Black Ops Swastika Emblems Will Earn Xbox Live Ban

[Jezzascmezza]

I think that the swastika was originally a symbol of peace.
When I went to Vietnam, the damn thing was posted all over the place!

Another interesting censor-ship thing about Black Ops was the fact that I seriously could not name one of my custom classes "Assault," because it apparently contained "profanity."
SERIOUSLY????

The front of my cover of Black Ops clearly states:
MA 15+ : strong violence and coarse language.
If anyone buys the game, they should be prepared for coarse language, but the fact is: "Assault" isn't a profane word.
Add to that the fact everyone swears like a sailor on Xbox Live, and the single player mode contains about forty f-words.
It's ridiculous.

I know I went a little off topic, but it's still stupid.

 

[Dexiro]

Why do people still make such a fuss over a symbol, if anyone gets offended by it then it's their fault for letting something offend them so easily.

I'm not condoning the use of the symbol entirely, just considering the context having it in black ops isn't worth making a fuss over.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

The amount of people trying to justify the use of swatsikas in this thread baffles my mind. Mostly because the OP links to the article where the guy explains that swatsikas are the symbol of evil in the modern western world. How many people who use a swatsika as a gamerpicture would proudly wear it in public? I doubt any of them.
And I think that about 90% of the people who use that 'swatsikas aren't evil, this and this religion used them before the Nazis' are just trying to find holes in the rules.

I wonder how many of the people who want to use swatsikas live in Europe.

 

[Zefar]

Freedom of Speech has officially gone down the drain.

I'm not using Xbox Live but I'm damn sure they at least have some rules. For example.

1: Don't have anything offensive on your profile.
2: Don't insult/harass/offend people on the Xbox Live network.
3: Don't keep any pornographic content on your Xbox live profile.

So this "Freedom of Speech" people like to blurt out forgets that it doesn't exist on a social network with RULES. This isn't anything new either. Almost any social network have rules, rules which if you break them you'll get punished for it.

As for all of you who think Microsoft are like asshole for doing this. Do you honestly think the majority of the people who have a Nazi symbol have it because of some old religion? That odds are very small for that. I'm betting almost ALL of them uses it because it's insulting.

I'm just guessing most of them are like this "hurr durr I can troll while I play hurr hurr hurr".
Ban all of them I say and the same goes for those who uses dicks in they signature or other sick sex things. The Xbox live would be a bit better without them immature people.

 

[-Samurai-]

Stupid Nazis. Why did you have to ruin the swastika for everyone else?

They didn't. The people that refuse to see it as anything other than a Nazi symbol ruin it for everyone else.

you must be an insensative bastard

And, as I already pointed out, the Finnish Air Force are insensitive because they still use it on their flag.

No, they don't. Be as ignorant as you like, but lying isn't helping your case.

They don't?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Air_Force

Here, since you won't actually read the link:

They adopted a new flag in 1945 because of the Nazis. In 1957, they went back to their Swastika.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

I saw a moose boning a big while he had a dick in his mouth.

 

[-Samurai-]

On a side note, my CODblop logo is the coheed and cambria keywork ... I sadly only have enough coin for 6 circles ... and inverted triangles are tough

I've been known to use this one:

Spoiler

It took a bit to figure out, but it turned out pretty nice. I've done some straightening since this picture. Some of the circles were off center.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

...Now how about a ban (or other punishment) on the countless people with a penis as their icon? (I swear, if you drink a shot every time you see that, you'll be dead of liver failure within 10 minutes.)

Hopefully they will get to that after they get rid of the swastikas. Personally, I say ban them because even though there is a meaning to them besides the Nazis, they were used by the Nazis, and that's not funny, clever or cool.

Terrorists used planes to kill people, therefore we should ban planes. Yay logic.

yeah right, lets compare a few people to a few million.
I can understand why they are banning it and i havent got half a problem. In this special case, all that "but its an ancient symbol for luck" is only used as a cheap excuse to use it for trollin' no one would give half a shit about it being banned if it WASNT connotated to the 3rd reich.

 

[Dana22]

But you can put Hammer and Sickle there...what a god damn hypocrites.

 

[Ipsen]

I don't think the problem is so much the Swastika is considered a bad symbol now, but rather, its bad connotation has endured through time, not to mention nothing to redeem that symbol.

As bad as, say, the casualties of Stalin's or Alexander the Great's endeavors were, their history offered something positive to the world, if at least for a time. Not only was violent conquest and imperialism par for the course in his time, he helped his culture grow. And as for Stalin, many people consider Communism to be a valid form of economy, so you cant really go poking at the Hammer and Sickle for all the bad that's happened associated with it (not without coming into conflict with someone's opinions). Try another symbol if you want, but you wont get much prevalence, I bet.

What I think keeps the stigma up on the swastika is that:
1:A militant force who committed war crimes made the swastika its symbol
2:That force was defeated before it could continue its legacy on a larger scale
3:Said militant force should have some potential for economic interests

Nazi Germany isnt around anymore, but everyone knows what about something that happened within it. Should says something about how we record history...Hmm Hmm.

 

[SW9]

i have to agree,i've seen a few of them and first thing i thought was why would you want that as your emblem?I find the logo racist and offensive and they should get banned

 

[-Samurai-]

Stupid Nazis. Why did you have to ruin the swastika for everyone else?

