Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Live Enforcement — No Swastika Logo
itwbennett writes "It's one of those questions that really should never come up, but as blogger Peter Smith points out, Stephen Toulouse, the head of Xbox Live enforcement, is used to fielding all sorts of strange questions. Recently, one of those questions was apparently 'Can I use a Swastika as my logo in Call of Duty: Black Ops?' When Toulouse responded with the obvious answer ('No, of course you can't, we'll ban you.') he was met with some pushback by people he refers to as 'contrarians' and 'internet pundits' who decided to educate him on the long and storied history of the swastika as a symbol of good fortune and how just because the Nazis used it, it doesn't make the symbol itself a bad thing. Toulouse covers the topic on his blog in a post titled Context and it's an interesting read if for no other reason than to get a peek inside the day-to-day issues the Xbox Live Enforcement team deals with."
The guys tone seems to be that he knows best and that his view is commonly held, and that the people arguing are only doing so for the sole purpose of arguing.
I don't think that's true at all, and while a company certainly has no obligation to assure free speech to all customers of its service, I would expect it to at least be considered, especially when the arguments have a lot of merit.
I mean, if his point is that they won't allow things commonly found horribly offensive then he should have simply stated that, without diminishing the people making the argument. All in all, he comes across like a tool.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
While the symbol (and the name) are older, there are many ways to draw the original symbol that barely or superficially resemble the Nazi emblem: From orientation (right or left-facing; the Nazi flag always faced right) to the rotation (the Nazi flag stands on end at a 45% angle) to the color (the Nazi flag is red-white-black).
That implies a hazy line, but it redefines the offense as one of intent, context and of what a reasonable observer would see.
If you draw something like this, you can use the "traditional symbol of luck" defense; if you draw this, then it's a fairly obvious lie.
No one is playing the "Super Hindus" when they use the swastika. It is an inflammatory icon with specific anti-Semitic meaning.
Its use ought to be banned, just as if a group called themselves the "Jew gassers" and tried to claim it was a tribute to a wacky Israeli troupe.
Should anything offensive be banned? Well, MS has decided that they will cater to the lowest common denominator, so that means nothing offensive. These rules are indicated up front, so you don't really have a case that you didn't know about the rules.
Buddhists would say that the meaning of the icon lies in the mind of the one ascribes the meaning to it. Therefore the icon has no intrinsic meaning in and of itself and thus they would have no problem finding another meaningless icon to use in its place.
The way people talk about the Swastika in the Nazi context you'd swear it was an actual weapon that they stabbed people to death with. FCOL! It was the idiots carrying the flags with the Swastika on it that did all the killing, not the symbol itself.
To use your logic, attributing deaths to symbols and inanimate objects, you should never ever pick up a knife again or even keep one in your house. How many millions of people have been killed by knives since they were first created?
What the hell? I really can't scroll down on your site without javascript enabled?
I'm sure your content was compelling though.
Like, you made a whole video game to accurately recreate the violent deaths of people for sport, right?
And you have problems with people expressing their preference for a group that violently killed lots of people?
MORAL DILEMMA!
>>Here, it's mostly teenage boys donning them. They're ignorant of history and what the Nazi swastika represents
Pfft. Nazis and their swastikas are pretty much the most recognizable figures out of history to the modern teenager.
If for no other reason than that all the early Call of Duty games featured Nazis.
While I understand banning the swastikas, it seems rather fucking hypocritical from a series that has made billions of dollars off WWII.
'No educated person on the planet looks at the swastika symbol (...) and says "oh, that symbol has nothing at all in any way to do with global genocide of an entire race"'.
Well, no educated person except a couple of billion buddhists and hinduists. But I suppose they're not educated, since they don't believe in our God.
When you get a city map in Japan, it's often littered with swastikas for all the buddhist temples. I'm pretty sure those have nothing at all in any way to do with global genocide of an entire race.
He could have made his point with a little more respect. I can understand you don't want swastikas on an online video game service that's used by a lot of people from western societies, but he's pushing it a little bit too far when he's talking about contrarians arguing about some innate facts.
The USSR (whose flag you are referring to, lumping them all together as "commies" under that flag might offend a couple of other nations) was especially good at getting it's own inhabitants killed and in doing so didn't differentiate between various ethnic groups, for actual genocides I'd say a citation IS needed.
The Nazis specifically prosecuted and eliminated Jews, gays, lesbians, Roma, handicapped people and probably a slew of other groups that didn't fit into their world view, quite a difference if you ask me.
Yes, you're right. But it's entirely a context thing. If I'm playing a WW2 game, I expect to see a lot of swastikas. I expect to see them on my character if I'm playing as the Germans, which you can do in any WW2 game with multiplayer.
However, here it has nothing to do with the context of the game. It's being used to be provocative - and you would only do this using a swastika if you're a neo-nazi (which probably some of these people are), or if you're ignorant as I suggested. Every teenage boy recognizes the Nazis, yes, but it's ridiculous to suggest that they all *truly* understand the implications of donning the swastika - primarily, they don't understand that it makes them look like an idiot, and it doesn't make them look cool. Especially once you've played this game online with them and you've heard what they have to say - they're ignorant.
Which is why I should totally use it while I'm running around calling people "Noobs" and blowing their heads off with automatic weapons, then teabagging them.
If in some other game, you're roleplaying a buddhist monk who has it around his neck as a good-luck symbol, its all good and dandy.
Context people, Context.
An innate right? No, they don't. However, if you are in my house, or on my server, I get to make the rules and decide how far my guests are allowed to go when offending one another.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Absolute fucking cobblers. In nearly every city in Britain and probably America you will find a Mandir and every one will have swastikas. There have been 3,000 people at ours at Deepawali and other similar occasions (not your group of 20), and nobody is shocked, or wants to shock people. Your assertion that a handfull of people want to use the swastika to shock people is absolute crap, a large number of people use it regularly as a religious symbol.
That may be, but we are talking about an ONLINE SHOOTER here. The only reason anybody would want to use a swastika in a xbox live shooter (with mostly male teenage players) is not religion, it's the link to nazi Germany.
Please enlighten and list which of the Crusades were held under the banner of the Union Flag.
Never attribute to malice what you could instead attribute to stupidity.
Captcha: hubris. Appropriate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionist_committee_of_the_Soviet_public
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Jews#In_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_Joseph_Stalin
Would you like any more or can I stop there?
Orwell was an optimist.
Yes, swastikas have a long history of meaning good luck and prosperity all across the world. Yes, I would have preferred the nazis to use the goatse man instead of the swastika, but unless you are in the most remote regions of the Andes, a swastika means nazis.
The twin towers had a different meaning before 9/11, Tiananmen Square used to have a different meaning and so did a lot of other symbols/places/buildings.
And about the trolls who argue otherwise: They don't want to use the swastika cause they are deeply rooted in one of various old cultures or religions. It's because they want to shock people or they actually condone the actions of the nazis.
Long story short: Fuck them. Optionally with a large swastika. Those are cool, after all.
Having deaths, events, emotions and other things attributed to them is actually exactly what symbols are for. It's kind of the definition.