Gaming —

Fan-made Battlefield 2 video mistaken for terrorist propaganda

A mediocre Battlefield 2 video makes the rounds as US sources claim it's an …

We've all seen  this sort of video before: in-game "movies" created by gamers to show off skill, tell a little story, or both. This one, for example, uses Battlefield 2, snippets of Team America: World Police, and a speech by George W. Bush. It's standard fare, really, and nothing particularly newsworthy. Or so it should have been.

Instead, the video was apaprently spotted by US officials, who understood it to be propaganda used by Islamic militants. Perhaps the content wasn't the only reason it was identified as such, however. As it turns out, the video was made by a Battlefield 2 fan named SonicJihad, which leads us to wonder if the combination of the video's contents and the author's nickname didn't lead someone to rush to judgement. After all, a quick online search would have shown where the flim came from, and what it was intended for. To say that gamers are having a field day would be a little bit of an understatement. Without a doubt, watching the video and then reading the "reports" about it is bound to give you a chuckle.

Then again, SonicJihad does have a political story to tell. The name is a reference to an artist who released a song called "Bush Killa." Still, this wouldn't be the first time a game was used for political means, and we all know that the US Government itself uses video games to train youngsters in the art of war and make the military more appealing. In the case of this purported propaganda, however, the only training that anyone should be talking about is how to use a search engine.

 

 

Channel Ars Technica