[Discuss] Should Flags of terrorist organizations be banned?

[Aclion]

Well as nation flags they are, but in RP context and such they're not.

No, actually, they aren't.

To quote Violet:

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.)

So my question is how is the flag of a terrorist organization not an endorsement of violence against real-life people, at least as much as a flag celebrating nazis?

[Jebslund]

You should be more relaxed, with a few Nazi Symbols allowed. However, there should be a disclaimer stating how the website doesn't support Nazi ideologies. What could possibly go wrong?

[emphasis mine]
1: Nazi symbols are not banned. See the quote in one of my replies above. It's how said symbols are *used* that determines whether or not one falls afoul of the rules.
2: Google gives literally zero fucks about disclaimers. Just ask Youtubers who have been demonetised for even *mentioning* firearms or discussing certain historical events. Talk is cheap, and Google is more concerned about how certain things look than about the facts of the matter.
3: The site could have all of its ads pulled, thereby no longer being self-sufficient while still maintaining a "Free, but donations via the site store welcome" model. Individual advertisers will also pull ads if they think the site is leaning too much into territory that their customer base and/or investors won't like. Companies can and will drop advertisers and advertising platforms at even the slightest whiff of a situation that could damage their image.
4: If you have to ask the underlined bit, you already know fecal matter is about to hit the rotary airflow facilitation device.

So my question is how is the flag of a terrorist organization not an endorsement of violence against real-life people, at least as much as a flag celebrating nazis?

Same way RPing a Nazi nation isn't necessarily an endorsement of Nazis, or my playing a sociopathic torturer years back wasn't an endorsement of sociopathy or torture. Pretending to be the bad guys isn't saying that you want to be the bad guys IRL.

Again, Nazi flags are not banned in and of themselves. It's just really difficult to use them in ways that are rules-compliant. There doesn't really need to be a new rule for terrorist group flags, because we already *have* a rule in place for that: The same one that applies to Nazi flags.

[Christian Confederation]

The idea of baning symbols and ideas is something I don't agree with, but sometimes it's necessary.


For example if a nation had a Nazi flag for RP resions like if there was a Hoi4 RP region is 100% ok with me. This includes dictatorships from movies, shows, and games. (Earth x- basically Nazi earth from DC comics, man in the high Castle/ wolfinstine other possibly controversial nation's.)

But if it's a Nazi flag for non RP/ backstory resions and is being used for hate it should not be allowed.

Parody flags should be allowed. Ex- the Nazi flag with the you tube demonitazation sign instead of a swaztica.

Terrorist flags should be allowed if it's a parody. Ex- a flag with the face of a team America Terorist would be ok.


Hear is where we get into merky waters.
The Rebal battle flag is controversial to say the least. In the south, parts of south America and Europe, and some military units the flag is a symbol of history and heratige. Whall some see it as racist and a symbol of white supremacists.

I see it as the first option, but I know some people use it for white supremacy. (I've rejected several embassy requests from white supremacists)
My point being Since the flag is in a bit of a Gray area it should be looked at by a case by case basses.

Dixie and my nation are great examples of the confederat battle flag being used in a RP/ non racist way.


TL DR:- flag/ symbol banning is a slippery slope and we should move forward carefully.

[Cekoviu]

-snipped because too much whitespace-

Slippery slope arguments are a logical fallacy, so this holds no real weight. It's quite possible to ban Nazi flags and endorsement of genocidal ideologies without banning people who are very clearly RPing and not endorsing anything related to those ideologies. Whether those ought to be banned can be argued, but if they were, it would not lead to what you suggest.

[Saiwania]

I'm inclined to believe that no flag should be banned, unless the image in question is illegal or is pornographic.

But as a practical matter, it is probably better for the website overall, to ban the flags of terrorist organizations. The website probably got more flack than it needed for allowing ISIS flags while Islamic State was still a big player.

I had thought that governments like Australia and the European Union (EU) were the enemy, but it appears that extends to Google as well. People are working on breaking the Silicon Valley hold over the Internet, but it will take time. The long term goal I'd consider is to be self funding, to not need to rely on Google or any third party for any support whatsoever.

With ad blockers, most tech savvy people never see a single ad to begin with, thus there is no money from them if they're just visiting. I saw a figure that it is around 15% of people online that block advertising. The internet would have a real problem on its hands if that moved up to close to 100% and people just kept finding ways to disable advertising.

For me, I block ads simply because: I grew up during the decade (early 2000s) where ads in general were an unsafe security risk. Many ads probably still are unsafe. I know that blocking ads is correlated with using less bandwidth and having far less risk and problems with malware, and generally a more pleasant browsing experience because you get the page view you want and don't have anything wasting your time or distracting you from your current task.

Plus I'm a power user, so I enjoy having the power to "have it my way" even though this runs counter to what websites and corporations want. Just because I happen to see an ad, doesn't make it any more likely for me to want to click on it. I'm unsure why ad companies are still willing to pay for ads that people will ignore or not click on. Other than perhaps for marketing purposes. Such as if someone remembers a brand or name and makes a later purchase because of that if what is on offer is what they want or need.

We need to "Break the (proverbial) Dawes Chains" as I call it. We haven't done this yet but there may eventually come a time when we can do just that.

[Aclion]

So my question is how is the flag of a terrorist organization not an endorsement of violence against real-life people, at least as much as a flag celebrating nazis?

