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Yahoo Reverses Allah Ban

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the wierdest-title-i've-posted-in-awhile dept.

damnal writes "Yahoo's ban on "Allah" in users names, has been reversed. The ban was instituted due to a number of people registering for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate. Yahoo's comment on the reversal: "We recently re-evaluated the term 'Allah,' and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse.""

5 of 331 comments (clear)

  1. You might want to take that back by eclectro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse.

    Now that it has hit the front page of slashdot, it is once again the target for abuse.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  2. What a bunch of dorks by pclminion · · Score: 4, Insightful
    They don't have the balls to just come out and say "Yes, we banned Allah because we were afraid of terrorists blowing up our office." This line about the word being used abusively is a load of horse shit. Last I checked Jesus Christ was not a banned term. And we all know that "Jesus Christ" is never used as an expletive or in an offensive way. Whatever.

    Now they've realized the idiocy of what they did, and again, rather than admit "Wow, we didn't realize how many words contain the letters 'allah'" they put out some garbage about how "Allah is no longer being used abusively on our sites."

  3. Huh? by thegrassyknowl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We recently re-evaluated the term

    Looks to me like a typical management-induced knee jerk reaction to a minor problem and the subsequent FUD to try and hide the fact that management were in error.

    --
    I drink to make other people interesting!
  4. Re:Yahoo!'s transition to a media company by Otter · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I agree on the China end, but the Allah thing seems to have been a stopgap measure put in to block some idiot and reversed once he got bored and went away. No one would have noticed it if some blogger hadn't picked that brief interval to try to register some *allah* name, flipped out and hit the blogopanic blogobutton.

    Given that Slashcode is full of features designed to thwart some specific jackass who hasn't been here in five years, at least Yahoo deserves credit for cleaning this up afterwards.

    --
    What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
  5. I think I've snapped from all the loonie news by MarkusQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yahoo Reverses Allah Ban

    I think I've finally snapped from all the loonie news lately. My first thought was: "What!? Now you are required to have 'Allah' in your name? That's even worse!"

    --MarkusQ

    And before you give me grief, in just the last few weeks:

    • Hundreds of people have killed each other over a bunch of cartoons.
    • The vice president of the US shot someone
    • Bell South wants to charge Google for using its bandwidth when Bell South's customers use Google's services for free and already pay Bell South for the privilege.
    • We are engaged in a huge debate, not over the fact that the control of our nation's ports has been turned over to foreign governments in the first place, but rather over the fact that it may be racist to suggest that a nation that funded Bin Ladin, passed sensitive information to him, had top level meetings with him, recognized the Taliban, and was home to two of the 9/11 hijackers might not be trustworthy
    • People have been caught distributing free software in accordance with the license, and had their CDs seized to protect the rights of the Authors who gave them permission in the first place