Now, the program to help you and your family get fit and stay fit with a biblical foundation
without a one-size-fits-all plan.
It's Faith Family Fitness with your host, Full Armor Sports and National Champion Coach
Jason Lupo.
Welcome back to Faith Family Fitness on 100.7 The Word.
Today we're talking about some recent news.
I love current events.
I love bringing them up.
I love sharing how it is impacting our families, our youth in this country.
And so today we're kind of extending Faith Family Fitness.
I've always said that there's truly five F's because you can add freedom and finance to
our lives.
And so we're going to extend a little bit into freedom because as always we kind of
extend topics into how it truly is affecting everything in our world and in our lives.
And so today's topic is on the game Fortnite.
And if you're familiar with what's happened recently, the Federal Trade Commission just
settled a $520 million, I don't want to say lawsuit, it was a complaint.
And so they settled with the owners of Fortnite Epic Games for their violations of certain
laws and policies and things like that.
So we're going to get into that.
We're going to talk about this $520 million fine levied against the owners of Fortnite.
And we're going to talk about the implications of what the game Fortnite is doing in our
families and also technology as a whole in our youth.
And then the overstepping of bounds by the government with regards to technology and
how our responsibility fits in there.
So it should be a very interesting show for you.
I hope that you stay tuned in.
If you miss any part, you can always go back and listen to the full episode on our website
faithfamilyfit.org.
We are going to take a brief time out when we come back.
We are going to get right into this topic.
Thanks for listening to Faith Family Fitness, a presentation of Full Armor Sports teams.
Teamwork is at the core of any successful organization.
Full Armor Sports, led by national champion coach Jason Lupo, is now registering for school
year sports programs.
Full Armor is a multi-sport teaching and training organization with homeschool options available.
All of Full Armor Sports coaches are certified and experts in their field.
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They will help your kids gain fundamental skills.
The concepts of teamwork is essential to being successful throughout their lives.
Multiple sports options are available now, from swimming, softball and volleyball, to
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The Faith-based approach to making sports fun and productive are a great choice for
your kids at Full Armor Sports teams.
Learn more at FullArmorSportsTeams.com.
Welcome back to Faith Family Fitness.
Today's topic, the game Fortnite.
And recently, most recently, the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, fined the owners
of Fortnite Epic Games $520 million for their violations of laws and policies.
And it came down to two different sections.
The first was privacy violations.
And the reason why they were fined was two reasons in regards to this.
The first was that they collected information from your kids without the consent of their
parents, giving consent to collect that data.
The second was that their default settings harmed children and teens.
This is direct from the FTC website.
I'll read this statement.
Epic settings enable live on by default text and voice communications for users.
The FTC alleges that these default settings, along with Epic's role in matching children
and teens with strangers to play Fortnite together harmed children and teens.
Children and teens have been bullied, threatened, harassed, exposed to dangerous and psychological
traumatizing issues such as suicide while on Fortnite.
That's a privacy section.
The other section was alleged illegal dark patterns that they were using dark patterns
to trick users into making purchases and they were charging account holders without authorization.
And the fact that they believed that children who understood how to play the game did not
necessarily understand the purchasing of coins or whatever.
I've never played the game.
Making purchases on the app and doing so, setting those up in a way that basically users
were purchasing things without knowledge that they were purchasing them.
And if you've ever had kids or worked with kids, you know that their understanding of
money and cost is sometimes skewed, that they don't truly understand what is going on.
And so these are the reasons, the base reasons as to why Fortnite has been fined $520 million.
And this is not the first time that Fortnite has run into these issues.
It's not the first time game companies have run into these issues.
There's a recent article that Fortnite is actually being sued by Canadian parents alleging
that the game is addictive.
And so we have to draw a line because we're going to move away from, I think, what everybody
else is talking about when it comes to this situation.
And we're going to head in a different direction because we're going to head in the direction
of two things.
Number one is parenting.
And number two is freedom.
Because we have to truly understand how to live in a world where we want increased freedom,
where we want control over our own lives without government overreach.
But with that being said, it requires responsibility.
And so for the parents that are claiming that this game is addictive, parent, you got to
parent take the phone away from your kids, set boundaries, set timelines, how much time
can you be on screens a day?
And that's your responsibility as a parent.
Because the flip side of this, going back to freedom is if we're going to sue over games
being addictive, what typically comes out of these situations is increased laws.
You file a complaint, you're upset about something, laws come out.
And sometimes the laws protect consumers, such as in the case of this illegal dark patterning
that they claimed that Fortnite and Epic Games was using to entice users to purchase product.
Some laws protect consumers and some overstep bounds into our freedom.
