Do authoritarian governments consider Among Us subversive? I’m not kidding!
In the game, you are a member of a crew whose been assigned tasks to complete. Unfortunately, there are imposters who pretend to be normal crew members, but in fact are trying to kill the others before being caught.
An emergency meeting is convened when a character dies, discussions ensue, and you vote on whom to eject. Ideally it’s the imposter, but it may also be an innocent bystander. The crew wins when all imposters are ejected; the imposters win if the crew is killed off or ejected.
You may ask What’s subversive? Voting. Voting is anonymous, essentially a secret ballot that means other players do not know you voted (unless you blabbed in the game chat), which most of us in true democracies expect (whatever true democracy may mean) but not universally guaranteed. Elections in the Soviet Union often had one, government-approved candidate, and not voting or not voting for the candidate could lead to arrest: an illusion of secrecy which didn’t withstand scrutiny. This is not necessarily unique (and even democracies did not always have secret ballots).
Would a threatened government ban the game from their country for putting dangerous ideas into children’s minds? I wouldn’t put it past them!
