Written by: Lauren Avis

Edited by: Ashlesha Shringarpure and Louise Deroi

With wires strung to his fingers and a hood over his head, he stands precariously on a cardboard box, told that if he were to fall, he would be electrocuted. The story of the Hooded Man, later revealed to be Iraqi prisoner Abdoud Faleh, horrified the public and exposed the horrors of the U.S. torture regime waged in the name of counterterrorism. A year later, teenagers lined up to buy Call Of Duty (COD) II, where the opening scene reveals a prisoner of war (POW) being beaten for information. At first, the two events appear unrelated,but further investigation reveals the simultaneous progression of the normalization of torture through media, and the growing concern over the U.S. torture regime. Collaboration between video game developers and national governments can work to legitimize such human rights abuses by producing fictive depictions of torture that obscure the boundary between entertainment and real-world violations. Human Rights Organizations (HROs) can harness video games as an important platform for advocacy.

Revelations of Torture

9/11 marked the ignition of the global War on Terror. In response to Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center, the U.S. and its allies launched a multidimensional military campaign spanning across the Middle Eastern region, set to dismantle militant Islamist groups. Under the leadership of President George Bush, America conducted two explicit invasions, indiscriminate drone strikes, and a slew of intelligence operations. 

U.S. policy, sanctioned by the legalism of the Torture Memos,  had allowed for coercive brutality to be employed as a means of interrogation, despite its objective lack of results and cruelty. 

Accounts of torture by the U.S. Forces during this time  – whether it be from various prisons or CIA blacksites across the Middle East and Central Asia, or just south of the border at Guantánemo – eventually flooded the news as detainees were brutally interrogated without due process. HROs and international organisations decried these human rights violations, as widespread campaigning and protests erupted demanding accountability and justice for the victims.

The international consensus provided by the UN’s 1987 Convention Against Torture declares that inflicting severe pain, physically or mentally, to obtain information, punish, intimidate, or discriminate, constitutes criminal behaviour and an infringement on human rights. The U.S.’ interrogation procedures not only violated the above Convention, but also raise serious concerns about their moral implications and their fundamental violations of human rights.

The War on Terror and Grassroots Reactions

The War on Terror raised grave concerns about the legitimacy of human rights violations in the context of global defense against terrorism. 

In response to disclosures by journalists, detainees, and US soldiers alike of the use of torture, HROs engaged in various campaigns to pressure states into defending against these human rights infringements. Mobilization was rather conventional, with protests, petitions, and demonstrations marking the standard HRO reaction. 

A 2005 pamphlet distributed by Amnesty International recounts these acts of brutality against prisoners, and ultimately calls for three pillars of action: Prohibit—the international community should make a declaration of prohibition and condemnation of torture; Protect—governments should provide safeguards mandated by international law to detainees; Prosecute—investigations and prosecutions by states of those accused of torture. 

Tangible support and implementation of these calls to action was marginal, if not wholly neglected. Even worse, explicit criticism of American actions was not met well by a public who perceived any condemnation as inherently anti-American. 

Temporal Coincidences of Torture Depictions 

In the prime years of Bush’s War On Terror from 2002 to 2008, 5 games were released in the COD franchise. It revolutionized first person shooter games in its accurate depictions of infantry and combined arms warfare, with Pentagon officials praising it for its faithfulness to real combat. Within the first five releases, there were five scenes in which torture was invoked wantingly, blended in with the barrage of bullets and explosives that you would expect from a first person shooter. 

In COD 4: Modern Warfare (2007), the protagonist Price brutalizes a bound character named Al-Asad for information. When he refuses to provide information, he is extrajudicially executed. During release, human rights networks, such as the Red Cross, condemned the extensive use of torture in the game series, warning that the depiction of human rights violations in video games can have serious implications for actual military behaviour. 

There is a clear rationale in HRO’s concern over the normalization of military abuses. At the same time that the American Union for Civil Liberties was preparing petitions against the extraordinary rendition of detained foreign nationals, the media was normalizing the same crime. Against the backdrop of constant news of the American state’s proclivity towards torture, COD players are encouraged to gas, beat, electrocute, and blowtorch adversaries within the game. HROs were faced with the fact that the digital space would also need to be addressed, as popular attitudes had normalized the human rights abuses that these organizations were fighting so vehemently against.

Accurate or Excessive? 

