Switzerland Passes Violent Games Ban 294
BanjoTed writes with a followup to news from February that the Swiss government was pursuing a ban on violent video games. He writes
"Sadly, Switzerland has now passed the law that paves the way for an outright ban on violent video games in the country. The full implications of the ruling will not be known until the government reveals the exact requirements that will be laid down by the new legislation – a decision that has not yet been made. What is certain though is that the Swiss authorities have now obtained the power to introduce any measures they see fit. The likeliest outcome seems to be an outright ban on the production, distribution and sale of any games deemed to be unsuitable – most likely anything with either a PEGI 16+ or PEGI 18+ certificate."
This is how I imagine... (Score:5, Funny)
gaming on Futurama's Neutral Planet would be.
"Banned for not being Neutral enough."
"I hate these filthy neutrals, Kif! With enemies, you know where they stand, but with neutrals - who knows. It sickens me."
Re:This is how I imagine... (Score:4, Funny)
What makes a good man go neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
Re:This is how I imagine... (Score:4, Funny)
Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
All I know is my gut says maybe.
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Tell my wife I said "Hello".
What are they going to charge pirates with,,,, (Score:2, Interesting)
Yay! A violence-free country! (Score:5, Funny)
Boy, it sure is a good thing they wrapped up all the violence into small packages with nifty little stickers on them! Whew, for a minute there, I was worried that I might actually see a "policeman" in that country, or find vulgar language on Youtube the next time I'm visiting there. Goodness me...
Re:Yay! A violence-free country! (Score:4, Informative)
Having lived 2 years in Switzerland, their security is assured very proactively. Every male 18 to 40ish is required to serve in their military. It's not unusual to see tanks rolling down the street midday, on the way to training. Soldiers are often seen on the trains in full uniform, with weapon, off to their weekend on-duty. At a colleague's home, his service rifle was propped up in the corner next to his Swatch collection. Police with automatic weapons are obvious on their patrols at the airport in Zurich.
The Swiss may be conservative, but afraid of violence, they are not.
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There's a difference between paranoia and preparedness. I think the long prevailing position of the Swiss is that they don't especially care for violence, but simultaneously, they know it has its place.
(Paraphrased) "If you want peace, prepare for war." - Flavius Vegetius Renatus
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Don't forget, they will bundle the game with its very own secret bank account! SWEET! Less violence, more embezzling, everyone WINS!
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Take the piss all you like, the fact is they have the highest gun ownership in Europe and the lowest gun crime.
Back on topic, follow the sponsors of this law, chances are they have an axe to grind and the Swiss voters will soon cost these people their jobs.
Let's hope so. I'm from the U.S. and there's plenty of this nonsense happening here: I mean, you'd almost think that our lawmakers have all our problems under complete control and have nothing more important to do with their time (and our money.)
... what do these people (indeed, anyone who wants to "ban" something) want to see happen to society, and what is the probability of that actually occurring? And is that outcome worth the price (the law of unin
What it comes to down to is expectations vs. reality
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No. Just not true. Not entirely anyway. Yes, they do all have guns -- however domestic violence quite often ends up as fatal gunshot wounds. It may be true that they don't have much in the way of armed robbery compared to other European countries, but they sure do love to shoot their own families.
Not that this has anything to do with games.
Gotta do something about that Chavez! (Score:2)
Now that dictator Chavez wants to ban violent video games in Switzerland!? WTF? These leftist dictatorships need to be stopped! ;-)
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No ...
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-crime-murders-with-firearms [nationmaster.com]
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita [nationmaster.com]
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"Take the piss all you like, the fact is they have the highest gun ownership in Europe and the lowest gun crime."
Yes, but they can't just buy as many guns as they want whenever they want. They are given registered assault rifles with a regulated supply of ammo that is periodically checked by the government. And they are also given military training and discipline along with it. They actually have a well-regulated militia, unlike America.
Re:Yay! A violence-free country! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's comparing apples (people who wanted a gun and so bought one) vs oranges (people who may or may not have wanted one but are legally required to have one anyway).
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Because it's comparing apples (people who wanted a gun and so bought one) vs oranges (people who may or may not have wanted one but are legally required to have one anyway).
