KingsGambit
Caldari Knights
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Posted - 2009.02.26 11:58:00 -
[1]
Hmmm....a controversial action by Microsoft then. Not the first and won't be the last. It seems a bit heavy handed to me, banning people over their gamertag which isn't particularly offensive or vulgar. I can understand banning the use of gamertags where they do nothing but incite tension or hatred because of a political, racial, etc implication.
All the same, sexual orientation does not IMO need to be in a gamertag. Though inoffensive, it simply doesn't belong there really, and Microsoft are entitled to run the Live! service how they choose. It's the company's call to make, and they made it based on decisions by policy makers. It's not "discrimination" by any stretch though I can understand why it can be seen as controversial.
And at a risk of sounding very much like something Akita T might say...whether or not someone is homesexual, if someone is offended, or feels persecuted because of the ban...get over yourselves FFS. The same goes for anyone who is offended by the homosexual references in the gamertags in the first place. To the former, just pick a new username and get on with it, stop being cry babies. You aren't being persecuted, you're just getting told to pick new usernames because the homosexual references in your old one are now considered inappropriate. Nothing more sinister than that. It is a bit of an overreaction by MS, but it's their call to make.
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KingsGambit
Caldari Knights
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Posted - 2009.02.26 13:53:00 -
[2]
 Originally by: Persephone Starsider
You can't really argue against her right to put that she is a lesbian in her profile
That is not the case. There's no inalienable right for such a thing at all. It's Xbox Live, not the United States Constitution. There are Terms of Service and acceptable behaviour and Microsoft ammended the former. That's it. It's not persecution or discrimination or stifling of free speech, it's a rule change. In truth, this doesn't affect me in anyway and I really don't much care about this issue. Gamers can put what they like in their profiles for all I care, but I wanted to point out that it's not a "right" like the "right to free speech" (or Americans' favourite "right to bear arms") to put what you want in your gamer profile.
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KingsGambit
Caldari Knights
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Posted - 2009.02.26 15:56:00 -
[3]
Originally by: Persephone Starsider
Originally by: KingsGambit
There's no inalienable right for such a thing at all.
If that's the case than why are the teens and kids on Xbox Live allowed to constantly spew profanity and racial and sexual slurs?
The two aren't related whatsoever. Technically speaking though, for one thing it's harder, if not impossible, to monitor and/or prove what someone says over voicechat as opposed to what they type and save into their profile. I don't think it's a case of them being *allowed* to be so rude, just that there's no real way to prevent it or it would be.
But as for why...a combination of parents bringing up disrespectful punks for children, the "anonymity" of the Internet and natural selection being too slow to breed out the genetic dregs they're made from.
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