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MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

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Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#361
post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protecting your family for a foreign invading army, Sure some rich folks have slave, but what do i have to do with it? Shouldn't i protect my home from invaders?

That's completely understandable. I'm talking about how to view the statues and flags and things that people are still defending.

because its their ancestors their land and their pride.

in your eyes they fought to preserve slavery, in their they fought bravely against the more powerful north to preserve their homes.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole cause of the confederacy was defending the right for white men to own black slaves. All those other things were not solely about defending slavery.

That's not even true. The confederacy also stood for the cause of self-determination, and the right of a state to remove itself from the union that it had voluntarily entered.

Remove themselves, so they can own slaves.

Read The Cornerstone Speech[1]:

that "Our new government['s] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man."

Don’t fall for Lost Cause mythology.[2]

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech#Speech_ti...

2 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederac...

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a number of examples of speech laws in the western world that have banned insults. From 1994-2014 the UK had a ban on speech that was "insulting" The UK's Communications Act 2003 section 127 also says: > (1) A person is guilty of an offence if he- > (a) sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing char…

From Wikipedia on the act: > On 19 December 2012, to strike a balance between freedom of speech and criminality, the Director of Public Prosecutions issued interim guidelines, clarifying when social messaging is eligible for criminal prosecution under UK law. Only communications that are credible threats of violence, harassment, or stalking (such as aggressive Internet trolling) which specifically targets an individu…

> interim guidelines

Implying they already expect to reevaluate this decision?

While this statement sounds reasonable at face value, these kind of important distinctions really need to be codified in law, not left up to prosecutorial discretion. Vague speech laws plus a great degree of prosecutorial discretion is exactly how a lot of brutal regimes oppress dissenters while justifying their actions.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#364
post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be wonderful if things actually played out that way. What I'm seeing, are elected officials caving in to mobs with torches and pitchforks. So no, if I think Che Guevara is a hate symbol, I need only muster up a few hundred individuals, cause damage to private property and presto! No more Che...

Are Che Guevara statues on public property a common thing? I think I would support removing them from public property in my community. It also seems like the few mentions of Che statues I can find online indicate that they have long been controversial, like this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/no-more-statues-of-che_b_1626... So I'm not really sure what your point is. You seem to be trying to make a reductio ad absur…

We are talking about a few pixels in a videogame. It doesn't need to be a statue.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#365

While it's emotionally pleasing to see racists being kicked out of online platforms, another side of me feels wary of these tactics. For starters, being deplatformed from major online players today would have serious consequences. Although it's true that these platforms are "private property," the entire society has become too reliant on them to be seen that way. I think it's dangerous when platforms function like a…

I assume Microsoft never allowed, say, swastikas. There's no reasonable expectation that you are able to spread racist propaganda in a car racing game (or for that matter in an actual car race; I think those tend to have very strict rules around decoration). I can see an _argument_ that Twitter, say, should be forced to pander to racists. I don't buy that argument, mind you, but I can at least see the thought process…

> I assume Microsoft never allowed, say, swastikas.

Let's replace Microsoft with Amazon. Should Amazon be able to produce "The Man in The High Castle?" Should "The Man In The High Castle" be available to watch? How about merchandise from the show? Would it be OK to have it?

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#366
post #240
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

In other words, the glorification of intolerance (“I find those ideas are dangerous, they shall be banned”).

Do you find the Paradox of Intolerance to be a dangerous idea?

The premise is that maximalist tolerance means tolerating intolerant ideas, and that there's a risk that a movement of intolerance can form which destroys the culture of tolerance. It suggests that rational discourse might not always lead us away from intolerant views, and maximalist tolerance could therefore be self-defeating.

