"Second Life does not allow Nazi iconography as it broadly offensive."

"Second Life does not allow Nazi iconography as it broadly offensive." (Jeska Linden)
I would like to preemptively ask anyone who posts here to _BE CIVIL_ so as not to get this thread locked.

I think there are 3 issues here...

1) Do you personally consider any and all "Nazi iconography" offensive? If you happened to open an encyclopedia on the page about Hitler and saw a big red flag with a swastika on it, would you feel offended by it?

2) Do you believe that, in general people should not be able to display "Nazi iconography" on the internet, or in public? Even if it's not meant to endorse it or portray it in a positive light?

3) Do you believe that these things should fall under a blanket ban here on SL in particular?

My answers:

1) No, for the love of god, it was 60 years ago, I'm not jewish and my country wasnt even involved in WW2. Neither me nor my parents were even ALIVE back then, and even my grandmother was just a little kiddy.

2) No way. Freedom of speech and expression are sovereign, censorship of any kind is wrong, and widely practiced by the very fascist regimes we are supposed to be standing against.
People who are overly sensitive should realize that it's a flaw they need to work on, instead of forcing the rest of us to live in a padded cell. What's next, forcing tables to have rounded corners in case somebody gets hurt? Please.

3) I have always believed SL in particular should allow you MORE freedom than the rest of the world, since it has always been a place for creation. As artists, people should be allowed to experiment with things that are not seen as the norm. Especially on private islands.

generally, yes.

no. but this is a very specific example... as opposed to the often offensive use of nazi symbols.

you show your bias by linking these two questions.

no

blanket? no. but a very broad ban? yes.

Ahaha.

I'm sorry, let's deal with the simpler question of Prokofy's freedom of speech before we bother tackling something as obviously offensive as this.

Your mention of "bias" can be interpreted as implying that I endorse Nazi ideology, which is a very serious personal attack, and as such I request that you post some form of clarification.

I don't agree on any kinda censorship, but that sentance is rather out of line, yes it was in the past, but for some people its obviously a very touchy subject, and although I wouldn't agree with the thread being locked, or the censorship involved, I think calling being 'overly sensitive' a flaw that someone needs to work on offensive, everyone has their downfalls, I myself am an overly sensitive person and can often take things the wrong way.

Flaw yes, part of me yes, easily resolvable no.

I think the point is that we SHOULD be allowed to speak and post openly about everything, but we have to make SMALL allowances for those among us that it might offend.

your bias toward your own positions:

by placing that minimizing question about nazi iconography in encyclopedia you cause a semantic frame shift from the general to a very narrow specific domain. a domain that most reasonable people would agree with you on. because you put the general question to next to an edge case question, you bias the results of you query.

which is to say you aren't really looking for opinions... you want people to agree with you.

1) Do you personally consider any and all "Nazi iconography" offensive? If you happened to open an encyclopedia on the page about Hitler and saw a big red flag with a swastika on it, would you feel offended by it?

No, I would not feel offended by it. Obviously, it is the intent of the poster of the symbol (wherever it is) that is important.

2) Do you believe that, in general people should not be able to display "Nazi iconography" on the Internet, or in public? Even if it's not meant to endorse it or portray it in a positive light?

They should be allowed ... although I do think that if it was meant to be endorsed ... it shouldn't be out in public. I don't consider the Internet necessarily "public."

3) Do you believe that these things should fall under a blanket ban here on SL in particular?

I believe that LL has a right to do whatever they want on their own forums. Obviously if they started censoring things right and left the forums would be about as populated as Canada (with most of us near the American border). I don't think it should fall under a blanket ban, however.

Anyone stop to think that maybe LL is concerned more with its marketability in countrys like Germany than they are with your 'freedom' to discuss the Third Reich on THEIR forums and servers? Its not how civil a discussion is, its the use of the word and its associated symbols.

News flash!

Oh wait...

Nevermind, this type of topic was discussed months and months ago. There's nothing new about it.


But, might as well join in the public refrying-of-the-beans....the Lindens stated ages ago that while they would try to keep a minimalist hand on forum censorship, there were a few topics that they would flat out, no exceptions, no questions, no refunds, etc.....not allow on these boards. Regardless of the intention, regardless of the tone, regardless of the humour/civility. Even if everyone said their proverbial pleases and thank-you's. At the top of the list was Nazis, followed shortly behind it anti-semitism.

There's nothing new about this. This topic was hashed and rehashed ages before, and it's been one of the topics where the Lindens were crystal-clear in their interpretation. I only wish more of their interpretations were this cut-and-dried.


- Newfie

Pinky.. err, Newfie .. Won't let us have ANY FUN!!

Regardless of iconology used, if hate speech, harassment and personal attacks are NOT being used or promoted, then it shouldn't be censored. There are many, many examples of brutality in human history, and some in our present time. Does that mean we shouldn't discuss them?

The holocost was almost unimaginably horrible, which I'm sure almost everyone using these forums would agree with. But does that mean nazi's, nazi films, nazi uniforms and nazi symbols should never be mentioned in the forums? I would hope that's not the case.

