The Pokemon Go fever in the community is accompanied by unpleasant rumors in cyberspace. The first time it appears the word Pokemon means 'I'm a Jew' while Pikachu means 'be a Jew'. While the last Pokemon was developed because of anti-Islam, because there are many Pokemon in the mosque. Is that right?
Budi Rahardjo, Lecturer at the School of Electrical and Informatics Engineering, ITB, assessed that the spotlight on Pokemon Go which was associated with religion was considered irrelevant and excessive. The uproar over the Pokemon Go phenomenon is quite off the mark, when it comes to religious issues.
"Pokemon Go was developed by people who are anti-Islam? Wow, this is a far cry in theory. The reason is because there are many Pokemon in the mosque," said Budi in Bandung, Sunday (24/7).
According to Budi, the database for the placement of Pokemon comes from the improvement of the Ingress game application developed by Niantic Labs, the company that makes the two applications.
Ingress is a digital game based on mobile devices that challenges gamers to explore the world and dominate certain places as their territory.
Both Ingress and Pokemon utilize augmented reality technology and are also based on location mapping with GPS, allowing users to seek virtual power in places such as museums, monuments and public open spaces. Ingress was released in 2013 for Android, followed by iOS in 2014.
The mosque, continued Budi, happened to be a place where many people gathered and were registered in Ingress before. "Moreover, Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world. That's all, so there is no conspiracy here," said Budi.
According to him, however, Niantic is a purely commercial private company. They really value the confidentiality of user data. Otherwise, the business will self-destruct.
Large digital companies generally don't like to hand over this data to the government, although they sometimes sell this data for other business purposes such as advertising.
"So in general, the Nintendo company doesn't cooperate with the CIA, even though the CIA is famous for wiretapping American companies as well. So it could be wiretapping, but without the company's knowledge. So there was spy-and-contra-spy between them. . Compete intelligence, "added Budi.
'I'm Jewish'
Besides being associated with religious issues, Pokemon also has other negative news for its fans. For example, recently, there has been a link circulating on social media that says Pokemon has a negative meaning and corners one religion. Many circulating on social media that Pokemon actually in Syriac or Syriac means "I am Jewish". While Pikachu is said to mean "Be Jewish", and Charmander means "God is Weak".
This of course raises the pros and cons and becomes a heated debate on social media. Many believe and share the rumor, many think it's just a fittology.
When the Pokemon cartoons were on the rise in the early 2000s, the Los Angeles Times had issued a report on this issue in the April 24, 2001 issue. At that time, countries located in the Middle East had indeed had a problem with it.
In the LA Times, it was stated that at that time in Middle Eastern countries such as Oman, Qatar, Dubai, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, rumors circulated that Pokemon games had connotations that promoted anti-Islamic behavior and believed in Judaism.
Nintendo of course denied this, but the leaders of these countries still can not accept Pokemon. The rumors arose amid concerns Arab countries would assimilate the emerging culture.
Sheik Abdel Monem abu Zent, ​​a former member of the Jordanian parliament said that this toy is part of a Jewish plan to corrupt the minds of our young generation because it offends blasphemous thoughts, mocks God and our moral values ​​so that it is very dangerous for the younger generation.
Meanwhile, Mohammed Abu Laila, a professor from Al Azhar University, said that until now there was no strong evidence that confirmed the rumors that made parents forbid their children to play the Pokemon game.
In a statement in Jordan's Amman newspaper, the Syriac Orthodox Christian Church denied allegations that Pokemon and other character names have roots in the ancient Syriac language and have insulting Islamic meanings. Church officials said they were surprised by the incoming letter stating that Pokemon contained a Jewish invitation. This of course causes anxiety.
He said if he had even asked directly to the party who popularized Pokemon. Pokemon is actually just an abbreviation of Pocket Monster or pocket monster.
Named Pocket Monster because this pokemon has a pocket ball that can be put in a pocket. Meanwhile Pikachu is a combination of the words Pika and Chu. Pika is the name of an animal that is still in the same family as rabbits, while Chu in Japanese means squeak.