MS will ban Forza players who add the confederate flag to their digital cars • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by Lendal » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

ggreer wrote: post #162

otterley wrote: post #2

“...and nothing of value was lost.”

Isn't there a famous racing car that has the design? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Lee_(car)

Dukes of Hazzard was my second-favorite TV show as a kid, (next to CHiPs.) It saddens me that the symbol was foisted on me and millions of other kids throughout history and not just from the TV show. Turns out there was never a time that that flag stood for anyone's "heritage." It always was a symbol of hate. I don't know why people would do that to children.

Now memories of my childhood are darkened, and millions of adults are confused and don't know why. Because people who are long dead thought it would be great fun to raise a generation of f3cking racist kids who would grow up and raise another generation of f2cking racists. It f8cking sucks to be in this situation.

Thanks for nothing, ancestors.

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

#402

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

proc0 wrote: post #190

jammaloo wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious where you fall on the spectrum of this. Do you think that it's good, for example, for people to be displaying Nazi Flags in a racing game? Or if they showed graphic depictions of violence/gore. Where does your line fall, on what is and isn't okay to show?

Good question! The flag itself is not a problem. It won't change my mind for sure. I've seen it in history books, the only difference would be if somehow I feel threatened by the other player holding Nazi beliefs - which I'm not because we defeated them. We can defeat them again, no problem. I would be ok with taking measure if somehow a bunch of a Nazi flags started FLOODING the game. This would be its own problem h…

I'd rather there be no nazis, and if there are nazis, I'd rather they feel uncomfortable expressing that; and if they do feel comfortable expressing that, I want to be able to report them and have them banned.

It's absurd that one must have to deal with hateful political views in a game about racing cars.

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

#403

Post by user982 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #385

caymanjim wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also not the flag of the Confederacy (as in the nation). No one uses that. What everyone uses is the Confederate Battle Flag, which is specifically the flag of the army of secessionists. There's no rational argument that it represents Southern culture.

Interesting, I didn't know that there were multiple flags for the CSA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State... . It seems that the second and third did incorporate the battle flag as part of the design. Wouldn't surprise me to see these people switch to one of the other, lesser-known variants to work around the ban.

> Wouldn't surprise me to see these people switch to one of the other, lesser-known variants to work around the ban.

That's exactly what Georgia did. In 1956 they added the Confederate Battle Flag to their state flag in support of white supremacy and segregation, and in 2003 switched it for the Confederate Stars and Bars: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Georgia_(U.S._state)

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

#404

Post by angry_octet » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:55 PM UTC

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #310

rsynnott wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

This is the Lost Cause revisionist history fallacy at work. It is an early analogue of the recent technique used by Pepes, the white power sign, Neo-Nazi '88' and '14' iconography, etc: giving an in-group meaning to an innocent number, phrase or image to give a superficial plausible deniability.

The Confederate flag is even more powerful because people have been convinced it has something to do with Southern (white) culture and Yankee oppression. Maybe they need a new symbol, that isn't intimitely tied to slavery.

https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/14-wor...

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

#405

Post by fpgaminer » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:56 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #388

reaperducer wrote: post #283

Why ban the players, and not just the design? I once ran a large online forum and set up a word filter to replace certain phrases with "fluffy bunnies" and other absurdities. It did a remarkable job of improving discourse once the foul-mouthed types realized their hateful messages were being massaged. Microsoft could use some kind of super-cool AI-drived ML-based image recognition to replace the flag with a rainbow f…

In your online forum case, what exactly do you do when toxic users wisen up and start working around your filter? Do you ban them or just continue letting them flaunt the rules?

I've seen the replacement filter on a few forums, and it's _surprisingly_ effective. People just ... didn't bother working around it. No idea why, it seems like they would, but I guess they just couldn't be arsed.

Don't forget that the replacement filter is just for banned words. Toxic/abusive behavior would be covered by the usual manual moderation. Though I don't recall ever seeing someone banned for working around the filters on the rare instances that they did.

EDIT: This is in stark contrast to normal filters which just remove or blank out words. Those were _always_ worked around. For whatever reason people feel affronted by those kinds of filters, but the silly replacement filters were "fun".

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

#406

Post by _y5hn » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

aka1234 wrote: post #381

toast0 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That seems like a lot of effort to address the symptoms, not the disease. The root issue is the user. Get rid of the user and you don't have to worry about all these half-measures.

What was the problem needing solving?

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

#407

Post by klmadfejno » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

beaner wrote: post #307

mikepurvis wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the statues belong in museums and history textbooks, not the public square: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/06/19/destroying... It feels tired to still be repeating this when so many others have said it, but Germany is capable of learning about Hitler and Nazism without the monuments glorifying it; Americans can learn about Robert E. Lee without the whitewashed monuments everywhere. And anyway, there w…

I think you're still taking as a foregone conclusion that (all of) the statues represent bad men with evil ideas, and that's what I'm disagreeing with.

Then it's a good thing people aren't toppling statues randomly.

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

#408

Post by innocenat » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

ricktdotorg wrote: post #373

jfarmer wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2017/07/02/issues/no-... https://resources.realestate.co.jp/living/housing-discrimina... https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/04/17/national/social... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-discrimination-fore...

wow! this is indeed quite eye-opening! while i was aware of non-native discrimination in Japan in terms of employment, i had not heard of housing-specific discrimination! i asked for receipts and boy, you delivered!!! thank you for opening my eyes. will read and discuss w/our family :)

To be honest, it's not really to the 'segregated' level. It's not like one building for foreigner and the other for Japanese.

Officially, it's illegal to deny rental based on nationality. In reality, you don't want to live in an apartment if the owner doesn't want you there anyway, even though you could push for it in the court.

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

#409

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #397

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never been to a southern state? It's been flown ever since the war and has been detached from the war and attached to southern identity. It's part of the culture here.

That begs the question. Why did southerners pick the battle flag of the war they fought to preserve slavery as the symbol for "southern identity?"

[deleted]

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

#410

Post by PCI-eX16 » Thu, Jul 02, 2020, 8:00 PM UTC

naasking wrote: post #377

paulchap wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's dangerous when platforms function like a public utility and is yet allowed to do whatever it wants because it's _technically_ private property. It _is_ private property. The companies in question are just exerting their rights. The users agreed to the ToS while signing up, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to cut off your access to their service, as long as it's within the legal bounds of the ToS.…

> It _is_ private property. The companies in question are just exerting their rights. The users agreed to the ToS while signing up, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to cut off your access to their service, as long as it's within the legal bounds of the ToS. So by parity of reasoning, companies that pollute within the bounds of the EPA's restrictions are also perfectly within their legal rights, and so shouldn't…

Your argument makes no sense. It's a complete non-sequitur unless you want the federal government to enact laws that enable them to micro manage every form of communication.

That would get laughed out of the SCOTUS in an instant.