You haven't explained the significance of that difference. To listen to gun-control advocates, more guns equals more crime. That's why they think they will reduce violent crime by disarming people who obey weapons regulations (that is, law-abiding citizens). I suppose some of them might seriously believe that a criminal willing to commit murder is worried about getting caught with an illegal weapons possession charge, but that's absurd. So when we talk of people who can realistically be disarmed, we are
What has gone wrong with the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me or is the entire world going into a period of reduced freedom and increased state control? Every developed nation appears to be banning violent games, porn and free speech in general and they're doing it for no logical reasons. Modern Warfare 2 sold 6.4million copies in the first week in the US and UK alone and yet there weren't 6.4million new mass murders on the streets. This is more than sufficient evidence to prove that violent games don't turn people into killers and yet are moronic, moralist rulers still press on with their attacks on our freedom.
The one thing that will turn me into a killer is if this continues because I'm growing to hate society more and more by the day. It's been shown many times throughout history that people will only take so much before heads start to roll.
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The one thing that will turn me into a killer is if this continues because I'm growing to hate society more and more by the day. It's been shown many times throughout history that people will only take so much before heads start to roll.
Yeah, but that was before the politicians came up with the "Think of the children" ploy. That one still seems to have quite a bit of juice left in it.
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Free speech has been under attack almost from the moment it was invented (ie. Alien and Sedition Laws). Politicians and bureaucrats despise freedom, they fear it. Somehow the cowards and the tyrants always reach the top.
Well, it ain't too flippin' hard for Swiss gamers to get the games in. As usual, these laws inconvenience only the average consumer.
Re:What has gone wrong with the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been wondering for several years now how long this must go on before the average person realizes that it's a concerted effort. Two or three sovereign nations adopting similar restrictions in similar timeframes is a coincidence. Most of the Western world doing so within the same timespan of a few years indicates a common agenda. It has to be at least significant enough to overcome nationalistic pride, "not invented here", and other factors that would tend to make any given nation not want to follow the lead of all the others.
Only the public education system could produce such large numbers of people who fail to realize or fail to appreciate that a frighteningly small number of people strongly influence, control, and own the major governments and multinational corporations of the world. Historically, small aristocratic elites have never cared about what was in the interests of the average person. Why does anyone suppose they would start caring about that now with video games and the freedom to play the ones of your choice?
What has already happened among the various states of the US is now happening with nations. US states once had significant differences in terms of social norms and state laws. If one state's restrictions really bothered you, you could move to another state that had different laws. Now they all have the same drinking age, the same smoking age, similar speed limits, the same list of prohibited substances, etc. The same thing is happening to nations.
The tendency now is to gradually erode the diversity that exists among nations and turn them into uniform carbon copies of each other so you cannot "vote with your feet" for greater freedoms. This is necessary for two reasons. One, a highly visible counterexample might cause people to decide they won't accept arbitrary restrictions ("country X didn't ban Y, and they haven't had problems with it, so why do we ban Y?"). Two, a few nations that remain free countries would have significant economic (and other) advantages when competing with the ones that jump on the state-control bandwagon. This is in fact one reason why the USA became a superpower in the first place.
Both of those points would serve to undermine the notion that central management of daily life is a necessary function of modern states. That's why so many nations are doing this at once. It's quite obvious to me that it's more than coincidence.
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Nah, it's not a concerted effort in the sense that anything was planned in advance. It's just the herd effect. If your neighbor's government bans violent video games, and then another neighbor's government does does, pretty soon your government is going to start wondering if they maybe have a point. This happens especially if the neighboring countries are generally friendly and well-respected.
That said, it's still stupid.
FWIW, the USA has yet to ban violent video games, and I doubt it ever will.
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Nope: there is still plenty of freedom in Democratic Republic of Congo and no shortage of guns and violence (and the music is great too).
