Microsoft Explains The Reason Behind The Swastika Logo Ban
Yesterday I covered a piece of news involving a ban that is being sent to players via Microsoft who use the swastika as their logo in multiplayer in Call of Duty: Black Ops. One Xbox Live member compiled a letter and inquired to Stephen Toulouse, asking why exactly the ban is being put in place. He asked if he could use the swastika as his logo and Toulouse replied, “No, of course you can’t, we’ll ban you.” Apparently this sparked a flame in gamers who witnessed the exchange in information, gamers who defended the use of a swastika as a symbol widely used throughout many Eastern religions. Toulouse responded with a post in his personal blog, explaining exactly why the symbol doesn’t stand for much good with the Xbox Live moderation board.
“Let’s be clear: no educated human 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,'” Toulouse stated, “‘and, even if it did, one should totally and reasonably ignore that because it’s a symbol that was stolen or coop-ted from religions.'” He succinctly 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.”
Of course the first amendment speaks much about freedom, but as Toulouse explains, no educated person would see the swastika symbol at first glance the way that these Xbox Live members do. I personally believe it is a ploy just to be able to use the symbol for a logo and get a laugh out of it. The people who see it this way need to become more educated with the time period with which the symbol is most associated and realize the harm it can do to others. But, that’s just my two cents.
