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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

#681

Post by tridentlead »

freehunter wrote: post #627
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really odd social phenomenon. It's one thing to say "We don't like X and find it in poor taste. Please don't do that" I don't like it when folks say such things, but I understand it. Instead, what many folks seem to be saying is that based on one thing they can tell what the person is like inside . It's an amazingly-broad generalization and people seem to be enormously confident of themselves when they make it…

If you're flashing an "OK" sign in clear view, I would understand that to mean things are okay. If you're flashing the sign below the waist so very few people would notice, I would understand that to mean "I'm giving this sign to very few people and only those in that community would understand what I'm saying". Context matters.

I suppose that’s pretty reasonable, but from what I have seen causing trouble from people, I really don’t believe that your view is shared by the majority of people causing the outlast against these symbols. I think either already, or in the near future, when someone makes an innocuous OK symbol, it will simply be interpreted as a symbol they are an even worse and more blatant racist, how dare they.

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

#682

Post by jorvi »

soraminazuki wrote: post #221

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 think Snowden had a point when he said that the answer to bad speech is more speech, not censorship.

Yes! A lot of people get angry when you tell them that, but I think that people should be able to say vile, hateful things. Not because those things contribute anything meaningful to society, but the only way you can possibly have a chance to challenge the views of those people is by knowing that they have those in the first place.

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

#683

Post by lopmotr »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #658
lopmotr wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But Paulchap made a general statement without any of those distinctions. People often make such broad statements of belief when they're trying to make their position sound powerful and important but end up contradicting their actual beliefs. If you restrict it to a certain case or list a bunch of exceptions, it sounds less fundamental or important and makes it look more arbitrary. But that's more honest. Most p…

Paulchap literally said "as long as it's within the legal bounds of the ToS". Discrimination against race or another protected class falls outside of the "legal bounds of the ToS". They already accounted for the case you're trying to argue against.

Yes. Like I said, if the law allowed it, he would support racial discrimination too, according to his statement.

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

#684

Post by tdfx »

serf wrote: post #669
FireBeyond wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's what you got out of this, I'm not sure what to say. I even used the SCUBA shop, which is next door, for reference. No-one that I've seen has advocated that the OK sign be abandoned for divers. I've been mid mouthful at a restaurant when a server has asked how my food is and I've made this sign and not been called a racist. However, should I and half a dozen of my buddies, armed an in full tactical gear, sta…

>However, should I and half a dozen of my buddies, armed an in full tactical gear, standing 10 ft from a BLM protest, waving my Confederate flags, all choose to make this sign for a photo, then a _reasonable person_ may choose to interpret this as "we know exactly what we're implying here, and we're not all just telling the cameraman that "everything is perfect"." yeah, but that's the story required for your credulit…

I understood your underlying point immediately. There's no shortage of people actively seeking to be offended by something. Add an out of context image grab and a clickbait title and you can be the next viral enemy of the internet in a few hours.

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

#685

Post by profgerm »

gamblor956 wrote: post #469
ryandrake wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The Confederate battle flag has been around for 150+ years. It was, from the very beginning, a symbol of treason, of racism, of owning other people as property, of being allowed to rape and murder other humans without consequence. Those who want to "celebrate" their Southern "heritage" have plenty of symbols and flags to choose from that don't have inherently racist and treasonous implications.

> Those who want to "celebrate" their Southern "heritage" have plenty of symbols and flags to choose from that don't have inherently racist and treasonous implications.

Such as? What are those examples?

Is there a reason you feel the need to put scare quotes on celebrate and Southern heritage? Are they not allowed to have a heritage?

I don’t want to defend the flag, because the Confederacy was a monstrosity. But I also don’t like seeing people that have never met a Southerner in their lives (not necessarily you specifically, but certainly most people attacking it) thinking they know all about it and all about the people that fly it.

