How “nazi glorification” became one of <em>Garry’s Mod</em>’s few prohibited acts

Creator says being a parent has made his moderation attitudes "less black and white."

See full article...

 

[watermeloncup]

Nazis are bad.
But does that mean we should wipe them out in totality, including their symbols, regardless of context? You know who tried to do such a thing? The Nazis, with their book burnings.

Do you think Inglorious Basterds glorified the Nazis? (Including this rhetorical question just so I can include this video clip )

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6GUWfmW4dg

It's a lot easier and less prone to abuse to have bright line policies like "no swastikas". It would be great if the admins could come up with more nuanced policies, but that would be much more difficult to enforce.

 

[watermeloncup]

This leads to absurdities like historical documentaries being blacklisted from Youtube because they (gasp) displayed a swastika when talking about Nazis.

Even if more difficult to enforce, a more nuanced policy is overwhelmingly preferable.

It's all about priorities. I could see making a choice to err on the side of not platforming Nazis over complete free expression. Especially for a game like Garry's Mod.

 

[watermeloncup]

Trolls like to see a rule and then dance right up to the line. And complain that they were following the rules when they are inevitably banned.

Broad rules are better. Mods can decide what does or doesn't violate it.

Yeah, if only Nazi swastikas were banned, the Nazis would start using Hindu swastikas instead, and frankly most people wouldn't notice the difference.

 

[watermeloncup]

I just saw this highly relevant video on YouTube, which helps to explain why platforms decide to ban Nazi content even if it's in an apparently historical context. The video describes a trend where Hitler's speeches are uploaded to YouTube with English subtitles. By itself, that could be simply historical content, and the speeches are mostly those which don't overtly call for genocide. But whatever the intentions are of the original uploader, the comment sections of these videos are full of people overtly praising Hitler, giving Nazis a chance to connect with each other that they wouldn't have had otherwise.

 

[watermeloncup]

*For those who have not been there, when you enter the museum, you are handed an ID book of a Jewish person who lived somewhere within the Reich during that time period. It gives you basic information about them - their name, their profession/job, a bit about their background and life up to that point. But it doesn't tell you what happened to them. As you move through the main exhibit, it walks you through all of the terrible shit that those who were rounded up were subjected to, and it gives you a list of who perished where/when/during which stage. So you follow along with that and look for your person at each stage to find out their fate. Yes, they also hand out ID books of survivors. I kept my book. I still have it at home, on display in my living room. I still look at it from time to time. My person didn't make it. But I want to remember them.

That's absolutely chilling. I've been to Dachau, so I've seen where the atrocities actually happened and seen some of the conditions that the prisoners endured, but I could see myself being hit almost as hard emotionally just by having a single person to identify with, not knowing their fate until the end.

 

[watermeloncup]

Wow, what a irrational stance to take. On one hand, he tries to claim it's very few players, but he also wants to pretend it's some sort of important stance to take, even though it's very few players.

There's nothing irrational about deplatforming Nazis even if it's only one.