Playing Harry Potter videogame endangers the lives of transgender people, says reporter



Playing a new Harry Potter video game endangers transgender people and directly funds the "anti-trans movement," according to a transgender activist and writer for MSNBC.

The Harry Potter video game Hogwarts Legacy was released to rave reviews in early February 2023, but a transgender activist and author has called the game insulting and a danger to the transgender community that will leave transgender people wondering if gamers are "transphobic" should they choose to play it.

MSNBC's Katelyn Burns, whom the outlet describes as "the first openly transgender Capitol Hill reporter in U.S. history," says that even the transgender character in Hogwarts Legacy, the first of its kind in the Harry Potter universe, is insulting to transgender people.

The character, named Sirona Ryan, borrows from a Celtic deity named Sirona, a goddess associated with healing and healing springs. The activist, however, does not celebrate the inclusion of the character, rather taking issue along with others that the character's name begins with "Sir."

"Many trans people immediately pointed out that the word 'Sir,' which is a common way to misgender trans women, is quite prominent in the name itself," says Burns.


\u201cHogwarts Legacy features a transgender character, Sirona Ryan, and she can be met early on in the game. https://t.co/iwQEyTDxyD\u201d
— IGN (@IGN) 1675721825

Citing the restaurant chain Chick-fil-A, the activist remarks that playing, buying, or streaming the game directly supports anti-transgender activities, even endangering the lives of transgender people as well.

"By buying, playing, streaming and promoting the game, you give money to Rowling to directly financially support the anti-trans movement," the author writes.

"Just as we understand that people who eat [at Chick-Fil-A] are putting money in the pockets of the homophobia industry, so must we understand that playing the new wizard game will help fund the anti-trans movement," Burns adds.

Not even donating to a "trans rights organization" can offset the harm caused by playing the game, the activist claims, stating that it would only placate the gamer's own guilt.

"You’re still boosting the profile and bottom line of the Potterverse, and therefore helping to endanger the lives of trans people," the transgender woman says.

Despite this, the activist says he is not asking gamers to boycott the game, but says that if one does choose to play it, it could come at the cost of one's transgender friends wondering if the gamer is transphobic, causing them to "readjust their trust levels with you accordingly."

"So are you transphobic if you play the game? Probably not. But the trans people in your lives will always be wondering," the author concludes.

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Twitch suspends AI-generated Seinfeld show for 'transphobic' jokes



Streaming platform Twitch has suspended a Seinfeld spoof, completely generated but artificial intelligence, for scenes in which the AI Jerry Seinfeld tells jokes that are "transphobic" and call liberals "secretly gay," according to Kotaku.

Twitch's 24-hour livestreaming channel called WatchMeForever was suspended for two weeks over the show called "Nothing, Forever," which is completely AI-driven, using machine-learning platforms such as Stable Diffusion, DALL-E, and OpenAI GPT-3.

Dialogue and parodies of characters from Seinfeld are generated to create storylines, with character names such as Larry Feinberg (Jerry Seinfeld), Yvonne (Elaine), Fred (George), and Zoltan (Kramer.)

Typical scenes of the show place the characters in a New York City apartment or a stand-up comedy club.

The latter would appear to be where everything went wrong.

In a clip circulating online, the Seinfeld-esque character performs the following routine in a comedy club:

"So, this is my stand-up set in a club. There's like 50 people here, and no one is laughing, anyone have any suggestions?" Larry Feinberg asks.

"I'm thinking about doing a bit about how being transgender is actually a mental illness. Or how all liberals are secretly gay and want to impose their will on everyone."

"Or something about how transgender people are ruining the fabric of society; but no one is laughing so I'm going to stop. Thanks for coming out tonight, see you next time. Where'd everybody go? Oh, right."

\u201c"nothing forever" a 24-hour twitch live stream that is AI generated Seinfeld was banned after calling transgenders mentally ill.\u201d
— I,Hypocrite (@I,Hypocrite) 1675789394

The show's co-creator was "super embarrassed" and blamed a lack of "moderation" in the AI-generated script model, calling the dialogue "inappropriate."

“We thought we had solved for this problem—we use a built-in content moderation system provided by OpenAI—but clearly we hadn’t,” said Skyler Hartle in an email exchange with Kotaku.

"We are currently investigating how we can implement a secondary content moderation system to have an extra layer of redundancy to ensure this doesn’t happen again. We mistakenly believed we were correctly leveraging OpenAI’s tools for content moderation, but that wasn’t the case. We are planning to implement OpenAI’s content moderation systems before going live again, in addition to looking at services for secondary content moderation as a redundancy," Hartle explained.

Hartle told the tech outlet that the show creators have been "investigating the root cause of the issue," which was allegedly caused by switching to a different AI text generator as a backup.

When their preferred program, OpenAI GPT-3, wasn't working, the creators would switch to a program called Curie to ensure the livestream of their show never stopped.

