Anti Neopian Movement

The Anti-Neopian Movement, as it has dubbed itself, is a group of societies that disagrees with what they believe to be the Neopets.com philosophies, seeking reveal some of the problematic issues associated with the Neopets website. The movement has about 1,000 members and dozens of websites. However there is widespread discontent on Neopets, so much so that some studies say that 20% of Neopians harbor similar views privately. Below are several complaints and their counter points.

Scietology

Scientology has influenced Neopets, via Doug Dohrings involvement, making advancment and any work within the company requiring people to convert. [1] Some fear conversion to Scientology is promoted in Neopets itself. It is also held Neopets plays favoritism with certain religions, such as Satanism, Wicca, Devil-Worship etc. while spurning others such as Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, etc. Anti Neopians see Scientology as not a cultural religion per se but see it is more of a new age cult which claims to have ties to an ancient inter-galatic conspiracy. In terms of commonly acccepted history and science this is nonsense for there is no evidence of Extraterrestral civilizations or Extraterrestrial intelligent life for that matter.

Counter Point

The links with Scientology are tenuous at best, and used mainly for business purposes. And although it is a religon that has been criticised, so has every other single religon in history. By using tenuous links to this faith as an arguement, the arguers are not embracing multiculturalism and are expressing a prejudice. Also, Neopets does not promote or enforce any type of religion or school of thought on its users, and any user blatantly spreading such information is likely to be suspended or Frozen, to keep Neopets free of it.

Austraillian Gambling Contravery

In October of 2004, while McDonald's Corporation was promoting Neopets plushies in their Happy Meals, a story on the Australian news show Today Tonight featured a nine-year-old boy claiming that the site requires one to gamble in order to receive enough Neopoints to feed one's Neopet, or else it is sent to an orphanage.

Counter Point

Phenylalanine wrote an article for PinkPT in response to the Australian Today Tonight story. The article can be found here.

Advertising

Immersive advertising which is seen by many to be immoral and unethical especially when the target demographic is children.

Chat Boards

Crude chat boards are started with talk of Satanic rituals, sexual conduct, and violence.

Counter Point

Allegations of crude chat boards (talks of Satanism, sexuality and violence) cannot be used in arguement as The Neopets Team not only do not endorse and support this use of their chatboards but do everything in their power to stop these discussions from taking place. Their website is family orientated, and they have moderators to keep it clean, thereby keeping them from closing the boards down altogether.

Freezing

Users area unfairly Frozen, occuring frequently and with little pretense or none at all.

Counter Point

Freezing never takes place without pretence. So-called Ice-Bots, programs which freeze users automatically, have been confirmed to not exist. Only employed moderators at Neopets can freeze players, and a player can appeal to the staff via e-mail if he or she thinks they were frozen unfairly. Also, the website is not a public service: no one has the inherent "right" to use it.

Rebutal

TNT (The Neopets Staff) claims that freeze-bots do not exist, However TNT is not always honest especially when directly asked by Neopians (i.e. Neoschool, Sloth Plot...) . Furthermore, the staff generally ignores players' appeals or rudely replies PPT article about rude treatment at the hands of a moderator. Finally by putting Neopets on the web, as a free service TNT made it basically publc.

External Links

• The Anti-Neopian
• Anti-Neopets