Re:What has gone wrong with the world? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree completely, and I've been thinking on this for a while. For example, (not to pick an inflammatory topic, but it's the first one that came to mind) is it right to call a black person a nigger? No, it's not, and I don't. Does that mean that use of the word should be legislated? Absolutely not. I do, and should, have the right to be an anti-social asshole and use whatever slurs I want. It doesn't mean that the behavior is socially acceptable, and it doesn't make it "right", but we've long ago crossed the line where the government has been legislating morality and it needs to be halted and rolled back. It is extremely prevalent in all cultures and it is both frightening and sad. From legislating the morality of marriage, to the publishing of porn, suicide, "illicit" drugs, what kind of video games I can purchase - a government has no business legislating anything that does not directly harm others, and "hurt feelings" or a different kind of high do not qualify as direct harm. I should be able to smoke pot just as I can drink tequila. I should be able to look at any porn (excluding "true" child porn) that I want. I should be able to choose any partner I want - I don't think the state should be involved in marriage at all.
I do not think a future where everyone is protected from every possible harm, insult, self inflicted damage is a good future.
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Modern Warfare 2 sold 6.4million copies in the first week in the US and UK alone and yet there weren't 6.4million new mass murders on the streets.
To play the devil's advocate, if there were 6.3 million new mass murders then it would be ok too? How do you know that the number of murders didn't significantly increase, or that the number of murders won't increase due to the effects of this game on young minds once they grow up? You're lack of scientific evidence is worse than that on the other side of the argument, with the difference that they actually have done studies (however flawed) and you have not, your pulling conclusions from your anus.
NHL should be the more popular league in the US (Score:2)
If video games cause real world behavior, based on sales of the EA NHL 94-99 series games, the NHL should be vastly more popular than it is today. There should be an entire generation of hardcore American hockey fans who grew up playing the EA games.
But, there isn't. No one played NHL 99 and suddenly decided to demand their community center add a hockey rink.
there won't be ban (Score:5, Informative)
don't worry, there was no law passed. what passed was a mandate to the gov to create a law. that law needs to be voted on if it comes (and nobody knows what form it will have anyway).
even in the unlikely event that that law then will be passed by the parlament, we just need 50k signatures to get a public vote on it (in a world with facebook, that will be very easy).
So no panic, this just just the healthy way a democracy works, everybody has his ideas, and in the end we can vote on them.
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What is "violent" anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have played all sorts of games where targeting and destroying objects is what the game is all about. This started with military flight simulations and went on to tanks, mechs and space ships. Then there was the first-person shooter... started out shooting Nazis then monsters and other people... at least the shapes were people.
Also, there have been "boxing" and wrestling games for a very long time -- widely accepted sports that are also quite violent. In fact, American football is quite violent.
I know this is targeting the grand theft auto games, but there are LOTS of games where there is killing and dying. Few with rape and beating activities, but still. As far as I am concerned, MOST games are violent or could be considered such. Where should the line be drawn? The line certainly can't be straight as there are simply too many exceptions in government.
Cops are allowed to be violent. Soldiers are allowed to be violent. The news is permitted to display violence. Art is allowed to depict violent scenes... many of which are considered to be masterpieces.
And while we are telling people what they can and can't do in the privacy of their own homes, let's outlaw "violent" sex play... no more bondage and certainly no role plays or sexual fantasies that might be considered violent.
The term "slippery slope" is an understatement when it comes to this topic.
Forget legislating against entertainment. Let's legislate good parenting and see how many career-minded professionals and politicians get caught up in that net.
People may not like it, (Score:2)
but at least it's a clearly stated policy with a clearly stated agenda. I disagree with this kind of censorship but it's better than the "refused classification" ban in Australia which seems to be open to more liberal interpretation than this law (although we'll have to see how it's effected).
Define violent game ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously pretty much any RTS is out of the question. War games as well. First Person Shooters. But what about other types of games?
Is it one where violence is the primary incentive or primary way to complete a game?
If so, where does that place a game like Thief: The Dark Project [wikipedia.org], where violence runs counter to the spirit of the game?
Is it one where any kind of violence can take place?
If so, will that not eliminate any kind of racing game, where crashes are quite violent?
Is it one where you, as a player, can inflict damage to a humanoid character?
If so, what will that do to games like The Sims, where you can trap a character inside a house, letting them starve to death or set fire to the house?
What about sandbox games like Second Life, that doesn't have a specific purpose? I realise that quite a lot of people hate Second Life, but here it's a good example of a non-violent violent game. If you want it to be violent, it can be. If you don't want it to be, it won't be.
