Black Ops Swastika Emblems Will Earn Xbox Live Ban

[RhombusHatesYou]

Putting a Swastika as an emblem and saying it's the good luck symbol and stuff is pretty much the same as going around in public with a sign saying "I really like rape!" but then saying that you're referring to the herb "Rape" (if you haven't heard, look rape up in the dictionary: There's a herb called rape).

So.. the Thai makers of my fave brand of instant noodle are rapists because the packaging is covered in swastikas?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

The Buddhists who play CoD will have to take one for the team.

Depending on what sect they are, they might be okay with that.

 

[Giest4life]

Am not a big fan of the "Jewish extermination" but the swastika should not be banned, even if drawing attention to the event was precisely the intention of the user. Despite what the MS guy says, it is political correctness.

Even though Microsoft are being massive dickheads here, it's not a surprise that they did this.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

Putting a Swastika as an emblem and saying it's the good luck symbol and stuff is pretty much the same as going around in public with a sign saying "I really like rape!" but then saying that you're referring to the herb "Rape" (if you haven't heard, look rape up in the dictionary: There's a herb called rape).

So.. the Thai makers of my fave brand of instant noodle are rapists because the packaging is covered in swastikas?

No but if you show it to some random people they'll probably think wtf is up with this, and you'll have to explain it to them much like his person would have to explain "Oh no I meant the herb not the crime"

 

[Vykrel]

How about they just patch the thing out of the game?

you can make it yourself in a lot of different ways. the emblem system allows for like 15 layers of whatever you want. someone could just pile lines ontop of eachother until it looks like a swastika. there is no way to patch it out of the game

 

[JDKJ]

really? I would say thee most notorious, I mean how many people were killed due to Alexander and his army? what about Stalin?

Please explain how either of those events downplays the murder of millions.
And please don't try to say "they killed more", because that changes absolutely nothing.

You miss the point, there are other genocides that are associated to things (like the hammer and sickle) which are seen as "accpatable" by mordern sociality in most countries but yet when one mentions (or shows) the Swastika within sociality, you will be branded with a negative stigma.

case in point, Christianity bares a heavily past of killings (early-modern Europe witch killings [or "tests"] and cusaders ect.) and yet it's deemed generally acceptable.

And why wouldn't the fact that Genocides A and B killed four times more people than those killed by Genocide C not have a diluting effect on the fact that "x" number of people were killed by Genocide C? I'm no mathematician but, in my book, "x times 4" beats the pants offa "x."

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

Am not a big fan of the "Jewish extermination" but the swastika should not be banned, even if drawing attention to the event was precisely the intention of the user. Despite what the MS guy says, it is political correctness.

Even though Microsoft are being massive dickheads here, it's not a surprise that they did this.

The swastika is an image that is banned in certain countries (e.g. Germany). People from Germany play the same online game that everyone else does, so they have to moderate their emblems to exclude banned images.

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

And why wouldn't the fact that Genocides A and B killed four times more people than those killed by Genocide C not have a diluting effect on the fact the "x" number of people were killed by Genocide C? I'm no mathematician but, in my book, "x times 4" beats the pants offa "x."

Because that's not how society views the images that are related to Genocides A and B.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Putting a Swastika as an emblem and saying it's the good luck symbol and stuff is pretty much the same as going around in public with a sign saying "I really like rape!" but then saying that you're referring to the herb "Rape" (if you haven't heard, look rape up in the dictionary: There's a herb called rape).

So.. the Thai makers of my fave brand of instant noodle are rapists because the packaging is covered in swastikas?

Ummmmm... No. Not sure how you cam up with that as I was making an inference, but I honestly don't think many buhdists play CoD, so I'm guessing people use the swastika thinking that they're funny.
Also, which brand of instant noodle? Is it delicious?

 

[Kinokohatake]

2 things.

1. Normally when someone sees a swastika on someones gamer tag, wouldn't you just assume such person was a moron, psycho, or just general a hole?

2. The swastika is able to offend nearly anyone. Except Nazis. And no one cares what a Nazi thinks. They are just zombies after all.

