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Twitter bans House candidate who suggested Ilhan Omar should be hanged
Twitter may be reluctant to crack down on politicians' tweets, but it still has its limits -- and one political candidate may have crossed the line. The social media giant has permanently banned Republican House candidate Danielle Stella's personal and campaign accounts for "repeated violations" of Twitter's policies. While it didn't elaborate on what those violations were, Stella's campaign suggested that her potential rival, incumbent representative Ilhan Omar, should be "tried for #treason and hanged" if she was found to have passed sensitive info to Iran through Qatar. That claim is unsupported by evidence. The posts may have violated Twitter policies forbidding the promotion of violence or threats.
Studio changes policy after dev threatens to kill Gabe Newell
In October, after discovering issues with his game Paranautical Activity on Steam, independent developer Mike Maulbeck published a series of angry tweets that concluded with, "I am going to kill gabe newell. He is going to die." Newell is the founder of Valve, the company that runs Steam, the internet's largest gaming digital distribution hub. Because of the threat, Valve pulled Paranautical Activity from Steam and cut ties with Maulbeck's studio, Code Avarice. That same day, Maulbeck announced he was leaving Code Avarice entirely. Today, Code Avarice announced that Maulbeck is back with the studio. "Mike couldn't commit to his decision to leave Code Avarice," reads the studio's blog post. "[Co-owner Travis Pfenning] publicly denounced his departure, and in the weeks following his official stepping down Mike had second thoughts. Looking for a new source of income was extremely overwhelming and when it finally came time to put pen to paper, Mike and Travis agreed the best thing to do would be to have Mike return to Code Avarice." Maulbeck and Pfenning are taking a step back from the spotlight with a few changes to company policy: "The second half of this announcement is that we're taking steps to make Code Avarice more about the games and less about the people making them. From now on rather than blog posts being written and signed by one of the developers, they will all be co-written by Mike AND Travis, and written from the perspective of the company rather than an individual." [Image: Code Avarice]
Couple marries at 5th Avenue Apple Store on Valentine's Day
We've seen robberies at Apple Stores before, we've seen kids rapping and we've even seen death threats, but I don't know that I've ever heard of a wedding in an Apple Store. That's what newlyweds Ya Ting Li and Joshua Li decided to do at midnight in the Fifth Avenue Apple Store on Valentine's Day -- right there among the iMacs and Macbooks, they got their wedding officiated by a turtlenecked Steve Jobs stand-in. The rings came in on an original iPod, and the cards and decorations were Apple-themed as well (one says "I love you more than this" with a picture of an iPhone on it). Why did they choose to have their wedding in an Apple temple? The couple even met at an Apple Store. We don't know the details of that, but we'd like to think their eyes found each other over a 17" MacBook Pro. Very cute. Congrats to the happy couple -- we would hope that they got AppleCare for the marriage, but we doubt they'd need it.
Gamer pays to get away from Xbox Live death threat
Surprise of the day: Xbox Live is an encyclopedic wonderland of foul-mouth debauchery. Blogger David Zatz says one Call of Duty: World at War soldier took trash-talking to the new heights when he threatened, "I'll kill you in real life with a real gun." Zatz admits he was also talking trash during the online session but the threat took competitive speech too far, no matter how "unlikely" the threat was.After the incident Zatz decided to change his gamertag and requested Microsoft waive its required cost to change an online identity. Not only did Microsoft deny his request but Zatz claims the support agent was very "dismissive" of the situation in general. "Death threats must come in regularly, because the support staff didn't seem concerned." Eventually, Zatz paid to change his gamertag. Should Microsoft be more vigilant about specific chatter on Xbox Live? Maybe, but with nothing in place to prove what's said it would be next to impossible -- it's your word against another person. We'd suggest players not egg each other along and then be surprised when someone takes things too far, utilize the reporting system on Xbox Live and play with the people you know.[via What They Play]
MGS4's Ryan Payton talks plot fudging and execution essays
Shortly before leaving Kojima Productions, Metal Gear Solid 4 producer Ryan Payton had a chat with 1UP, discussing the many highlights of working on one of the year's biggest blockbusters. As is often the case with this line of work, Payton was privy to several elaborate death threats. "When word hit that I chose Pat Zimmerman for Liquid Ocelot -- and not Cam Clarke -- I got dozens of hateful messages from fans including a 2,000 word short story depicting my execution."Payton also expressed a belief that the development team did a sterling job with untangling Metal Gear Solid's twisted story -- with minimal plot fudging. "The stories of MGS2 and MGS3 were truly written without any backup measures if the series continued, leaving dozens of confusing and unexplained plot elements in the wake," he said." The fact that we were able to tie up all the loose ends with MGS4 was nothing short of a miracle." Miraculous acts happen to include the amazing gender bending of not only Olga's child, but MGS1's briefly mentioned Dr. Clark. In Snake's world, anything goes.
Scientists get death threats over Large Hadron Collider
Really people, enough is enough. Death threats? Seriously? According to a fresh report from the Telegraph, gurus working on the mysterious Large Hadron Collider are receiving all sorts of strange messages, e-mails and faxes as the go-live date (this Wednesday, supposedly) draws ever closer. For those curious about why some folks are up in arms over this thing, we'll simply point you to this very informational rap video; for those opposed to nerdy hip-hop, let's just say its primary goal is to "seek out new particles including the long-awaited Higgs boson responsible for making things weigh what they do and the possible source of gravity called dark matter." Somehow or another, the paranoid among us think that carrying out those tasks will rip the world wide open or leave you stuck in 1990 with nothing in your CD player but Ice Ice Baby. Okay, so maybe that last scenario is worth getting worked up about.[Via TGDaily]
When good toys go bad X: Elmo makes death threats to toddler
Sure, it seemed like after the years of hard drinking, petty crime, and run-ins with the law, Elmo had cleaned up his act -- but a shocking report out of Tampa Bay, Florida, says otherwise. A two-year-old's life has been turned upside down by vicious talk coming from his favorite toy, Elmo Knows Your Name. It seems that after a recent battery change, the PC-interfacing doll began spouting death threats of "kill James" at the toddler, with seemingly no explanation as to how the new phrase entered his vocabulary. The situation came to a head when the boy's mother heard her son repeating the twisted suggestion. Of course, what she didn't hear was Elmo's other threat: that he would "cut anyone who crossed [him] end-to-end with a Bowie knife," and, "dine on their internal organs." Fisher Price says it has a team of experts working on the case, and enough tranquilizer darts to put Elmo down, "For good."[Thanks, Jordan]Read - Toddler's Elmo Doll Makes Death Threats, Family SaysRead - Video of Elmo making death threats