If someone begins preaching nazi ideals, that would fall under hate speech, and i can see that it would be censored. But an open discussion on the use of comedy and style, derived from a terrible time in human history shouldn't be shut down in my opinion.

In fact, a discussion on what might be acceptable in-world, when portrying thing related such a touchy historical time would be useful. Open dialogue is never a bad thing. And avoidance of history or sensative issues is almost always a bad thing.

Yeah, I believe there are laws in various countries against nazi iconography.

This isn't a freedom of speec issues, this is a "we're a global corporation" issue.

They are two questions for a reason. You can agree with a general ban but recognize there should be specific exceptions, or you can disagree with both the general and the particular. (favoring a blanket ban on anything and everything remotely resembling nazi iconography)
I offered an example of a place where you can normally find a valid use of nazi iconography. I offered that specific example because I recently watched "The Downfall: Hitler and the End of the Third Reich" and, as a history nut, went to wikipedia to read more about it.
I can offer a more appropriate example, if you wish.
What if someone wants to build a sim dedicated to european monuments and includes hitler's HQ?
What if someone wants to build something WW2-themed in general?
Or in this case, what the hell is wrong if two consenting adults wish to use "nazi iconography" as part of their BDSM fetish?
I am pro-freedom in any and every case, even if I personally have no love for the Nazis or BDSM.

Yay! Someone is listening.

Imagine the impact on SL if it was banned in Germany?

Do you think you could dig up that post, I dont remember it and I am very interested in reading it.

1)No
2)Yes
3)No


I dont think erasing history or hiding things does anyone any good. It just gives these things more power than they really have.

Ok. My honest opinion on this. EACH idea, creation, question, presentation, person, etc.. .. Should be judged soley on that idea, creation, question, presention, person, etc..

If I can figure out how to explain my opinion better, I will.. hehe.. Otherwise, I'm hopeful some of you will get what I mean..

I agree with Lo here. It's all about intent.

Hell, some people could be just as offended by the display of the American Flag or pictures of George Bush as others are of Nazi symbols (YES I am playing devil's advocate here! ).

I suppose that in the end, it's all an issue of relativity, and in that case you have to have some pretty loose rules.

There's a big difference between "in bad taste" and "offensive" to me.



Edited to /wave at Pendari! Hiya doll!

So..an open discussion about bigotry would be censored? About racism? Hmm..where does LL draw the line? We can talk about Christianity, which certainly has it's share of "dark historical acts", involving mass slaughters and genocide. We can discuss Iraq, where thousands of folks are dying and where factions are seeking to eliminate whole cultures and cross-sections of people. We can discuss crimnal acts. We can discuss sex. We can discuss brutality. But if we discuss Nazi's it's somehow far more terrible? Guess i don't get it. It's a part of our history, and a part that I would hope taught us a very valuable lesson. Don't bury history. Pull it out into the light of day for all to see.

To me, building a concentration camp in SL, with all of it's horrors evident, would be a good thing. Make it historically accurate, with informational and historical notecards. What greater service could you do to the people that endured and died from such an atrocity than to make sure future generations are very very aware of humanity's penchant for terrible acts, and to be ever viligant that such never happen again. (Even though they are still happening in the modern world in different countries.)

I'll sift through the archives and see if I can come up with it. If I recall correctly, at the time it was about WWIIOLer's wearing Nazi SS costumes and gatecrashing public events. - Newfie

Here's an interesting spin.

Recently, I accessed an online TV service that has a whole bunch of Enterprise episodes.

The season finale a year or so ago (I think, we sorta just watched a bunch in semi order), involved a race called the Zindi returning to the past and attempting to alter the future of humanity by allying with the Nazis, the SS in particular.

The issue came up that, since these nazis did look and sound sort of cool, all very sleek and well dressed, smoking in that sophisticated european way and all, and did display attributes of loyalty and intelligence, if this was appropriate viewing material.

The question arose; is there any acceptable portrayal of the Nazi other than evil, sadistic, and hate/war mongering?

Arguments went a round this way:

- Was the entire Nazi party, and everybody who believed in their idea of manifest destiny and birthright, entirely misled?
- Were their conditions that led people to side with the Nazis other than propoganda? Did intelligent people follow them?
- Were the activities of the Holocaust uniform to the entire Nazi party?

Truth is, we didn't think so.

Regarding manifest destiny...

What if the American Indian had defeated the Europeans? More than likely, YOU, as a topic, would be banned from the Linden boards.

I thought this pretty interesting. I'm half dutch, my grandmother was a subject of the german occupation of Holland. Believe me I'm no sympathizer. But I did consider these questions to not be entirely unfair.

Yeah, that's what it was about. It was silly, really, the whole thing.

How would they go about banning SL in Germany? I am actually curious. Since it's downloaded from the internet and played online. Would they do a house to house search for SL users? Do they have the ability to ban the IPs or URLs throughout the entire country? Hope not, cause the Untied States Government would love that technology

Too many people are focusing on emotion and not LL's legal/financial decisions. If LL determined the need to ban the use of Nazi terms and symbols for financial reasons, I'd like to know why some feel we should override their financial decision just to talk about something you can talk about in TONS of other venues?

oh oh!!! I can answer that!! But I need to smoke and tinkle first.. BRB!