They didn't. The people that refuse to see it as anything other than a Nazi symbol ruin it for everyone else.

you must be an insensative bastard

And, as I already pointed out, the Finnish Air Force are insensitive because they still use it on their flag.

No, they don't. Be as ignorant as you like, but lying isn't helping your case.

They don't?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Air_Force
They adopted a new flag in 1945 because of the Nazis. In 1957, they went back to their Swastika.

The flag exists only in records, the official logo is used in almost every aspect with the eagle flag, that is clearly displayed on the bottom of the page, used for all other purposes.

The one on the bottom is used for the specific Air Commands, with the blue Swastika representing the Air Force as a whole.

I'm not from Finland, so I'm going on the information there, and other sites. Everything I've read states that the blue Swastika was re-adopted on November 8th, 1957

 

[ChupathingyX]

I'm just surprised no one at Treyarch put their hand up and said "isn't putting a thick, curved, wrinkly pickle in the emblem editor a bad idea?".

Bt yes it is true, the Swastika has many more meanings than just the Nazis. But I highly, highly doubt the people who make it their emblem know that, they're just uneducated morons who are trying to hide behind their gamertag and be funny.

 

[xmbts]

Now I could complain about people refusing to associate it with anything but Nazis, but honestly that's the first thing I thought of.

 

[Dastardly]

"It's not political correctness, it's fundamental respect," Toulouse adds. "If you think the swastika symbol should be re-evaluated by societies all over the Earth, I think that's great. Your Xbox Live profile or in game logo, which doesn't have the context to explain your goal, is not the right place to do that."

There ya go--this is the quote that, I feel, makes this decision a valid one. He does, in fact, leave room for people who understand the greater context of certain symbols. Now, me, I don't know a damn thing about (or particularly care about) the swastika, but I do know that many symbols are misunderstood.

People will take a symbol used for one thing, appropriate it for another use, get unfortunate notoriety for doing something awful, and now because of universal ignorance, the rightful "owners" have to give up the symbol or be treated as though they are the ones misusing it. This quote at least allows for the possibility that those people exist, and simply makes it clear that XBL isn't the forum for that sort of discourse.

 

[Geekmaster]

Contrary to most people here, I think it's perfectly reasonable for them to ban swastikas. That vast majority (99%+) of players will in fact associate it with nazism and people are only really making them because they think they're clever anyway.

 

[Therumancer]

My thought on the subject is that free speech is free speech. It doesn't apply simply to what you agree with. The few exceptions I believe in involve such things as martial law and a time of active conflict with a given group. For example, right now I *DO* believe that the right of a lot of Muslims to speak freely should be limited, but we are at war with them, and truthfully I think Martial Law should have been declared for that reason. I am referring to situations like Muslims in the UK running around doing things like burning poppies and the like in the UK recently.

Right now however, we are not at war with the Nazis. The Nazis have been reduced to a tiny fringe group, the war is over, and hunting them down internationally post war is also pretty much over because anyone who was actually alive during World War II is liable to be dead or ridiculously old.

Part of free speech, and dealing with a conflict that has been over with decades, is that people are allowed to take distasteful opinions. There is no law saying you can't agree with a lot of what the Nazis did. Nobody says you have to like groups of people like Jews, Gypsies, or Homosexuals or that you have to remain silent about it. Sure it might mark a person as being a butthead and/or the worst kind of person, but it's still one of their fundemental human rights. Banning a symbol like a Swatstika because it might offend someone is ridiculous.

Incidently 60 or so years after the conflict is resolved, I would have far less problems with some of the attitudes being expressed by Muslims right now for similar reasons. There is a differant between a current, or recent societal/cultural conflict, and one that happened decades in the past. A lot of people do not agree with this distinction, but then again this is just my opinion on the subject.

I see, displaying a Swatstika as being similar to displaying an inverted cross or pentagram or whatever. Sure there are positive ways it can be interpeted (and people can explain it) but generally speaking someone doing that is probably doing it to represent something that will offend a lot of people (whether they should be offended or not). This is however their right.

Besides, if the symbol someone is displaying bothers you, there is nothing forcing you to play with that person.

Given the lack of current, wartime context, I am hoping Microsoft actually gets sued over this one. It's stuff like this that is ruining free speech. Too many people decide there should be general exceptions. Hate speech, except for that made during a time of war, should not be an exception to the freedom of speech. It might blow chips at time, but then again it's not "freedom to express yourself within politically correct guidelines".

 

[Nickolai77]

I remember in earlier versions of COD people would have [NAZI] or [BNP] in their clantags but they weren't banned.

I'm a little conflicted on the issue though personally- the game itself is property of the publishers so what they say should go, but at the same time what individual users make is not a reflection of the opinion of the owners of the game.

 

[jmroutson1988]

If they're going to ban the 'crooked cross' for association with Nazi war crimes, might I suggest banning the + symbol for its association with Christian crusades? Or the crescent moon? Or triangles? Or perhaps it's safest just not to allow self expression at all - we wouldn't want to offend anyone now, would we?

EDIT: @Simalcrum - Huh, I can't believe I've never seen a direct side-by-side comparison before. Thanks for that, now I know the difference for sure.

I thought about the Crusades also.