Posts

@Princess Luna
 
neither does swastikas

@Background Pony #8907  
I would not look too deeply into the reasons why things are illegal, but it is worth noting that some countries ban LGBT stuff, so trying to make avatars safe for every country is a fool’s errand; our concerns are in weighing having to tell someone they can’t have an avatar vs. the problems created by people having inflammatory avatars or worse, causing others to need to use special tools to hide avatars for legal reasons. Generally speaking, our user base doesn’t live in the places where communist symbols or pride flags are illegal.

@Background Pony #9F40  
If you actually look at the page, you will notice all these bans were done by either fascist parties, or far right religious ones, the exact same parties that ban LGBT, different religions, or are extremely xenophobic - so the only sane response is to have an exact opposite policy to show there is no tolerance for their hate and discrimination.

@Background Pony #79D7  
@Background Pony #74B3  
The focus is just on stuff relating to discrimination and hate as far as symbols and statements, not the entirety of politics. We wouldn’t want to, for instance, remove all Trump-related avatars, just ones that might be saying something crazy.
 
@Background Pony #9F40  
There definitely are laws that are a problem in certain countries for that stuff, but we can’t make avatars follow every country’s laws, the focus is more on the more commonly-banned stuff. There are backup options for people in countries where communist symbols or other things we allow in avatars are illegal.

You may wish to review This wikipedia page in regards to bans on communist symbolism, if the idea of the rule is to protect people living in countries with less freedoms

Wouldn’t it be better to ban all content that suggests a political topic? For example, communism, fascism, liberalism, conservatism, etc. I think it would be best to move the policy away from this site.

In sure you’ll be extending the same rules to symbols of other extremist ideologies and inherently sexual topics like striped too, right?

@WatermelonRat  
If someone has Aryanne with her normal cutie mark showing outright in their avatar, that’s a problem. If the cutie mark is changed or not visible, then it per se is not an issue.  
Examples that are fine:  
 
Examples that are rather iffy:  
 
Examples that are very iffy:  
 
Examples that are definitely not okay:  

So how does this affect avatar’s featuring the Nazi mascot? That was what sparked this issue, so I think it calls for more elaboration.

Rule 7 has been given a new last bulletpoint (and rule explanation) to better describe how we enforce it on avatars and personal titles. This is primarily to prevent people mistakenly believing every Suggestive or Semi-grimdark avatar needs to be removed (a common problem that wastes our time), but also makes sure that people know to report avatars/titles that put in blatant racial slurs or racist symbolism (yes, that includes swastikas, making this stricter than Rule 0; this is because avatars/titles can’t be filtered and many users live in places that stuff is outright illegal).
 
To be clear, enforcement is not being changed, and we’ve been fairly good with avatar enforcement, so don’t worry about losing your avatar unless you’ve really gone crazy with it and been hiding out.
 
This thread is to ask about and give feedback on the change (we’re open to rewording it, especially the Rule Explanation), and is quite strict about on-topicness. As well, this thread is not for sustained arguing; speak your piece calmly and move on.