Same way RPing a Nazi nation isn't necessarily an endorsement of Nazis, or my playing a sociopathic torturer years back wasn't an endorsement of sociopathy or torture. Pretending to be the bad guys isn't saying that you want to be the bad guys IRL.

Again, Nazi flags are not banned in and of themselves. It's just really difficult to use them in ways that are rules-compliant. There doesn't really need to be a new rule for terrorist group flags, because we already *have* a rule in place for that: The same one that applies to Nazi flags.

Pedantry aside. Why isn't it equally difficult to use an ISIS flag in a way that is rules-complaint? It seem that the assumption that a nations flag is an OOC endorsment of what that nation stood for is only applied to a single group of symbols.

[NERVUN]

Same way RPing a Nazi nation isn't necessarily an endorsement of Nazis, or my playing a sociopathic torturer years back wasn't an endorsement of sociopathy or torture. Pretending to be the bad guys isn't saying that you want to be the bad guys IRL.

Again, Nazi flags are not banned in and of themselves. It's just really difficult to use them in ways that are rules-compliant. There doesn't really need to be a new rule for terrorist group flags, because we already *have* a rule in place for that: The same one that applies to Nazi flags.

Pedantry aside. Why isn't it equally difficult to use an ISIS flag in a way that is rules-complaint? It seem that the assumption that a nations flag is an OOC endorsment of what that nation stood for is only applied to a single group of symbols.

As noted by [violet]'s post, it's a combination of things. Part of which is, hrmm, shall we say notability? 9 out of 10 people are going to recognize a swastika and that brings up one thing. That makes it hard to defuse it from the rest of the NS nation using it. For most people, ISIS flags or flags of most terrorists organizations are not that recognizable besides a vague notion of 'something with Arabic writing on it', which is quite a number of legitimate flags (If you remember, there was the flap not so long about about CNN (IIRC) using a graphic of what it THOUGHT was the ISIS flag, but it was actually dildos).

That said, we will and have removed nations that come in with the ISIS flag and fields that scream "Death to the infidels" as violating the same rules that we apply to Nazi themed nations that use the swastika.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

Pedantry aside. Why isn't it equally difficult to use an ISIS flag in a way that is rules-complaint? It seem that the assumption that a nations flag is an OOC endorsment of what that nation stood for is only applied to a single group of symbols.

As noted by [violet]'s post, it's a combination of things. Part of which is, hrmm, shall we say notability? 9 out of 10 people are going to recognize a swastika and that brings up one thing. That makes it hard to defuse it from the rest of the NS nation using it. For most people, ISIS flags or flags of most terrorists organizations are not that recognizable besides a vague notion of 'something with Arabic writing on it', which is quite a number of legitimate flags (If you remember, there was the flap not so long about about CNN (IIRC) using a graphic of what it THOUGHT was the ISIS flag, but it was actually dildos).

That said, we will and have removed nations that come in with the ISIS flag and fields that scream "Death to the infidels" as violating the same rules that we apply to Nazi themed nations that use the swastika.

Nationstates too many terrorist rags there is

[Diarcesia]

-snipped because too much whitespace-

Slippery slope arguments are a logical fallacy, so this holds no real weight. It's quite possible to ban Nazi flags and endorsement of genocidal ideologies without banning people who are very clearly RPing and not endorsing anything related to those ideologies. Whether those ought to be banned can be argued, but if they were, it would not lead to what you suggest.

While it's a logical fallacy, there are certain instances where this can be legitimate. Personally I treat it as an extraordinary claim that requires a very well-explained rational to be believed.

I think what Christian Confederation is trying to say is that the people who use it will shift to other euphemistic symbols to represent their cause... Are we going to ban those too? We just got onto the treadmill, then.

[Nilrahrarfan]

Pedantry aside. Why isn't it equally difficult to use an ISIS flag in a way that is rules-complaint? It seem that the assumption that a nations flag is an OOC endorsment of what that nation stood for is only applied to a single group of symbols.

As noted by [violet]'s post, it's a combination of things. Part of which is, hrmm, shall we say notability? 9 out of 10 people are going to recognize a swastika and that brings up one thing. That makes it hard to defuse it from the rest of the NS nation using it. For most people, ISIS flags or flags of most terrorists organizations are not that recognizable besides a vague notion of 'something with Arabic writing on it', which is quite a number of legitimate flags (If you remember, there was the flap not so long about about CNN (IIRC) using a graphic of what it THOUGHT was the ISIS flag, but it was actually dildos).

That said, we will and have removed nations that come in with the ISIS flag and fields that scream "Death to the infidels" as violating the same rules that we apply to Nazi themed nations that use the swastika.

I have a puppet called the Earthquake Jihad, which is supposed to be my OOC dystopia. As for my OOC Utopia, that's the Tornado Queendom. Thus, this is a perfect example of RP because it's in-character.

[Hakinda Herseyi Duymak istiyorum]

The flag has a picture of the killer terrorist. Swastika like should be forbidden terror propaganda.

Unified Kurdstan

[Nouveau Quebecois]

No, mainly because I for one would not the trust moderators with anymore loose-definitions then they absolutely need, and "terrorism" isn't one I fancy added to the list.

[Aikoland]

The flag has a picture of the killer terrorist. Swastika like should be forbidden terror propaganda.

Unified Kurdstan

I know you're the OP but why did you suddenly decide to bump this thread up after literal months when the general consensus by both the users and moderators is 'no, we won't ban flags of 'terrorist organizations' but users who are clearly using these flags in a malicious context will still get in trouble'?