[Discussion]Why are swastikas forbidden?

[Luna Amore]

Just because Swastikas are associated with the German Nazi Flag/Symbol it doesn't make any sense for it to be restricted from use. It's meant for a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism and various different meanings in the world. If that doesn't make any sense to you, go ahead and restrict the Communist Symbol because Stalin was responsible for around 40-50 million deaths or the Rising Sun because Imperial Japan used it. And no, it doesn't make me a Fascist or an Extremist for saying that.

[The Mourning Star]

Just because Swastikas are associated with the German Nazi Flag/Symbol it doesn't make any sense for it to be restricted from use. It's supposed to be meant for a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, also being used throughout the world. If that doesn't make any sense to you, go ahead and restrict the Communist Symbol because Stalin was responsible for around 40-50 million deaths or the Rising Sun because Imperial Japan used it. And no, it doesn't make me a Fascist or an Extremist for saying that.

I personally don't feel the swastika should be forbidden for the same reasons you mentioned. But then again I don't believe the national socialists of Germany were as evil as they were/are portrayed

[British Accia]

viewtopic.php?p=16394962#p16394962
That should explain.

[New Benian Republic]

Because the Nazis lost.

[Luziyca]

Because Max said so.

If he earned a dollar for every time he was asked this question, he'd have enough money to buy out Jolt and make NS2 the way it should have been.

[Arux]

http://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=16394962#p16394962
That should explain.

Exactly, that's why I'm saying it's ridiculous. It was never anti-Semitic and it's only portrayed as it is because Nazi Germany used it. Banning the Swastika is as ridiculous as banning the Rising Sun Flag because it's associated with Imperial Japan.

[Luna Amore]

There's a bit of confusion on that. They aren't strictly forbidden. It's possible to have a swastika in your flag, it depends on overall context. For instance, if you had a Jainist themed nation and your fields line up with that, then this flag would be fine. 99.99% of the time, when someone is uploading a swastika flag though, it's a cookie-cutter Nazi nation.

[Arux]

There's a bit of confusion on that. They aren't strictly forbidden. It's possible to have a swastika in your flag, it depends on overall context. For instance, if you had a Jainist themed nation and your fields line up with that, then this flag would be fine. 99.99% of the time, when someone is uploading a swastika flag though, it's a cookie-cutter Nazi nation.

So.... we can't use a swastika but we can use one that's with decorations? Still, Nazi Flags shouldn't be forbidden.

[Jersey Republic]

People don't recognize the swastika as peace but as violence, the third reich affected the world more than Hinduism

[Luna Amore]

There's a bit of confusion on that. They aren't strictly forbidden. It's possible to have a swastika in your flag, it depends on overall context. For instance, if you had a Jainist themed nation and your fields line up with that, then this flag would be fine. 99.99% of the time, when someone is uploading a swastika flag though, it's a cookie-cutter Nazi nation.

So.... we can't use a swastika but we can use one that's with decorations? Still, Nazi Flags shouldn't be forbidden.

It all comes down to intent and context. Malicious content is what we ban. The Nazi swastika falls under that. It's the overall policy of the site owner. It's been that way for 13 years, and isn't going to change.

[MERIZoC]

There's a bit of confusion on that. They aren't strictly forbidden. It's possible to have a swastika in your flag, it depends on overall context. For instance, if you had a Jainist themed nation and your fields line up with that, then this flag would be fine. 99.99% of the time, when someone is uploading a swastika flag though, it's a cookie-cutter Nazi nation.

Wait, really? I seem to remember hearing from mods in the past that even explicitly eastern swastikas were banned in flags.

Example:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=301135&hilit=jain

[Luna Amore]

There's a bit of confusion on that. They aren't strictly forbidden. It's possible to have a swastika in your flag, it depends on overall context. For instance, if you had a Jainist themed nation and your fields line up with that, then this flag would be fine. 99.99% of the time, when someone is uploading a swastika flag though, it's a cookie-cutter Nazi nation.

Wait, really? I seem to remember hearing from mods in the past that even explicitly eastern swastikas were banned in flags.

The confusion has been on both sides, players and mods. Fris, Max and I all talked it over a few nights ago. The team is working on making sure the rule is a bit clearer.

[New Aeyariss]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

[British Accia]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

We don't ban particular patterns of colored pixels, we ban any content that is malicious in nature. The mods' job is to judge which is which. The Nazi swastika, for instance, is not permitted, as its primary association for most people is the Nazi genocide. Conversely, the hammer and sickle is permitted because the atrocities committed by Communist regimes do not outweigh the simple ideological connotations in the mind of the average viewer. And because I know this is going to come up again: I realize that you can point out a bunch of different groups that committed terrible acts, and yet we're not banning their flags. That's because we're not banning the symbols of every group that scored a particular body count; we're prohibiting content that is malicious in nature and to most people will have the primary effect of offending. Not a few people, not just you, but most people. That's the criteria.

[Imperializt Russia]

Just because Swastikas are associated with the German Nazi Flag/Symbol it doesn't make any sense for it to be restricted from use. It's meant for a religious symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism and various different meanings in the world. If that doesn't make any sense to you, go ahead and restrict the Communist Symbol because Stalin was responsible for around 40-50 million deaths or the Rising Sun because Imperial Japan used it. And no, it doesn't make me a Fascist or an Extremist for saying that.

Why do you want to use the swastika so badly that you needed to make a thread about it?

[Luna Amore]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

The Malicious content sticky covers this very well:

Recently we seem to have accumulated a number of nations that are on the wrong side of site policy on "malicious" content. Our policy is kind of subtle, and moderators tend to give players the benefit of the doubt, so some nations have been sliding through when they really shouldn't have, until we've wound up with quite a few of them. We are about to correct this.

