Philippines blocks GoreBox gaming app after school shooting kills three, injures 20

Philippine authorities have temporarily blocked the online gaming app GoreBox days after a rare school shooting in the south-east Asian nation killed three students and injured 20 others.Investigators said that of the two teenagers accused of opening fire on students at San Jose National high school in Tacloban city, one had regularly played the game, which allows players to use various weapons and depicts graphic violence.GoreBox is described on Google Play as allowing gamers to “Engage in brutal combat with an extensive arsenal of weapons and explosives, and witness the raw effects of realistic ragdoll physics and an intense gore system that brings dismemberment to life.”Launched in 2023 by F2 Games, GoreBox has more than 10m downloads on Google Play and carries an R18+ rating by the International Age Rating Coalition due to its depictions of extreme violence.The company did not immediately respond to questions from The Guardian.The Philippines’ cybercrime investigation and coordinating centre (CICC) said it had issued a temporary ban against the mobile gaming app as a precautionary measure pending investigation.“We cannot ignore possible online influences that may have contributed to this tragic incident,” said CICC undersecretary Aboy Paraiso.Temporarily blocking the game will allow authorities to assess whether the platform played any role in the actions of the suspects, he said.“Beyond this temporary ban, we are reinforcing our monitoring efforts to identify online spaces that may pose risks to young users and to ensure that appropriate interventions are made immediately,” Paraiso said. “Our priority is the safety and wellbeing of Filipino children exposed to the internet.”Crimes involving the use of firearms are prevalent in the Philippines, partly due to the proliferation of unlicensed firearms, but school shootings are relatively rare.Philippine police told local media that initial interviews indicated the grade 9 suspects, aged 14 and 15, may have been bullied and that the alleged attack was carried out as retribution. The pair are in police custody.The justice department said it was looking into the possibility the shooting was part of a trend of nihilistic violent extremism, characterised by the perpetration of extreme violence without a coherent and traditional ideological framework.The Philippines-human-rights-commission" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="151712" data-entity-type="organization">Philippines’ human rights commission said it was also “alarmed by other recent reports of violence in schools, including two separate stabbing incidents at Cavite National high school and Bethel Academy of General Trias in Cavite within the past week”.“These incidents underscore the urgent need to strengthen measures that prevent violence and protect learners,” the commission said in a statement.With Associated Press