Is Mario a violent game? After all you need to kill off a lot of enemies to complete the game, or at the very least you have to avoid them killing you. Zelda? Sonic?
What about pure text based games, like Zork? Magic: The Gathering and other similar card-games that have expanded onto the computer?
Does chess count as a violent game? What about Battle Chess [youtube.com]?
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Does chess count as a violent game?
No, silly, only things old people don't like get banned, not everything that fits the definition.
Define "violence" (Score:2)
Some games are obviously violent (GTA, Call of Duty, Quake). But what about cartoon violence, like Pokemon or even old
school Pacman? Maybe the measure addresses this
problem, but I have a hard time trusting politicians to come up with a meaningful definition that would apply to things that might need it but not to those that don't.
Of course all of this ignores the issue of one group of people deciding what larger group of can enjoy as entertainment when said entertainment isn't hurting anyone. Any state will
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You play a lunatic child, going around enslaving and imprisoning sentient creatures. You keep them confined permanently except to cockfight them with other lunatics until one loses consciousness. Then you steal their money.
Brutal!
A is not A anymore (Score:5, Funny)
Did someone pass a law banning correlation between Slashdot headlines and the actual stories?
Title: game banned
Story: new law paves the way for a ban, but it's still unclear.
It use to be once in a while, but now...
What's next?
Title: Civilization destroyed in improbable cataclysmic event!
Story: 2012 released on DVD and Blu-Ray
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Exactly. Switzerland is still a much more direct democracy than most countries. In Switzerland, the population is the last one having a saying, and can just block a law between coming from parliament and becoming an actual law.
I really doubt this gets trough. Switzerland is usually not that retarded. Its population is pretty active in politics. It’s not that rare that something is blocked.
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A country that bans the building of minarets (by popular vote) is retarded. The xenophobia is rampant, and not only against Muslims. And only in 1990 women were allowed to vote in all cantons.
Regardless of their position on "violent" games, they have some serious problems.
The idea of a total ban has more holes than ... (Score:2)
The idea of a total ban has more holes than a lump of Swiss cheese.
Help! (Score:2, Informative)
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/04/2136257/Venezuela-Bans-Hostile-Videogames-and-Toys?from=rss [slashdot.org]
I'm confused now..
An empty gesture (Score:3, Insightful)
Three things will happen here. First, because Switzerland is a relatively small, landlocked country, many Swiss gamers will simply take the relatively short drive to a neighboring country to purchase the games they want. Second, many games are available for purchase online, so the drive will in many cases be unnecessary. And third, anyone who was still waiting for an excuse to pirate games in Switzerland now has it, and quite frankly, more power to them.
The only way this could be more of an empty gesture is if the Swiss legislature banned wicked thoughts. Good luck with that.
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"Relatively short drive"? If you live in Berne, Multimap is giving me over 100 miles each way to get to a likely town outside Swizerland. Man, you've got to really want that game!
The tired old saying rears its ugly head again, in Europe they think 100 miles is far away, and in America they think 100 years is a long time ago.
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Silly Europeans, 100 miles is a pretty short drive.
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If you don't think 100 miles each way is a "relatively short drive" then I'm guessing you're European. Few Americans think much of driving such a distance for trivial things -- heck, some do it just to get to and from work every day! But then, since we're talking about Europeans then I guess you have a point....
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Fourth, it'd lead to all sorts of complications with European trade laws.
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And third, anyone who was still waiting for an excuse to pirate games in Switzerland now has it, and quite frankly, more power to them.
More power to them because it's somehow better than paying?
Hey, Rockstar! (Score:5, Funny)
Grand Theft Auto - Zurich
Take control of young tough Friedrich Heinz Lykakok as he battles his way up the hierarchy of the illicit precision watch market, and eventually targets the trillions of secret dollars and Euros squirreled away in secret Swiss bank accounts. In between missions, tool around the streets and find a lovely little Swiss miss with whom to pass the time.
Pre-order now and get an unlock code for the Sig 550 rifle that shoots fine chocolate bullets. Carnage in the streets never tasted so sweet!
