Showing Off A Swastika Icon In COD: Black Ops Will Get You Banned

If you're using an icon that looks like a swastika in Call of Duty: Black Ops, you will be banned from Xbox Live. Director of policy and enforcement for Microsoft's online service, Stephen Toulouse, made that clear a couple of days ago on his own blog after telling a BLOPS player via Twitter the very same thing. 

The reason you'll get banned, of course, is that the swastika is a sign of monstrous hatred, violence, and abuse. No one needs to be exposed to the distasteful symbol when they're just trying to fit in a couple of games of BLOPs on a Monday afternoon. 

Toulouse lays this all out well on his blog, while also admitting that not all usages of the symbol through the ages have been in the same spirit as the Nazi party in World War II. In fact, the post as a whole serves as a huge rebuttal to those who are somehow mustering up arguments against these possible bans. What's important to remember here, regardless of how you feel on this, is that Xbox Live is a private service and Microsoft can regulate content on it however it sees fit. It could, theoretically, ban the word "Brad."
 

The Xbox Live profile and in-game content you create is accessible by everyone. You do not have the context inside of it to explain your long-winded contrarian view that your pithy text that violates the Terms of Use or Code of Conduct is actually intended to change people's minds about a commonly held understanding.


It's not political correctness, it's fundamental respect. 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.

Heil BLOPS

Guten morgen mein freund!

Wasn't their last game filled with Swastikas?

What if I have a Robo Hitler and he's saying "Mein Laben"?

wait, why no unicorn banging?

Was probably a bad idea to include the custom emblem creator in the first place.

I was beginning to get tired of the amount of 'sex' or 'dick' emblems I'd been seeing. This is only good news.

Good.

Very Good Indeed. 

Well, duh. Personally, I think a dinosaur holding a gun on top of an airplane is significantly cooler than a hate symbol anyways.

It follows the saw law as Mario law. in user generated content. 

But, but it is my right as an American to be a hateful, racist sack of dickbags! First Amendment! ObamaCare!

Before the 1930s, swastikas were more commonly associated with well-being in Hinduism and Buddhism, and were straight up and down instead of the Nazi's tilted version. I wonder if they would give exceptions to that, but I wouldn't suggest risking it.

Good for them

About time.

That's pretty good to hear. I saw far too many of those while I was playing Black Ops on the PS3. One was straight up a Nazi flag. After I saw that. I left the lobby that person was playing on. I've seen another one that was the symbol of the KKK's flag.
 
I am always amazed by just how hateful some people can be online when they think they are anonymous. Listening to voice chat I would hear some of the most violent and racist things you can. It was a real turn off to online play.

what if you would like to use the Indian one which in fact means peace and make it look like the Indian one if that is possible which has a very different resemblance than the Nazi one would they question you or would they just ban you thinking that you intend the Nazi one when in fact you intend the Indian one

Secretly, Brad's wielding a bear banging a unicorn as his emblem.

Yeah, a swastika sucks ass, but I'm sure glad I play on the PC. My soon to be confederate flag won't be banned. =p

Yet upstanding youth can still sport various versions of WEED, 4:10 and other highly intellectual tags/icons.

It's like they lured all the stupid racist idiots into this "create a symbol" thing and then banned their asses. Hilarious if you ask me! 

Does a white man defecating on top of a black man count? What if is it the other way around? What about if it's 2 white or black man?

" Well, duh. Personally, I think a dinosaur holding a gun on top of an airplane is significantly cooler than a hate symbol anyways. "

" Wasn't their last game filled with Swastikas? "

lol yeah I saw some of these.  However, they are nowhere near as abundant as animals sodomizing other animals.  

" Yet upstanding youth can still sport various versions of WEED, 4:10 and other highly intellectual tags/icons. "

Ok the dicks I get because half the items in the emblem editor look like things that could be used to make that type of stuff. The game is rated m so that stuff as immature as it is doesn't bother me. There's no excuse for the rampant racism though. Most of the time its just trolls looking for a fight though.

OH, this is the Xbox Live version of the game.  Nevermind.

" @AlKusanagi said:

" Yet upstanding youth can still sport various versions of WEED, 4:10 and other highly intellectual tags/icons. "

So true. if you allow one aspect of dumbassery, might as well support it all "

What if it's clearly not the Nazi swastika?

Wasn't their last game filled with Swastikas?

" Well, duh. Personally, I think a dinosaur holding a gun on top of an airplane is significantly cooler than a hate symbol anyways. "

" That's pretty good to hear. I saw far too many of those while I was playing Black Ops on the PS3. One was straight up a Nazi flag. After I saw that. I left the lobby that person was playing on. I've seen another one that was the symbol of the KKK's flag. I am always amazed by just how hateful some people can be online when they think they are anonymous. Listening to voice chat I would hear some of the most violent and racist things you can. It was a real turn off to online play. "

Well, there are two sides to this. On the one hand, the argument being made here is pretty solid and I agree with it. 
 
On the other hand, the "it's a private service" argument of the post makes little sense. Whether they are entitled to ban all the Brads of the world (which they probably can't, discrimination laws and all that), that doesn't make it morally acceptable for them to do it. I've never understood this line of reasoning. 
 
I mean, sure, a political blog is entitled to monitor its comments, but would we find it appropriate for them to systematically remove posts they don't agree with, even if they were respectful and articulated? I'm certainly in as much of a right to complain about MS's policies if I find them reproachable as they are to enforce them at least.

Than just use the other actual swastika, if your banned, that's their ignorance. 

I could get banned for my sexy unicorn? Oh no. :(

Torture and shooting people in the face isn't hateful and monstrous?
No no. I'm pretty sure people that play BLOPS arent in it for a couple peaceful games. They're doing it because it's a FUCKING MURDER SIMULATOR and they're terrible people. That's why 50% of the people make Swastika's their emblem.

" Wasn't their last game filled with Swastikas? "

I really don't understand the outrage over this. Sure, the swastika can represent many things, but one of the most prolific things it represents is Nazism, which in turn represents the murder of countless people based on race, religion and sexuality. It's pretty much a no brainier that it's going to be banned.

" Before the 1930s, swastikas were more commonly associated with well-being in Hinduism and Buddhism, and were straight up and down instead of the Nazi's tilted version. I wonder if they would give exceptions to that, but I wouldn't suggest risking it. "

Anyone tried slapping Infinity Ward logos all over everything yet?

" Than just use the other actual swastika, if your banned, that's their ignorance. 

"

You get banned for making a unicorn have sex with a bear? Thats mild compared to anything that you might hear over the mic...