And so if we want to complain that a game is addictive because we don't have any self
control and or parents don't want a parent, we are going to end up with laws where the
government dictates technology use.
And that is not a situation that I want or very many people want.
But that is the road that we are heading down.
That's the road that we are heading down with technology.
And if you look at what has gone on with social media and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram,
the question has become, is social media sites the public square?
Because keep in mind that our freedom of speech is in the public square.
And so if you consider social media to be in the public square, we still have freedom
of speech.
But if you believe that social media is a private enterprise and they can do what they
want, then they have the right to censor content, to ban users for their speech, regardless
of whether or not it's hate speech or just something they don't like.
That's the situation we're heading down.
So if we don't want to take control, then we're going to give it over to the government
to make laws and take control.
And Eleanor Roosevelt has a famous quote that many of us have heard several times.
Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being.
With freedom comes responsibility.
For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his
own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
With freedom comes great responsibility.
So if we have the freedom to choose how our kids use technology, we also have the responsibility
as parents, as leaders, to dictate even our own self-control, to utilize that to maintain
that freedom instead of giving it over to the government to decide what you want to
do.
And during COVID, we saw technology increase astronomically in our kids' lives.
And as we know from COVID and the pandemic, that many of our enterprises, many of our
political and social enterprises are a house of cards that can fall quickly.
And the school's response to not putting kids in a classroom was to put them on Zoom, to
put them online, to put them in a video classroom setting.
And we tend to forget things that happened, and we make small steps in losing freedom.
And then we look back and go, oh, it's gone.
And so we're going to remind you today of some of the stuff that happened, because it's
important.
Because overnight, the government, the school systems, our schools that we send our kids
to got an inside peek into your children's bedrooms, into your homes.
They got a free look inside your personal family lives, and we allowed it.
And their response afterwards was, oh, we think that went so well, that now we're going
to have e-learning days to where snow days no longer exist.
We're just going to be online.
And they're going to continue to get a look into your children's bedrooms because of this.
And it's wrong.
It's wrong.
They weren't invited.
But slowly over time, we lose freedom in small bits until finally we look back and go, what
happened?
And that's the situation we're in.
So we have two options.
We can either say, you know what, we want the government to control these games.
We want the government to dictate the lives of our children.
Or we can say, you know what, as parents, as leaders in our community, we need to have
a watchful eye, and we need to actually parent what is going on.
Those are our two options because we are going to end up with a loss of freedom.
And if you remember during the pandemic, there was two stories that still stand out in my
mind.
The first was a story in Louisiana.
A nine-year-old boy had a BB gun in his bedroom on the wall.
And the school tried to expel him, called the local police department.
And it became a national issue.
And I really like what the attorney general of Louisiana said in that response.
Because here was his response.
For anyone to conclude that a student's home is now school property because of connectivity
through video conferencing is absurd.
It is ludicrous for this all-American kid to be punished for taking responsible actions,
just as it is for his parents to be accused of neglect.
Our country is heading the wrong direction because we slowly give up freedoms and we
say, okay.
And then we look back and go, what happened?
And this is the situation.
So while it seems small and it seems like some of this stuff does not affect our lives
because we don't play Fortnite or our kids don't play Fortnite or we have control over
what our kids do and do not do on the internet, does not mean that these situations are not
affecting our freedoms and where our country is heading.
Because this stuff affects us in Colorado Springs just as much as it affects the kid
in Louisiana.
Because we had a similar situation in Colorado Springs with a Nerf gun.
The local sheriff was called in Colorado Springs in El Paso County because a kid had a Nerf
gun in a Zoom class in the middle of the pandemic.
Orange tip.
Anybody smart enough could tell it's not a real gun.
Nerf guns don't typically resemble real guns.
They're clearly toys.
And the sheriff was called, sheriff got involved, kid got suspended, and that became national
news as well.
And so it affects us even here in Colorado Springs, even when we think that we are in
one of the most conservative counties in the United States.
We are still at risk because not every element of our society falls in lines with our family
values and the family values that are espoused with the people that are most likely tuning
into the show.
And there became more issues because then the schools decided that they no longer wanted
parents to listen in on the Zoom classes, which is just red flags being thrown up everywhere
because what are you teaching kids that you're not okay with a parent listening in to the
class while the class is taking place online in their own home?
Because once again, they believe that your home became a classroom and under the control
of local school districts, which is just plain flat out wrong.
So we have an option right now, and that is either we take responsibility for number one,
our kids' education, and number two, technology use, or we're going to continue to give that
power over to government entities to decide what is right and what is wrong for your family
and your kids.
