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  • 2016-08-29 (xsd:date)
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  • U.S. Announces Plans to Ban Pokemon Go Permanently (en)
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  • On 24 August 2016, the unreliable web site That Viral Feed published an article reporting that the United States government was planning to permanently ban Americans from playing the popular mobile game Pokemon Go. That article, and many variations of it, were published to several other sites and became a popular item on Facebook. The earliest version we tracked was published on 22 August 2016, and its title contained a misspelling that appeared in subsequent versions: U.S. Plans to Ban Pokemon Go Permanantly. The ensuing mishmash of unsourced claims held that: It's true that the House of Representatives' Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a 19 July 2016 letter to Niantic, but that missive dealt with concerns about ensuring players were adequately informed of the game's effect on their mobile data usage, as well as concerns about safety and privacy issues related to the augmented reality app. No portion of that letter proposed or even hinted at a sweeping nationwide ban on Pokemon Go. Moreover, more than a month passed between news articles about the bizarre letter sent to Niantic and claims the government planned to ban Pokemon Go permanently, yet we were unable to locate anything remotely resembling the purported announcement by lawmakers that they were thinking of banning Pokemon Go forever in the meanwhile. Finally, no reputable news outlet covered what would otherwise be a major technology story, and the rumor was largely advanced by known hoax purveyors seeking to attract readers via outlandish falsehoods shared via social media. (en)
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