#GamingBytes: Twitterati banned for killing Sean Bean in Hitman 2
Hitman 2 has taken the stealth-based assassination to new horizons. Like other games in the series, it brings 'Elusive Targets' where players take limited time contracts to eliminate challenging targets, at whom they get only one shot. Hitman 2's first elusive target is played by Sean Bean and one gamer got accidentally banned on Twitter for wanting to kill him. Read it here.
All about empty death threats
Gamers kill people in the virtual world all the time and are often excited to bag difficult kills. Twitter user @TheFatConsol3r said that he was looking forward to killing Sean Bean 'tonight'. While he meant eliminating the elusive target, Twitter's safety algorithm mistook it as potentially harmful and banned the user. Notably, following an investigation, the ban on the user's account has been lifted.
Check out the misunderstanding here
All about the elusive target
While the ban was unfortunate, the user should have used Sean Bean's in-game name, Mark Faba, instead of referring to the actor's real name. Bean plays disgraced MI6 agent, Faba, who uses the nickname 'The Undying' as he has notoriously faked his death multiple times. Agent 47 has to kill him in the Miami race-track, by sniping him or getting up close and personal.
The meta reference and the player's mishap
The gamer should have been more contextual, but in his defense, Sean Bean is famous for dying in movies and television shows. He died in GoldenEye, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and it was funny naming him 'The Undying' in a mission where he would eventually die. Since Sean Bean portrays dying characters in popular culture, the player's comment was justified.
Was Twitter justified in banning the gamer?
Twitter should have investigated the profile's tweets further to determine the potential threat. This search would have shown the user to be a gamer, giving Twitter a context behind the Sean Bean killing comment. However, online death threats are plenty, and while most are trolls, some are serious resulting in tragedies. While Twitter's reaction has led to an amusing report, one understands the action.