Games such as COD seemingly concern themselves with accuracy, often being consulted by the US Military in game design and storybuilding. This marks a disturbing synergy of the military-entertainment complex. However, any accuracy stops with torture: While players enjoy ranking the quality and degree of severity of each scene, there is no address of the fact that torture just does not work,neuroscientifically nor morally. It is an intuitive assumption for us to think that when someone is subjected to great harm, they will break and comply. However, in reality, the brain fails to recollect information accurately when presented with stressors, such as psychological and physical pain. Accurate information, the objective of any interrogation, is instead more achievable with rapport-based methods such as the PEACE method; coercive methods, on the other hand, routinely produce false confessions. The reality of torture’s ineffectiveness is not communicated. Captives with foreign names are often killed regardless of the information they provide, which is presented as acceptable due to their terroristic crimes illustrated in the storyline. 

The gameplay mirrors the geopolitical reality of American torture: the victims are presumed terrorists, and following the global shock of the 9/11 attacks, many in both the government and American public view it as ridiculous to respect their human rights. COD’s framing of torture as not only utilitarian, but deserved when inflicted on adversaries and a necessary step to reach the next stage of gameplay, can easily be projected by players onto real-life instances of such human rights abuses. 

Shifting Norms in Video Games and Beyond

Violence in video games is not a new topic in the realm of critical media studies: it is clear in the literature that there is no causal link between hyper-violence in video games and increased violent behaviour. However, there is evidence that entertainment and media has the ability to influence individual beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours – relevantly, this would apply to perception of human rights norms. Torture’s frequent appearance in video games, both as something to be received and administered, is often explained as a means to accurately depict the brutality of warfare. 

The Quest to Justify Torture

HROs across the globe have recognized the widespread public acceptance of torture as a major obstable in reaching tangible goals of accountability and justice. 

In 2009, more than 16 per cent  of Americans claimed torture as an always justified means of interrogating suspected terrorists, with 28 per cent  saying that sometimes it is justified. At the same time globally, there was an increase in citizens’ willingness to accept their government’s use of torture in the context of counterterrorism. This proved devastating to the various movements against torture, as wholesale abolition was never able to garner substantial support. Without widespread public support, HROs were unable to adequately push for accountability, access documents, and mount significant judicial challenges. 

While there were successes in documentation and awareness, this means little if the public disagrees with the very human rights norms such organizations sought to promote. As appropriately summarized in the CallOfDuty subreddit: “Overall torture in COD was okay. In my opinion modern warfare 4 should have a hardcore ball busting scene, or something from r/cbtbdsm to really drive home the point that they get dirty so that the world stays clean. I think that kind of pain could really get a bad guy talking.” 

A Space for Awareness?

To gain public support for social causes, organizations need to facilitate outreach to media spaces wherein human rights norms may be challenged. Solutions do not have to lay in dramatic prohibition of violent games, which would surely be met with resistance. As argued by Bogost (2007), in-game simulations of torture can expose the act for its repulsiveness. Instead of decontextualizing torture, players ought to   reckon with and reflect upon the butchery they are artificially engaging with.  

Many still believe more needs to be done, and that there is a need for a human-rights-based framework in meeting players where they are and establishing a hard line on the unacceptability of torture.

Human Rights Organizations Playing he Game

The International Committee of the Red Cross has engaged with designers of video games to promote the integration of laws of armed conflict, wherein players are rewarded for adhering to international norms. For instance, developers of Arma 3 have worked closely with the Red Cross to establish “Rules of War.” Similarly, the Center for Victims of Torture has made the connection between advocacy and video games: Games should be responsible for including the effects of torture beyond the standard short-frames of gameplay. 

Pro Juvente and Trial, both Swiss HROs, further this idea in advocating for the elimination of any illusions of impunity or justice in acts of torture. 

Defending Norms, No Matter Where

The release of the overwhelmingly popular COD franchise at the same time as the real-life exposure of the U.S.’ interrogation program is indicative of the media’s ability to apologize for and justify criminal actions of the state. 

While recognizing creative licensing and certainly not undermining other avenues of norm influence, organizations that seek to adhere to international norms of equality and sanctity of life must understand that norms can be eroded in media, especially interactive media where the player takes a primary role in such criminal acts.

Perhaps video games are just a symptom of norm erosion, not a cause. Regardless of its role in originating these beliefs, it is undeniable that they are propagated through such media both covertly and explicitly. As violence in interactive media remains popular and diversified in its categorization of an ‘adversary’, activists must consider this space as an arena of influence that can be won. 

Image: Activision, Call of Duty II ‘Interrogation of Al-Asad’, 2005, Call of Duty