Student indoctrination disguised as counter-terrorism
A government-funded game (Pathways) teaches that thinking for yourself, criticizing weak politicians, wishing to take back control, or researching mass migration is extremist
A state-funded video game warns teenagers that thinking for yourself, criticizing weak politicians, wishing to take back control, or researching mass migration is sufficient for referral to the Prevent counter-terrorism programme.
Are the game-makers over-reaching? No, they’re funded by Prevent, which is run by the Home Office, which is responsible to the Home Secretary.
“Pathways” invites children to make choices for a teenage character to avoid being reported for “extreme Right-wing ideology.” No left-wing ideology is considered.
Players begin by choosing whether “Charlie” is boy or girl. Either way, Charlie is always described as “they.” Charlie and all “their” bad influences are white.
Early on, Charlie encounters a controversial video shared on a gaming platform. Options include “tell a trusted adult,” download it, or “talk to the stranger to find out more.” The game will criticize any choice other than “tell a trusted adult,” who turns out to be a teacher. So the game’s message is: thinking for yourself or discussing without a teacher is wrong.
Similarly, if Charlie engages videos claiming that the government is “betraying white British people” by prioritizing “Muslim men” over homeless veterans for emergency accommodation, and that citizens must “take back control,” “they” end up engaging with “groups” that “were actually illegal.” Thus, the game infers that the priorities and semantics voiced since 2016 by Vote Leave, Brexit Party, Conservative Party, and Reform UK are illegal. Majoritarianism be damned.
In another scenario, players choose whether Charlie should improve “their” academic performance, walk away frustrated, or explore a comment about immigrants stealing jobs, because a student with a non-white face performed better and got a job offer. Sounds like another false choice, doesn’t it?
If the player chooses for Charlie to attend a protest against “the changes that Britain has been through in the last few years and the erosion of British values,” the player learns that the protest was “more about racism and anti-immigration than British values.” It descends into “violence” and “attracts police attention.” No two-tier policing here.
So the message is: don’t trust British values. British values are like a gateway drug, apparently. Shame that schools are obliged to teach them. But never fear: now schools can teach “Pathways” instead, and still claim to be teaching British values.
Throughout the game, the player’s choices are judged on an “extremism meter” from red to green.
Missteps result in a final scenario in which the teacher sits down with Charlie to accuse “them” of an “ideology” (which Charlie accepts, without choice from the user) and to refer “them” to Prevent, to “receive support for some of the difficult thoughts.” The message is: teachers know better than you what you are thinking.
In Prevent, Charlie attends workshops to learn “right and wrong political thought.” All the instructors are non-white.
If the player makes all the wrong choices, Charlie is referred to Prevent’s Channel programme—reserved for those deemed to be terrorists.
But Charlie hasn’t made any choices for terrorism. Charlie engaged, researched, and thought for “they-self.” Such choices might (as the video portrays) expose “them” to harmful groups, but “they” might be able to filter for “they-self.” The video doesn’t teach filtering or critical thinking. The only selectivity it teaches: don’t engage anything except what your teacher approves.
Pathways is funded through the Home Office’s Preventing Radicalisation Fund, initially for use by authorities in Hull and East Riding, which have a habit of complaining to national government about the distribution of asylum claimants.
The game was developed by Shout Out UK (SOUK). The company’s founder and CEO, Matteo Bergamini, says the game equips young people with “life-long tools and skills” against extremism.
On the evidence of its own website, SOUK should have been barred from education under statutory prohibition of partisan teaching.
