US President Donald Trump held a meeting with representatives of the video game industry to discuss how violent media impacts the mental health and development of young people in the country.
The meeting was stimulated following the shooting massacre of 17 students and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida last month. Mr Trump previously blamed video games for the school shootings and said the Internet was doing bad things to forming “young minds”.
“We have to do something maybe about what they’re seeing, how they’re seeing it and also video game,” Mr Trump said last month.
“I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.”
During the meeting, Trump showed attendees a short video montage of video game deaths. The montage is meant to demonstrate how violent games can be and suggests violence in the medium is partly responsible for America’s recurring mass shootings.
The 88-second compilation consisted of scenes from favourite video games including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as well as Wolfenstein: The New Order, Dead by Daylight, Fallout 4 and Sniper Elite 4 with graphic scenes of blood and gore, including beheadings, stabbings and men unleashing fire on bystanders in an airport.
Trump reportedly opened the meeting by playing the video, asking, “This is violent, isn’t it?”
The White House released a statement after the meeting: “The President acknowledged some studies have indicated there is a correlation between video game violence and real violence. The conversation centred on whether violent video games, including games that graphically simulate killing, desensitise our community to violence.”
The White House publicly released the video on its YouTube Channel. It was viewed more than 600,000 times in less than 24 hours, and was later moved to an “unlisted” status.
