Microsoft Threatens Bans on Swastikas in Black Ops, Calls it "Fundamental Respect"

Xbox Live enforcement faced some heat this weekend over its policy on the use of swastikas as personal logos in Call of Duty: Black Ops. In response to a fan on Twitter, Enforcement manager Stephen Toulouse said the team would ban anyone using the symbol as their Black Ops icon. The backlash reached such a level that Toulouse had to address it on his personal blog. Calling the symbol's defenders "contrarians," Toulouse says the symbol has been too corrupted by its history to be interpreted in any other way. "Let's be clear: no educated human on the planet looks at the swastika symbol on a video game service... and says, 'oh, that symbol has nothing at all in any way to do with global genocide of an entire race 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.
"It's not political correctness, it's fundamental respect," he continues. "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. And by the way, that doesn't just go for the swastika, it applies to many other symbols as well that my team does indeed take action on when we see it."
In short, he closes with simple instructions: "If you want to argue that swastikas are actually awesome, go to another forum. On Xbox Live they are not allowed." His message is unlikely to sway the so-called contrarians who were arguing in the first place, but Xbox Live has a history of restricting offensive speech and symbols, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to most of us.

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