Microsoft labels autisitic child a cheater on Xbox live.

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Ah, I understand now. I have not read that book.


That is interesting. I believe that a child or teenager should be able to play a mature game (not adults-only, since those are pretty much just pornography, which is not legal for people under 18 (although almost everyone under 18 looks at porn anyways!)), but only if the person understands the content (as in it's illegal to beat prostitutes to death with a baseball bat, or steal or car, or that swearing can get them in trouble in various places) and does not attempt to replicate it; he knows that the game is fantasy and not real. Of course the parent or guardian is the one to decide this, as it is their responsibility to ensure the well-being of their child.

I played Teen-rated games when I was 7 years old, and Mature-rated games when I was probably 10 or 11, with no supervision or anything, and I had no problem knowing that everything in the game was fantasy and not necessarily something I should replicate, and no one ever told me this, I just had the common sense not to. But most children wouldn't know this. Playing those games has had no negative affect on me, but I was obviously an outlier.

Also, my apologies if my posts are disjointed and/or hard to understand, my thoughts are always like that, and it usually becomes apparent when I write a large post.

It's not ignorance of the rules, it's ignorance of the breaking of the rules that was happening with his account.

No, I think you are missing my point. I think that the world should not assume that he doesn't know better because of his label.

Let's take the label out of the equation.

If he was the average 11 year old, which would we assume?

Edit: Would we assume that he knew what was going on or not?

Last edited by MrLoony on 30 Jan 2011, 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

If he was an average 11 year old NT kid then he would be labelled a cheater and there would be no news story.

I feel a bit scammed by the family, I notice the idea that they gave out his account to others didn't come up in the first story. The kid didn't earn all those achievements, how many did he get my loaning out his account that didn't show up as a cheat? He might be great, start a new account and do it all yourself, lesson learned.

I hope the kid did have help, I hate to think of him playing xbox constantly all the time some estimate it would take to earn those points. I hope the family is at least trying some other programs or outlets for social skill development. There are a lot of 11 year olds that would love to sit and play xbox all day if they could, all things in moderation is a good rule of thumb.

This is exactly my point. I am offended that the news media has made this into a story because he is autistic, and that his mother obviously used his label to make it so. This happens daily to NT people and you never hear a word about it in the press. The underlying message in the original story is that MS is an evil company because they banned a kid for cheating who obviously could not have known any better because he is autistic. Autistic = stupid. Autistic = retarded. I am autistic and I take offense at those labels. If I was ever given a pass because of my label I would die of humiliation.

Except that Microsoft doesn't follow any "public humiliation" policy; you will notice that they never named the child, nor his mother, in response to enquiries; after being pestered for three days, they did provide the gamertag, which only tells you who that is if you happen to already know him (in which case his mother has probably already filled your ears with the tale).

Further, Microsoft didn't make this public; that's contrary to corporate policy. Instead, the boy's mother insisted on taking this to the press, apparently in the sincere belief that her little angel couldn't possibly have done anything naughty (a level of protection from consequences that, in my opinion, borders on child abuse, as it leaves a child unfit to deal with a world where Mommy isn't always there to protect the child's fragile ego). She seems to have assumed that since her son is autistic, Microsoft would apologize, back down, and give him all his unearned Achievements.

I begin to agree with MidlifeAspie on this point - I'm a bit insulted that so many think all autistics need to be so very sheltered...