Graphic pro-Israel adverts have been shown in several children’s video games across Europe, including the popular Angry Birds Games.
An investigation by Reuters uncovered several instances of such adverts being showcased on gaming platforms designed for children.
In one case, a six-year-old boy playing an android puzzle game was exposed to a video of ‘Hamas militants, terrified Israeli families and blurred graphic footage’.
Over a black screen, a message – reported by Reuters as from the Israeli government – read in capitals: ‘We will make sure that those who harm us pay a heavy price.’
The child’s mother, Maria Julia Cassis, a barista from Brazil who lives in north London, said her son was ‘left shaken’ after seeing the advert.
“He looked very distraught. He came running to me and said something like, ‘Mum what is this bloody ad doing on my phone, I didn’t click anything’,” Cassis said.
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“The text on the screen read, ‘Hamas is Isis’, ‘They’re slaughtering children’, ‘Children are being kidnapped’, ‘Your child could be kidnapped next’. So, it was very disturbing.”
The investigation, which identified at least five further cases of children being shown graphic ads – such as footage of rocket attacks, explosions and masked gunmen – has not yet been able to establish how the ad has managed to be run on the video game.
The news agency reported that Cassis has now deleted the game, Alice’s Mergeland, made by developer LazyDog Game which allows users to design their own fantasy world.
Speaking to the SEGA-owned developer of the popular Angry Birds game, Rovio, the company confirmed that ‘somehow these ads with disturbing content have in error made it through to our game’.
While Rovio spokesperson, Lotta Backlund, did not provide details on which of its ‘dozen or so ad partners’ had supplied it with the ad, Rovio announced that these adverts were now being blocked manually.
In response, the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs’ head of digital, David Saranga, confirmed that the video was a government-sponsored ad, but admitted he had ‘no idea’ as to why it had been hosted on young children’s platforms.
Noting that government officials had specifically instructed advertisers ‘to block it for people under 18’, Saranga went on to defend the graphic nature of the ad campaign.
‘We want the world to understand what happened here in Israel. It’s a massacre,’ he added referring to the Israeli-Hamas war.
Other games the advert was reportedly shown on include a block-building game Stack, puzzle game Balls’n Ropes, Solitaire: Card Game 2023 and Subway Surfers.
