS NOT OKAY EITHER WAY.
And I lied about going away to cool off.
It really fucking doesn't need to be said by someone in fact. So shut up.
YEAH
XBL - Follow Freeman
Well it's ok because it's just a joke. When all is said and done, no one is going to care about one little joke.
That's all I will say on the topic.
The guy's definitely a sleezeball, and I don't want to take anything away from that, but why would a 15 year old even do such a thing?
Well, how long ago where you 15? The internet is a very new thing. Or, it's new for us in our 20's (I'm giving a general minimum age range; stay with me here, the point is coming). We now have kids growing up with the internet being something that was always there for them. So they don't have that fear of something new. They don't exercise the caution necessary to use it safely.
Also, reckless and / or careless parents.
Edit - Include "irresponsible" in that description of parents.
I'm not saying this was a proposed 'statutory' rape, but seriously, why do we question the judgement of a 15 year old girl? The question is the answer.
Where does it say anything about litigation?
It was a playful jab. Many people have stated the opinion that friend codes exist so that Nintendo can shield itself from liability in incredibly rare instances like this, since you have to communicate through means outside of Nintendo to interact online - and even then there's no voice chat.
I'm not saying this girl or her parent will sue Microsoft, or that it wouldn't be an incredibly stupid action to take, but it IS conceivable in cases like this - and sadly probably no less stupid than at least a dozen lawsuits filed today that we'll never hear about. Hence the comment.
As bad as our legal system is, it is still one of the better ones, IMO. Tort reform has the effect of keeping out valid claims, along with some bad ones. Litigation and the average monetary award has been on the decline for the last few decades, but you won't hear much about this, as the media likes wacky lawsuits (the administrative judge and his 40 million dollar pants).
PSN: super_emu
Xbox360 Gamertag: Emuchop
I don't think "conspiracy to rape" would hold up too well... if it did, I'd be commiting a jailable offense every time I look at a picture of angelina jolie.
Buried for stupid sensationalist story that Jack Thompson like people will likely use for their video games are the devil.
Bottom line is the kid gave out her info willingly to a stranger and bad shit happened. Stop blaming outside factors for reasoning.