So let me get this straight (Score:5, Interesting)
Every able-bodied male citizen of Switzerland is conscripted into the military at age 20 for a tour of mandatory duty (women may also volunteer), and soldiers are required to keep their weapons nearby even if they're at home. This is a country where most citizens have ready access to real militarily useful guns, and the training to use them. And they're worried about Doom?
Is there a Swiss equivalent of Jack Thompson or something?
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Every able-bodied male citizen of Switzerland is conscripted into the military at age 20 for a tour of mandatory duty (women may also volunteer), and soldiers are required to keep their weapons nearby even if they're at home. This is a country where most citizens have ready access to real militarily useful guns, and the training to use them. And they're worried about Doom?
Maybe near-universal access to high-powered firearms is one of the reasons for their worry?
I am not making a judgement call, just that, based on that argument, you could see it either way.
Not entirely correct (Score:2)
The government is against it.
The parliament however has approved two laws: one which forbids the sale of 18+ games to minors, and another one that forbids the sale of "violent" games completely.
How this doesn't mean yet that the laws come into effect just like that. Instead a lengthy process starts to sort out the details. I do not think it will really lead to a complete ban on violent games.
As the government has already pointed out, just to define and judge what a violent game is, a federal level authority
Re:Not entirely correct - Bullshit in large parts (Score:2)
The title of this article is bullshit an the contents in large parts. The journalist has apparently no clue what he/she is talking about and just aims to grab attention with a grossly wrong article.
Baki is correct, there are proposals under way to create a new law. Among them an extreme 'full ban'. The likely outcome is something 'eurocompatible', e.g. similar to what the other countries (France, Germany) do.
Markus
In other news (Score:2)
In other news, piracy of violent video games in Switzerland is up 12000%.
Damn (Score:2)
There goes the whole franchised violent video games tourneys in Swiss minarets with the local bankers sending corroborating info to the IRS/DHS business model. Back to the drawing board.
Re:But how does this reflect poorly on America? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Uh, no.
There's another way of looking at things, called the US 10th Amendment. Viz:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Recently, SCOTUS (who otherwise can be pretty strange), has bent in this direction. So maybe OR and WA might survive this, and the Swiss's idea of assisted suicide and such will be seen as visionary. At some point, I intend to take advantage of such things personally.
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Re:But how does this reflect poorly on America? (Score:5, Informative)
In contrast to the freedom to commit assisted suicide, the country is not, in general, very socially permissive. It's a very right-wing country both economically and socially. Take, for instance, the ban on minarets [wikipedia.org] in Switzerland. That degree of censorship (and xenophobia) is much more restrictive than most other western countries.
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The minarets were not banned out of a desire to make the country homogeneous for naive tourists.
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So do I, I live in Switzerland by the way. I think the minarett law is a scandal and Switzerland makes itself rididulous with it.
How can you single out a single religion or even a single symbol of it? I don't think it will stand before the european court of human rights.
What they should have done, to protect the swiss landscape (which doesn't include windmills b.t.w., those are dutch) is to have a law that requires new buildings to blend in with the environment. In fact such regulations are already in place
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Yes, the country that banned motor racing for over 50 years is rational and logical.
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Logical as in we have both significant correlation regarding video games and violence and we have used the scientific method to prove causation. Hitler may have been able to see a very little correlation between Jews and whatever social issues he thought there were, but there was no scientifically proven causation, hence his position was not supported by facts, hence it was illogical.
It doesn't matter is someone thinks they are logical, and it doesn't matter if their logic is internally consistent if the h
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oregon has physician assisted suicide. if you cannot afford medical care, the state will pay for your suicide, and no statistics are kept. Oregon's health care plan has been cited as a model for obamacare.
I believe this was heavily litigated. I think all the way to the us supreme court.
washington state also has legal physcians assisted suicide. again no statistics.
I live in oregon, and not long ago, in washingtom.
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>>implying that anyone thinks everything in Europe is perfect
Just because somebody thinks some part of how a nation or culture operates is good, even better than how their own does it, doesn't mean they blanket agree with everything.
It's kind of like how Tea Partiers will claim to hate Bush, then praise every single thing he did and said... only in reverse.
Good effort, though.
