Microsoft threatens Black Ops swastika users with banhammer

22 November 2010

Oh, you guys. Why can’t a dev include in-game tools to create your own player emblem without a bunch of “cool”, “clever”, and “totally original” people immediately making swastikas and penises? Microsoft is coming down hard on the former, with Xbox LIVE director of policy and enforcement delivering a terse warning to the internet’s 12-year old neo-fascists.

In a lengthy post on his blog, Toulouse writes that, “Tonight I got asked one of those questions that only my job can apparently engender, namely ‘Hey, I’m not a genocidal hater of Jews but I really love the design of the swastika because its actually considered religious from hundreds of years ago, can I use it as my Call Of Duty: Black Ops logo? SWASTIKAS ARE AWESOME.’ No really, someone asked me this as a serious question on twitter. So I of course replied, “no, of course you can’t, we’ll ban you.”

He goes on to explain that despite its significance as an esoteric religious symbol, “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.”

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