A 4-year-old boy was reported under the UK’s anti-terrorism scheme Prevent for talking about weapons and bombs in a club about Fortnite.
Here’s why the boy was reported: A Muslim boy, only 4 years old, and his family were reported under the UK’s Prevent scheme after he was overheard during what seemed to be a shocking conversation in the school club.
The boy told one of the club’s staff that he had been at home with his father the day before and that his father had “weapons and bombs in his shed.”
However, it turned out that the conversation was about the shooter Fortnite. The boy had watched his cousin playing the game and subsequently told the staff member about it.
Fortnite is a popular game with millions of players, and it is not unusual for it to be a topic of conversation among kids. The boy’s words were taken out of context in the report to Prevent. According to the British newspaper The Guardian, this is also evidenced by a transcript of the entire conversation that Prevent had.
Fortnite and gaming are explicitly mentioned in it, according to The Guardian.
Anti-Muslim Background of the Report?
This is what the mother says: Following the report, a police officer contacted the family. The boy’s mother told The Guardian that the officer himself was confused.
He explained to her that he had to follow the rules of Prevent and didn’t really know why the case was reported. If the authorities had expected serious terrorist threats, they would not have sent him alone to the house.
According to The Guardian, the mother suspects anti-Muslim motives behind the report. She said to the British newspaper:
The authorities sent me all the information, including the transcript of the conversation. It is clear that he mentions Fortnite. He is just a little boy with imagination. The teachers should know in this context that they [the children] have imagination. […] I think if it had been a white boy, they wouldn’t have acted so drastically and reported him to Prevent.
The boy’s mother to The Guardian.
This is Prevent: Established in 2003, Prevent is part of the UK’s anti-terror strategy CONTEST (via official site). It is one of the 4 measures aimed at reducing the threat of terrorism.
The goal of Prevent is to prevent the radicalization of individuals and to stop them from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.
To this end, public institutions like kindergartens or schools can report concerning or suspicious cases to Prevent, as was the case with the Muslim boy.
The case of the 4-year-old boy is not the only one where gaming terms or images have been taken out of context. After a terrorist attack in Halle, ZDF edited footage of it onto the verified Twitch stream of DreamHack for CS:GO.
ZDF edited terror attack into a large Twitch stream for CS:GO – Sparks outrage
