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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

#611
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a more detailed explanation of the process of banning someone for using swastikas in a game.

What? "Don't let them use customized cars" is extremely different from "ban them".

The comment provided a list removing more and more capabilities from the game. That's exactly what a gradual process of banning someone would be. Sure, you can give them time to correct their behavior, but eventually you might have to ban them.

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

#612

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.

Hello. I am a white lady born and raised in the South.

Flying the Confederate flag is a sign to anyone else from the South that you are probably a racist. I would bet money that there is a strong correlation between “people who say it is a symbol of heritage” and “people who display the CSA flag”, because very few people are willing to come out and say “fuck yeah I am totally a racist and proud of it!”.

As a bonus, I would also bet that the overlap between “people who say it is a symbol of heritage and/or display it” and “people who are not white” is virtually nonexistant.

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

#613

For the next act we'll censor images of the pyramids of Egypt, which were constructed by slave labor. And then we'll ban texts of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which was influenced by an enlightenment thinker, Voltaire, who also supported the slave trade. And for our next act we'll ban images of Washington, D.C. with its columns and white marble, which glorifies Roman slave-owning society.

> For the next act we'll censor images of the pyramids of Egypt, which were constructed by slave labor.

Pyramid workers were highly skilled and paid professionals though.

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

#614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accelerationism doesn’t work, and never has.

I beg to differ. Without this pandemic and current US president the odds of us seeing the BLM movement would be nil considering the consistently slow burn that we've had over the past decades. Now that the swing has been so great in one direction more people will vote and more people will care. I don't like it but that's how it's working. People who are tired and apathetic lack the impetus to enact meaningful change.

It goes both ways. There are just as many people who consider BLM to be an anarcho-marxist movement who hate white people. This is why accelerationism is bad, because it can radicalise literally everyone.

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

#615

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.

Are they flying it while they protest racism against black people or something? Fly it for defunding the police?

It's got a lot of history being flown specifically to spite black people -- if you want to reclaim that as a non-racist symbol, you'll have to do a lot of work. Otherwise the obvious response is "heritage of what, racism? Why are you proud that your parents tried to keep black people from voting?"

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

#616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want all controversial views to be deplatformed, because I don't see any other way that people will care enough about centralization to actually change.

Accelerationism doesn’t work, and never has.

I didn't say I was going to help it along; I do see the companies trending in that direction already and I would prefer that if they are going to go in that direction anyways they do it quickly enough for people to take notice.

Also, I think I would point out passive resistance movements as an example for something like accelerationism working; it takes subtle mostly private acts of injustice and provokes those people to make unsubtle public acts.

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

#617
post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? "Don't let them use customized cars" is extremely different from "ban them".

The comment provided a list removing more and more capabilities from the game. That's exactly what a gradual process of banning someone would be. Sure, you can give them time to correct their behavior, but eventually you might have to ban them.

The other capabilities would only be removed if they broke other rules. That's not a gradual process toward banning. That's a completely unrelated disciplinary measure.

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

#618
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming that swastikas have much more universal unpopularity than the confederacy flag. Heck, in 2020, MS just voted to remove confederate symbol from the state flag. SO I dont think the comparison is all there. My concern with these sort of deplatforming moves while understandable, is they tend to drive these bigoted ideas underground. So maybe they cant express it publicly but boy, do they find other ways to d…

> but boy, do they find other ways to do it as certain church members' families can attest. Your argument is that, if society was more tolerant of bigots and their symbols, then Dylan Roof might not have murdered nine people? History indicates otherwise: the US was a lot more tolerant of racism in the past and there was a lot more violence.

> if society was more tolerant of bigots and their symbols, then Dylan Roof might not have murdered nine people

In your defense, that may be the surface level interpretation of what I said. However, I am not saying that in any way shape or form. Closer to what I'm saying is that, censorship artificially reduces the number of monsters in our polity that we are able to identify. They are prevented from expression so we don't hear or see them and thus have the mistaken belief that more progress has been made when that couldn't be further from the truth.

I want people to be open with their racism/bigotry, so that I know to steer clear.

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

#619

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.

Southern pride is another way of saying "treason against the U.S." that resulted in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands so that a few people could treat other people as property. The winner gets to make the rules. The South has had 150+ years to celebrate their treason. It's more than enough time that the winners put that symbol to rest.

How can seceded states commit treason against a union that they aren't part of?

> resulted in the mass murder of hundreds of thousands

In other words, a war

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

#620
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This ignores that the "Confederate flag" isn't even the Confederate flag, it's the Virginia specific one.

The point it became a "southern symbol" is a previous set of edgy teenagers and racists who flew it while legislating against black people and trying to stop civil rights.

The point of that iconography is to be a racist dogwhistle, and it's been a very successful one over the past hundred years

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