 

[cainx10a]

How about they just patch the thing out of the game?

you can make it yourself in a lot of different ways. the emblem system allows for like 15 layers of whatever you want. someone could just pile lines ontop of eachother until it looks like a swastika. there is no way to patch it out of the game

Oh I see, that's too bad for those wise folks who decided to take their sweet time to make one of those then.

 

[JDKJ]

Am not a big fan of the "Jewish extermination" but the swastika should not be banned, even if drawing attention to the event was precisely the intention of the user. Despite what the MS guy says, it is political correctness.

Even though Microsoft are being massive dickheads here, it's not a surprise that they did this.

The swastika is an image that is banned in certain countries (e.g. Germany). People from Germany play the same online game that everyone else does, so they have to moderate their emblems to exclude banned images.

I could be wrong, but I'm willing to bet that it's the public (emphasis on "public") display of the swastika that's banned in Germany. And I would assume that its display in an online game doesn't qualify as a public display (unless you're monitoring your game play on a gigantic Jumbotron screen set up outdoors for all to see).

 

[Mr. Omega]

People who can make custom emblems almost ALWAYS abuse this feature. Expect a dramatic increase in the amount of penises for emblems now that swastikas are ban-able.

 

[Denamic]

What about the manji? (&#21325
It goes the other way.

I don't agree with universal bans of things just because they're partially related to something.
Sure, brandishing swastikas may be bad taste, but censorship is detrimental to society.
You've got to take the good with the bad.

 

[Srkkl]

If I didn't have to pay for live I would put it up there in protest. I don't support the party or anything but if someone wants to be a douchebag and think he's a Nazi then he has the right to do so. Everything has the possiblilty of being offenceive to someone so if their going to ban one symbol they should ban anyone from making personalized emblems.

 

[Jamash]

I don't even use the swastika as my icon and I'm a bit frosted by this story. Just another example of political correctness trumping all logic or choice. If Microsoft - or before them, even, the ESRB - had an issue with the swastika, why was Black Ops rated and published on the Xbox?

"It's not political correctness, it's fundamental respect," my backside. Fantastic job painting prickery as nobility.

As in every multiplayer game "Online interaction not rated by the ESRB".

This means that the ESRB have no control over user made content and thus can't rate it. Instead this falls under the jurisdiction of the service provide, in this case Microsoft, who clearly state in the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct for X-Box Live:

"Don't create a gamertag, profile content, Avatar action, Avatar content, or in-game content that other users may be offended by".

Obviously many people may be offended by users choosing to display the Swastika (especially those with Jewish heritage) and it's been against the rules for users to do such things since day one of X-Box Live, the rules that every user has agreed to abide by.

The ESRB and Microsoft allowed Black Ops to be published in the first place because it's perfectly acceptable for the Swastika to adorn Nazi uniforms in historical context, however it's not acceptable for users to go out of their way to create and display Swastika's for the sole purpose of causing offence.

It's not about Political Correctness, it's about having respect for fellow gamers and not trying to cause offence by choosing to display hate symbols associated with a racist and oppressive regime that is best know for the systematic murder of millions of people.

The only "prickery" at play is on the part of the people who have to be explicitly told not to create and display Swastikas, despite having already agreed not to do such things.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

So.. the Thai makers of my fave brand of instant noodle are rapists because the packaging is covered in swastikas?

No but if you show it to some random people they'll probably think wtf is up with this

Not around here. Fair number of people from South and South East Asia so buddhist and hindu uses of the symbol aren't unknown. Most people would be "Yeah, you've got lucky noodles, whoopty-fucking-do." It's mostly older, conservative people who'd have seizures about it.

 

[wizard_joe88]

hmmmm never saw a swastika on black ops LIVE before........
But I have seen a penis on it, and people have animal's doing it as their emblems? people have way to much free time to do things like this, maybe if they can channel it into something productive....

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

it's perfectly acceptable for the Swastika to adorn Nazi uniforms in historical context

...

Zombie nazis count as historical context?

 

[-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.

Excepting that the two symbols aren't the same. The Nazi swastika is the reverse of the Swastika. The Swastika is still in use in numerous Asian countries.

The Nazi one is slightly rotated. That's it. Ever seen the Finnish Air Force flag?

What if I were in that air force and wanted to show my love for it by using that flag as my emblem? Banned, that's what.