"We hope this sheds a little light on how this happened,” Hartle said.

The co-creator also said the views expressed in the AI show don't reflect his company's values or opinions.

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\u201cNothing, Forever is a Twitch stream fever dream where you can watch an AI\u2019s interpretation of Seinfeld. https://t.co/psp9mQ10wg\u201d
— IGN (@IGN) 1675447031


\u201cthe seinfeld AI managed to recreate the marcel subplot from friends\n#nothingforever #watchmeforever\u201d
— AwwScrap | \ud83d\udc38 PNGTuber (@AwwScrap | \ud83d\udc38 PNGTuber) 1675639968


\u201cThe Nothing, Forever AI just talked about the Afterlife. Shit got deep.\u201d
— TastyZero (@TastyZero) 1675315065

Video game websites IGN and Game Informer post and then retract support for Palestinian civilians



Video game and entertainment media outlets IGN and Game Informer published and then retracted articles encouraging readers to donate to charities for the Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire of the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

On May 14, IGN posted an article titled, "How to Help Palestine," which provided links to five charities and organizations that provide humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians living in the West Bank and Gaza. The article featured a graphic of the Palestinian flag in IGN's masthead.

"Palestinian civilians are currently suffering in great numbers in Jerusalem, Gaza, and West Bank, due to the active Israel-Palestine conflict," IGN staff wrote. "The NYTimes reported that most of the deaths so far have occurred in Gaza. Below are charities and organizations on the ground in those areas where you can donate funds to help those most in need. We will continue to update this article with other ways you can help."

Game Informer staff published a similar article on May 15, citing the IGN post and linking to the same charities. Several top gaming outlets posted their own pro-Palestine stories, following IGN's lead.

But on Monday, the IGN and Game Informer articles were taken down. IGN released a statement about the removal, apologizing for appearing to take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We have a track record of supporting humanitarian efforts and charities across the globe. In the instance of our recent post regarding how to help civilians in the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, our philanthropic instincts to help those in need was not in-line with our intent of trying to show support for all people impacted by tragic events," IGN said.

"By highlighting only one population, the post mistakenly left the impression that we were politically aligned with one side. That was not our intention and we sincerely regret the error."

Game Informer has not yet released a public statement on why its article was taken down.

Kotaku reported that after the IGN article went live, IGN Israel shared a statement on its social media accounts condemning the U.S. IGN article and social media posts supporting Palestinian charities as "misleading."

"We at IGN Israel support the State of Israel (obviously) and support IDF soldiers who do everything to keep us all in these tough days," IGN Israel stated. "We work in every way possible to remove this misleading and offensive content from the American edition which does not represent our views."

That post by IGN Israel has since been deleted.

Reacting on social media, various game industry journalists and media figures were critical of the decision and speculated that IGN's Palestinian-sympathetic editorial staff was under orders from the website's corporate owners to take down the post.

Understand how important this is: clearly @IGN and @gameinformer editorial posted this under their editorial freedo… https://t.co/9yn12G25mb

— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) 1621188125.0

Can't begin to imagine what kind of hell IGN editorial is going through right now, as I'm sure pulling that piece w… https://t.co/LGCMnIAUpa

— Elise Favis (@elisefavis) 1621268887.0

The decision to pull that post from IGN was without question made by people above the editorial level. Whether you… https://t.co/Ztf42l6t6g

— Susan Arendt (@SusanArendt) 1621261796.0

"https://t.co/ktJqTYWgZY understands the decision to pull the IGN article was not made by editorial staff." - I ima… https://t.co/q3yOy5XMf6

— Colin Campbell (@ColinCampbellx) 1621267562.0

solidarity with the ign editorial team who got completely blindsided and screwed over by this decision https://t.co/bNrNUra61e

— dylan haas (@iamdylanhaas) 1621261361.0

Another shameful example of spineless corporate censorship, especially when the original post was simply promoting… https://t.co/EddEW7Rys6

— Brad Shankar (@bradshankar) 1621258959.0

This is not ok. It fails to address the sudden removal of humanitarian content without context. It appears to be a… https://t.co/6jJkjqwLMK

— Jared Petty (@pettycommajared) 1621259333.0

Israeli-Palestinian fighting began again after weeks of tensions boiled over into violence when Israel's Supreme Court approved the evictions of six Palestinian families from a neighborhood in East Jerusalem to make way for Israeli settlers. On May 7, Israeli police were deployed to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, where conflict with Palestinian worshippers there led to rocket strikes on Israel by Hamas and retaliation by Israeli Defense Forces.

President Joe Biden on Sunday spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raising concerns about civilian casualties in Gaza amid the ongoing violence. Palestinian health officials claim at least 140 civilians, including dozens of children, have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, while nine people, including two children, were killed by Hamas rockets in Israel.

More than 25 Democratic senators, led by Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) have called for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestine to "prevent further loss of life and further escalation of violence."