And it's a scary thought, it's a scary road to be on if we get to that point because this
is the start of a much longer conversation, the start of a much greater problem.
And don't get me wrong, don't say Jason doesn't care about the kids, Jason doesn't care about
online bullying, Jason doesn't care about all this stuff because I do, and I think it's
a huge issue.
I think online bullying is a massive issue and I think it's only gotten worse over time,
it's not gotten better, and we've failed to teach our kids to respect one another and
how to grow relationships because once again, it's kind of hard to grow relationships and
it's kind of hard for kids to learn social skills when they've been locked up for two
years during this pandemic that we've had.
So we have to teach those social skills, we have to teach relationship building, and we
have to teach what proper relationships look like and how to handle situations with people
that we do not get along with.
And it's something that we fail with as adults and it's something that we don't model for
our kids all the time in this society.
And if you don't believe me, go on YouTube and watch how other adults are treating other
adults in these viral videos going around on TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and all
this other stuff.
We have failed relationship wise with our fellow people and human beings and so we don't
teach or model that for our kids all the time very well what that looks like.
And so going back to the online bullying thing, we have to teach our kids how to grow successful
relationships, how to deal with people that we don't like, and how to treat people.
That is how you solve that crisis.
You can't solve that crisis by government intervention.
We solve that crisis in the family home, in teaching children, in our sports teams, in
teaching children how to deal with relationships.
And it's something I'm super proud to say that I believe that we have got that down
in full armor.
We do it well.
Sure we have conflict sometimes, but our kids have built very good relationships.
We have strong teams with strong camaraderie.
And it's something that we pride ourselves on more than the athletic results that we
have.
We pride ourselves on the team and the connectivity of those relationships.
We're going to take a brief time out when we come back.
We are going to wrap all of this up.
So we will see you in about 60 seconds.
Thanks for listening to Faith Family Fitness, a presentation of full armor sports teams.
Teamwork is at the core of any successful organization.
At Full Armor Sports, led by national champion coach Jason Lupo, a Christ-centered approach
to sports fundamentals and fitness has earned his company the respect of athletes and their
parents.
Full Armor Sports is committed to helping youth in our community experience growth through
sports and to strive for improvement and excellence.
Further, youth compete as individuals coming together with a sense of teamwork, camaraderie,
and support for one another.
At Full Armor Sports, the reality is achievements, failures, wins and losses eventually fade
away, but the bonds team members form through competition evolve into relationships lasting
forever.
Learn more at FullArmorSports.com.
Welcome back to Faith Family Fitness on 100.7 The Word.
I hope you've enjoyed today's topic.
We talked about the Federal Trade Commission's $520 million fine to Epic Games, the developer
of Fortnite, for grabbing and stealing your children's private information without parental
consent, their default settings leading children to potential psychological harm, and also
the dark practices of attempting to persuade users, young kids, to buy sometimes $500 products,
coins, whatever is played in the game.
$500.
We have eight-year-olds buying with no understanding of how much money that truly is.
I don't think anybody with a right mind is spending $500 on a video game in-game purchase.
I don't even know why they'd offer that as a developer, but obviously it's because they
can get people to buy it.
And so we talked about all that stuff.
We've talked about the implications with our families and the fact that we have two options
right now because with freedom comes great responsibility.
So in situations where we have things like this Fortnite game going on, the two options
are this.
We either parent ourselves and we become leaders in our community or we try to get the government
involved to dictate and create laws in regards to this stuff.
And if we do the second option, we will lose freedom.
And Eleanor Roosevelt said, with freedom comes great responsibility.
And this is one of those situations.
So with technology use, we need self-control for ourselves, but also to oversee what is
going on in the lives of our families.
And if we don't, we're giving control over to those government entities that will continue
to overstep the bounds of our family's lives.
Those are our two options.
You have to make the choice for yourself.
If you have missed any of this great conversation or hope to listen in on a past episode, we
do talk a lot about fitness and your fitness journey.
Go to faithfamilyfit.org.
You can also go to your favorite podcast provider and download our show Faith Family Fitness
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, wherever you want to listen
to podcasts.
Please tune in, download our episodes.
As always, this show is supported by Full Armor Sports Teams.
I own the company.
I love our kids that are in our programs.
And if you are looking for coaches to be in your kid's corner in a program that espouses
the same values that you do, look us up on Full Armor Sports Teams.
That's plural sports and teams is plural.com and learn more about our programs.
Thank you for joining us.
We look forward to seeing you next Saturday at 9 a.m.
This has been Faith Family Fitness with Coach Jason Lupo of Full Armor Sports Teams of Colorado
Springs.
Join him at the same time next week for Faith Family Fitness on the Word 100.7.