You have to decide what's worth tolerating. You can't just say "can't we all be nice to each other" when there are people trying to celebrate an icon of slavery and white nationalism.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's true that it was adopted in 1870, it was adopted as the war flag of the Imperial Japanese Army. The same one that committed horrific atrocities to Korea and China. Then it stopped being used after Japan surrendered in WWII. To many Koreans (and likely Chinese) the wartime version of the rising sun flag is exactly the same as the Nazi flag if not worse. The anglosphere tends to gloss over the brutal behavio…

A line has to be drawn somewhere. The swastika was a very popular symbol, and remains popular outside nazis. The swastika shouldn't (and really can't) be banned, but the Nazi usage of it should be. The confederate flag had a bunch of variants and the popular version seen today was only used after as a symbol of hate. Should be banned. The rising sun flag is just one variation of a couple themes used throughout Japane…

At the end of the day it's going to be arbitrary.

If you take a group of people and ask them what the rising sun flag represents, the majority response will be about WWII imperialist Japan. Which makes sense as they changed it immediately after their surrender in WWII. It legitimately is viewed like the nazi flag by the various Korean people I've talked to in Korea.

The context also matters. Korea has plenty of swastikas. Specifically at shrines/temples and on the ground; not being flown as part of flags.

"What about Y" is a weak argument to keep X flag. You could make that argument for basically any flag. To answer though, it's likely the US flag will be seen in a similar light once it's no longer a powerful hegemony. If the US had a flag that was only used during its "imperialist era" and a different modern one, one would have a stronger argument.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nazi flag is inarguably racist propaganda. The Confederate flag, however, has for decades been a symbol of southern pride for many people. I read somewhere recently that over 40% see it as a symbol of heritage more than racism.

Pride in what? Heritage of what? The South has hundreds of years of history. Why are the 4 years of the Confederacy so celebrated?

I see lots of people on the internet making the 4 year argument, and I have to admit it's a snappy quip, but I don't think the point is made entirely in good faith. I really do see it being flown as a symbol of rural and/or southern pride that is informed by, but largely disconnected from, the civil war other than as a historical symbol that broadly represents an opposition between rural folk and urbanites.

I mean it's definitely being flown by racists and edgy teenagers and I think there's a strong case to be made that a different design is warranted since the heritage people have been largely unsuccessful in keeping the iconography from becoming a racist dogwhistle. But I think it's important to meet the heritage people where they are and start from there.

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#369

While it's emotionally pleasing to see racists being kicked out of online platforms, another side of me feels wary of these tactics. For starters, being deplatformed from major online players today would have serious consequences. Although it's true that these platforms are "private property," the entire society has become too reliant on them to be seen that way. I think it's dangerous when platforms function like a…

Today it's racists--fine. Hell with em. If you're young, you have many years ahead of you. A lot of time for culture and norms to keep changing and evolving. I guarantee that one day, you're going to wake up as an old person, and something that you like that's innocuous today will have been deemed terrible and hateful by a future generation. Maybe even for good reasons. You'll be kicked off platforms, called ignorant…

I've found through my years that it's relatively easy to keep an eye on trends and when something or someone becomes problematic to society, to evaluate why that'd be and let go of it from your life.

My first example of this came when I was ~7 and Robinsons' badges that I'd been collecting since a toddler were seen as an image of racism. It didn't take much work to accept that they were no longer acceptable and that while fun to collect, their time had passed. As it happened, at around that time collecting Star Wars figurines became the de jour thing, so there was something new to enjoy in it's place.

Some people still swear that the badges' meaning is divorced from the racism, and still collect them to this day. I don't know how they can really.

For info on the badges I'm talking about: http://www.golligosh.co.uk/

Re: MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars

#370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an argument for banning swastikas, not banning anyone who displays a swastika. And before you say "come on, swastikas are pretty extreme", remember the moral panic we just went through when 4chan trolls convinced people that the OK hand sign was a "one-sided version ofna White Power" sign and got people fired from their jobs for making the sign.

> "That's an argument for banning swastikas, not banning anyone who displays a swastika." If you don't ban the person displaying the swastika, how can you possibly enforce banning swastikas? There must be a consequence for displaying the offending symbol, otherwise the rule is toothless. You remove the swastika, and the person just replaces it. What then? Just keep removing it and hoping the Nazi/edgelord/'troll' wil…

Ban the car --- either don't let them use it online, or don't show it to others.

If an account gets a threshold number of cars banned, don't let them use customized cars online.

If they're spouting hate on chat, ban them from chat too.

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