Microsoft to cut swastikas

[SM-Bot]

Microsoft yesterday announced it would be offering tools to remove and replace two swastikas which the software giant inadvertently programmed into the latest version of its Office software.

The swastika, which was made infamous by Nazi Germany, was included in Microsoft's "Bookshelf Symbol 7" font. That font was derived from a Japanese font set, said Microsoft Office product manager Simon Marks.

"It was discovered by one of our customers a couple weeks ago," Marks said, adding that there was "no indication of malicious intent."

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[csimon]

omg ...talk about leaving yourself wide open!

[TheSmJ]

Well, I don’t know about this...

The fact is, this symbol was around long before the Nazi party. The symbol itself is not at all offensive; it all depends on the context it's used in. I say it should stay, as it has much better/cleaner/religious meanings aside from the Nazi party.

[Black Hawk]

I'm guessing they are doing it ICSH ;)

[Preacher]

Seems the like the politically correct police have struck again. Who cares if one can write a Swastika in Microsoft Office. Wasn't the symbol originally Native American anyway?

[pseudonym]

TheSmJ had this to say
Well, I don’t know about this...

The fact is, this symbol was around long before the Nazi party. The symbol itself is not at all offensive; it all depends on the context it's used in. I say it should stay, as it has much better/cleaner/religious meanings aside from the Nazi party.

Quite correct. It should stay.

Remember the Olympics (Was it Korea or Japan recently?) where people saw the "swastika" on a temple and flipped at NBC? That was pretty funny :)

[pseudonym]

Preacher had this to say
Seems the like the politically correct police have struck again. Who cares if one can write a Swastika in Microsoft Office. Wasn't the symbol originally Native American anyway?

Native American, East Asian, its in a lot of cultures.

[kanezfan]

except the native american symbol was flipped the other way.

[primesuspect]

It's a symbol that was originally used in hinduism something like FIVE THOUSAND FRICKING YEARS AGO in India...

This is just another big, fat :rolleyes: because some hyper-sensitive money-grubbing soccer mom who makes a career of shopping at Wal-Mart might SUE Microsoft because her precious baby might see the swastika and find out bad things about the Nazi party.

:hrm:

[Lincoln]

Right along the same lines as Vice City getting edited, really... :werr:

Morons.

[Thrax]

People are ****ing annoying.

If they can find something to complain about, generally they will make the effort to do so.

[SimGuy]

With the removal of the swastika, Bill can no longer print his world domination flag. Instead, he must turn to an even more-offending symbol :D

[Preacher]

Where's the mustache?

[polarys425]

TheSmJ had this to say
Well, I don’t know about this...

The fact is, this symbol was around long before the Nazi party. The symbol itself is not at all offensive; it all depends on the context it's used in. I say it should stay, as it has much better/cleaner/religious meanings aside from the Nazi party.

not all that different from the Confederate flag..... just because some redneck in a beat-up old ford decided to fly the flag and proclaim his dislike for a certain race.

when the fact is, blacks fought (for) and died under that very flag.

if people would simply ignore that kinda stuff, then the people using symbols as a means of getting under ones skin would simply give up because they wouldnt get the reaction their seeking to begin with.

[Preacher]

I think you're comparing apples to oranges. No one says that private citizens shouldn't be allowed to express freedom of speech by displaying symbols of their choice, but the Confederate Flag flying over a government building is drastically different than a Swastika font in a private software product. That's what offends many in the South. I'm offended by much of what both regimes stood for, yet being from the South, I understand why some people see the flag as a symbol of their Southern heritage. I also understand and sympathize with the reasons why many Blacks feel it represents slavery and racism, because that was a HUGE part of the South at the time.....so huge their economy was based on it and in large part, they went to war over it.

As for the Blacks fighting for and dying under the Confederate Flag, that contention is suspect at best. How many people you know are going to fight for a system that enslaves, objectifies, and dehumanizes them for nothing more than an elevated melanin level in their skin?!

The real answer is to find a middle road between recognizing and learning from history and not offending people that were hurt by much of those events. An analogous comparison to the Confederate Flag would be to fly a Swatika over a courthouse or government building. Most people would deem that offensive.

[keto]

Preacher had this to say
As for the Blacks fighting for and dying under the Confederate Flag, that contention is suspect at best.

I am not a Civil War expert - hell, I'm Canadian - but this is, in fact, true. I do not know numbers but there were VOLUNTEER black soldiers fighting for the south. I'm sure you could find more on the subject fairly easily on a search engine.

Didn't jump in to debate, just to clear that up and no, I don't think we need to go into the why's and wherefores. ;) I do strongly agree with your first paragraph, at least the part about CONTEXT, as shown in the example of not flying a Confed flag over a government building.

MS having swastikas in software? Could care less personally but the USA is such a litiguous place they have to remove it, as has been stated above. :rolleyes2

[Preacher]

keto,
I'll be quick as well. My point quickly and incompletely made wasn't that Blacks didn't fight for the Confederacy, because they did. My point was that the numbers were small and the reasons varied (almost like the German soldiers fighting in WWII, but not believing in Naziism and Hitler) as to make the contention suspect. While they may have been volunteers, either physical threats, coercion, or greed caused them to fight...and when they did they weren't fighting for the South or slavery, but for their lives. I think the Soviet soldier during WWII might be a reasonable analogy. Keyboardjockey is probably the better venue for further discussion.

[Spinner]

Well some obviously strong feelings on this subject. Microsoft felt it necessary to remove the symbol from one of its fonts, for this exact reason.

It's a tricky subject, but I feel there are many different views on the 'swastika', 99% of them perfectly understandable. Whether someone sees nothing wrong with it, or whether someone in fact does. It's not really about right or wrong, it is just the way people associate with it.

But yea, keyboard jokey, great idea. This sort of topic doesn't seem quite right in the news forum does it.
:)

[polarys425]

actually what blacks should deem most offensive is the fact that it was their own people that sold their ancestors into slavery to begin with.

my comparison was to simply say, that things are only offensive if you let them be offensive.

people use symbols, etc. to get under peoples skin, and when it succeeds, they keep at it. ignore it, it goes away because the desired effect isnt acheived.

the whole slavery thing is moot anyway, no one alive that was a slave, and no one alive who owned them.