As per the FAQ, we don't permit content that is obscene, illegal, threatening, malicious, defamatory, or spam. The "malicious" category includes material that a reasonable person would believe endorses or celebrates violence against real-life people.

It's fairly clear how this applies to forum posts, but can be ambiguous when it comes to nation pages--in particular, nations that refer to the real world. An example is the use of a swastika as a national flag. The swastika isn't specifically banned on NationStates, because we don't ban particular references or arrangements of pixels. But since it is widely seen to symbolize specific real-life events--in particular, the Holocaust--it is usually unacceptable, as an endorsement of violence against real-life people. (This is regardless of how it's intended: We don't try to peer into minds to judge intent, only how it appears.)

Similarly, there is no ban on mentioning Nazis, or Hitler, or espousing ideological beliefs. However, a nation made up as a cookie-cutter Nazi Germany in its name, region, and custom fields (e.g. motto, currency), with no contrary context or redeeming content, is hard to interpret as anything other than an endorsement of that real-life nation's most well-known acts. So this is unacceptable, too. This is the kind of content that has been getting through lately, and shouldn't have.

I'm using Nazi examples because that's what we've seen recently, but it applies equally to any theme or organization that's primarily known for violence for against real-life people. And conversely, it's perfectly fine for a nation to reference Nazis, if that's done in a way that isn't likely to make reasonable people think it's endorsing the Holocaust.

A common question is why we don't ban nations that mimic the Soviet Union, or the USA, or some other real-life nation/entity with a violent history. Certainly, you can total up the body count of various real-world countries and arrive at awful totals: the Soviet Union under Stalin, for example. The question we ask is whether a mini-Soviet Union nation appears to celebrate violence against RL people. And the answer is probably no: assuming no specific references to the contrary, most people wouldn't make that association, because the Soviet Union is widely known for much more than butchery.

We judge nation pages in isolation, since the typical viewer is not going to hunt down forum posts or regional activity for clarifying context. So while parody nations are fine, that needs to be reasonably obvious from the nation page alone.

In summary, there's only a problem if we think a reasonable person looking at a nation page will think it's endorsing violence against real-life people. We are not crazy-strict about this. We are fairly sensitive to satire and humor. But when a nation appears to be simply rocking out to how cool it was for real-life country X to kill a bunch of people, we will delete that nation.

[The Greater Holy Roman Empire III]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

exactly.

[The Greater American Confederation]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

I think it's more about the fact that Hitler targeted a certain set of ethnicities, and that people today continue to do so while using that flag.
Most communist regimes killed opponents without consideration for their origins, and leftist extremists tend to be less violent right now.

[Imperializt Russia]

I wouldn't say that I am not opponent of anything that resembles swastika because I hate it and what it stands for... but why isn't hammer & sickle considered the same way, considering that communists killed ~ 150 million people?

exactly.

This was explained seconds ago.

I didn't realise this was the moderation forum. I found the topic through the "latest topics" bar.
Is there somewhere we could move this that isn't moderation, since personally I don't think it's really a topic for moderation? Technical perhaps? Gameplay?

[Shazbotdom]

exactly.

This was explained seconds ago.

I didn't realise this was the moderation forum. I found the topic through the "latest topics" bar.
Is there somewhere we could move this that isn't moderation, since personally I don't think it's really a topic for moderation? Technical perhaps? Gameplay?

I believe that this is a "Discussion" thread, therefore you shouldn't have to worry.

[Brabantum]

Edit: Post became irrelevant.

[Luna Amore]

You know, the title of this thread is a question that I fail to answer. But I'd like to add up on this. If Swastikas are banned because they're offensive to certain people, then why not ban the hammer and sickle as well? Heck, why not ban religious imagery for the same reason? And while they're at it, ban all kind of symbolism if it's really that much of a problem.

Alright. I added what I had to add.

Answered already in this very thread.

[Baltican Union]

Cuze muh six gorillion.

[Brabantum]

You know, the title of this thread is a question that I fail to answer. But I'd like to add up on this. If Swastikas are banned because they're offensive to certain people, then why not ban the hammer and sickle as well? Heck, why not ban religious imagery for the same reason? And while they're at it, ban all kind of symbolism if it's really that much of a problem.

Alright. I added what I had to add.

Answered already in this very thread.

Whoops. Excuse me for a second.

[Common Territories]

exactly.

This was explained seconds ago.

I didn't realise this was the moderation forum. I found the topic through the "latest topics" bar.
Is there somewhere we could move this that isn't moderation, since personally I don't think it's really a topic for moderation? Technical perhaps? Gameplay?

Rule discussions (although this was not correctly labeled as such) are allowed in Moderation.

And the reason behind communist inspired flags not being banned (such as USSR) is the same as the Imperial Japanese flag or the American flag - they do not inspire evil. Although we all can agree on communism/USSR being bad guys, that is mostly our viewpoint on the subject. Nazism is world renown for being pure evil and as such, its symbols and persons have been banned by Max/the rules. That is just the fact - the swastika is largely associated with evil, hence why the bias towards it. You can make the argument that communism has killed a ton of people and communists done just as bad things - but the fact is one is associated with genocide on a racist scale which basically started World War Two, meanwhile, Communism in Soviet Union are infamous for its bad deeds. It all comes down to Nazis being world infamous and communism a disfavored political position.

Least that's my viewpoint on the situation. Mods are sick of the question - im pretty sure the last time this discussion popped up they locked it and linked over the first and last event.

Edit: A few people beat me to posting.