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There must be a good reason for this since it was done in a socialist paradise.
On what possible measure could anyone, in their right mind or with a nanosecond's consideration of the facts, think that SWITZERLAND - of all places! - is a "socialist paradise"??
They've been the most capitalistic country on earth since about 1720! Most Swiss I've met are like Ayn Rand! Do they even have any government-run social institutions? They're not even a member [wikipedia.org] of the EU!
That's got to be the funniest post on /. I've seen all week.
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How about banning the parent post? (Score:2)
Perhaps the Swiss could teach Slashdot programmers (if there are any) how to delete all posts with the "n" word in it.
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In a practical sense Slashdot is guilty of censorship on a daily basis. It provides the ability to hide any post that moderators don't like.
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But it's not 'bad' censorship since it is voluntary. All posts are still available and by browsing at something higher than -1 you choose to trust the moderators to hilight anything of interest. Censorship is only bad when it is not optional.
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In a practical sense Slashdot is guilty of censorship on a daily basis. It provides the ability to hide any post that moderators don't like.
Offering criteria by which readers can choose to censor incoming content is a positive thing. All readers are two clicks away from either fine-tuning or turning that feature off and viewing every post anyone wants to make. I, for example, view everything below some threshold "abbreviated" and open up some comments that appear potentially interesting even if they were panned by the mods.
OTOH making that decision for them and forever silencing unpopular speech (especially in an automated fashion based on simp
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It would be great if moderation could objectively rank posts (if that means anything) or even rank them according to an individuals tastes or beliefs, but the way it really works is a handful of people you don't know are deciding when the4 earplugs go on or off. So all you really get to choose is whether you want to evaluate posts on your own or eliminate those that other people don't want you to see.
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Nigerians [wikipedia.org] may disapprove, so would citizens of Niger [wikipedia.org], of-course only when someone misspelled their country names. On the other hand (just a guess) some people, who use this in their own conversations to address one another also may find this kind of 'funny'.
You should really listen to George Carlin's 7 dirty words. It is not the words that are 'evil', it is the context of the word usage.
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I've already heard Carlin's 7 dirty words routine, possibly before you were born.
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whether you did or did not is irrelevant, you missed the point of what Carlin was saying.
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Re:How about banning the parent post? (Score:4, Insightful)
That would be a niggardly response, don't you think? Why should posts that offend some be deleted? Selfish in the extreme IMO.
Well done; you nailed it. It masquerades as a noble cause that, coincidentally enough, is difficult to oppose just like the "for the children" or "to stop terrorists" excuses. Really it's an incredibly selfish desire to "cleanse" the world of everything the person finds distasteful. With good old ends-justify-the-means consequentialism, this type of selfishness will make people advocate censorship and other cures that are worse than the disease.
It's like that saying: most people have two reasons why they do anything -- a good reason, and the real reason. I call it a corrupting influence because the person is usually not aware that the real reason exists, which makes their agenda little more than software they are mindlessly executing.
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Perhaps because nobody used those words here until today.
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I don't hear those words much in the US either.
To be honest I don't hear the "n" word much either. It's probably because in the real world insulting people in any way can be dangerous.
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Yes, I understood that, but I think it's related to the frequency that the various words are spoken rather than a greater tolerance for the "s" or "c" words over the "n" word.
I need Barbara Billingsley to translate (Score:3, Funny)
Sorry, I don't speak leet.
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Yes, and so many people want to drive 200 miles to get the newest and greatest games. I enjoy games but I wouldn't drive that far to get them and I think a lot of people would feel the same way. The opportunity is there but the practicality is not.
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Disclaimer: Yeah I am biased.
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Yes, you are. While I strongly dislike the foreign policy of the US, Switzerland's xenophobia is an embarrassment for all of western Europe.
Compared to the bastions of friendliness to foreigners that say, Austria, the UK and the Netherlands are becoming lately?
Plenty of embarassment to go around...
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Four different languages are spoken inside the country without causing much of a problem. There are not many other countries accomplishing this.
Most information at the townhall is available in several languages. E.g you can make the driving license in English.
In Switzerland, there are about 20% of foreigners. And this seems to work without is
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Were? [citation needed]
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