There are ample numbers- by no means a majority, but certainly a large number- of Black people that use the flag because, whatever its flaws and whatever evils committed under it, that flag is the most popular symbol of Southern culture- their culture.

That’s another factor; most people insulting the South don’t realize just how much of their attacks land on Black people themselves.

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

#686

Post by reificator »

riffraff wrote: post #608
FireBeyond wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's what you got out of this, I'm not sure what to say. I even used the SCUBA shop, which is next door, for reference. No-one that I've seen has advocated that the OK sign be abandoned for divers. I've been mid mouthful at a restaurant when a server has asked how my food is and I've made this sign and not been called a racist. However, should I and half a dozen of my buddies, armed an in full tactical gear, sta…

but things can change to make the OK sign tabu too, can't they? We are saying that if you use a potentially racist sign (hand OK) in real life it's not a big deal, since you're not using it in conjunction with other racist stuff. At the same time you cannot use another potentially racist sign (the confederate flag), even if you were just trying to make a videogame version of "The Dukes of Hazzard" and are not trying…

> Think of the "pepe" meme, which is now an alt-right thing and can't be used anymore in a neutral way!

MonkaS dude.

Pepe is fine, even the group that classified it as a hate symbol weren't referring to general usage.

One group of people I watch on Twitch use it all the time in the way it's meant to be used. As a very expressive cartoon frog that can convey emotions extremely succinctly.

And before you assume they're all closet neo-nazis: this group includes members who stopped streaming for about a month after Trump was elected, who frequently talk about eating the rich, and most recently they just ran a charity drive across multiple channels to raise money for BLM.

Context is key here. Lookup racist pepe images, and compare them to a picture of a sad/happy/etc cartoon frog. You won't have much difficulty telling the difference.

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

#687

Post by anthk »

redisman wrote: post #581
jcranmer wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you never been to rural NY? The Confederate flag flies all over the place there, and I rather suspect that very few of those flying it are doing so because of Southern heritage.

I've seen it in Europe too and those guys definitely couldn't even name one southern state. They did find something about the symbolism very appealing though. Something about some group of humans being superior to others, I can't recall exactly.

In Europe it's used by hard rock fans as a merchandising trope with the American "route 66" myth and so on, we don't relate it to racism but to guys in bikes listening to Motorhead.

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

#688

Post by daenz »

ideals wrote: post #585
gruez wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is that at the end of the day, you're going to be dependent on someone. With a self hosted blog you're dependent on at least an ISP and registrar, both of which are private entities.

Your ISP is a utility. Twitter is not. Your ISP cannot block you from hosting your own blog on your own servers. Even if your ISP did, there are places which will allow you to host whatever you want. Alex Jones is still online for example. WikiLeaks is still online. This argument is always about people complaining that they don't get to participate on the big platforms. But if there was so much demand for people shou…

>people shouting about racist loser shit

This is exactly what I was talking about here[0]. You don't want a place to post freely to exist because you already have a preconceived idea of what people will say, and you are against that. This kind of attitude is hidden behind so many of the "but you can already do X, kinda" responses I've seen before in these discussions.

Why not just lead by saying you don't think a government maintained platform for free speech should exist because you don't want to hear what people who want it would have to say?

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716909

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

#689

Post by IncRnd »

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.

While the Nazi flag may be a racist symbol, the Swastika, however, is not a racist symbol. Billions of people understand its religious significance.

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

#690

Post by krapp »

IncRnd wrote: post #689
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #310

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.

While the Nazi flag may be a racist symbol, the Swastika, however, is not a racist symbol. Billions of people understand its religious significance.

The Swastika is a racist symbol across an entire hemisphere of this planet. The Nazi flag, itself, isn't racist minus the Swastika - in fact, when people want to graphically portray a Nazi analogue without offending people, they usually just use the flag with the Swastika swapped out for something else.

The fact that it isn't racist in, say, China doesn't mean it also isn't racist when spray painted on a synagogue.

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