Regarding the rule of hate speech and political propaganda

We appreciate your feedback and will discuss amongst staff. If any new decisions are made we will release them to the entire server. Closing this thread as the feedback has been received.

 

I know this has been locked (not by me) but I want to explain why I liked Kenny's post since you're now specifically calling me out for what I liked.

If you also noticed, I liked this post too:

and this one:

Our stance is neutral because we have players from both Israel and Palestine playing this game. You are allowed to express your support for either side the same way people were allowed to express support for Hong Kong, Ukraine, etc.

I think there is a miscommunication mainly between people from North America and use of "free Palestine." Over here where I am from I find most people tend to believe it is to show support to free Palestine people from Hamas, it isn't viewed as wanting Israel to be destroyed. I think that is where the miscommunication comes from due to cultural differences.

I personally do my best to keep a neutral stance in anything while also doing my best to learn about everything that is happening around me, but I just wanted to shed some light on on the possible cultural differences with the meaning behind that phrase.

To answer this question you had right here:

If we ban all discussion on the war happening right now, we will then be accused of silencing your voice(s) and targeting your beliefs because we allowed other players to say "free Hong Kong" or "free Ukraine" along the lines of "but you guys aren't letting us support our people! You let everyone else show support for HK and Ukraine but not us???" it would just cause more problems banning the discussion outright than solving them. Please keep in mind this is the first time we had to even issue an Announcement because the amount of hate I have seen in the report section aimed at either side, is insane. We HAD to step in somehow which is why we made that Announcement. I understand it was simplified, but it was simplified because the situation is very convoluted and we wanted everyone to be able to understand to a degree.

Spoiler: other video games with the same issue

Other video games like World of Warcraft for example, just allow everything to be posted in General chat, and it's a mess honestly. The chat every 30min turns into Trump 2024 and has been like that since 2016 lol Blizzard's Staff doesn't even bother trying to mediate it because it's impossible.

We are just asking everyone to avoid discussing political topics because we don't want to bulldoze through, and ban people when the argument essentially unfolds into harassment and threatening other's lives.

Which is why we stated in that Announcement showing support for either side is okay, when it de-rails into flame wars and targeting players then it is not okay.

We don't want to silence people, we just want people to stop having such emotionally charged arguments online on a 2005 private server Forum about the current war and threatening other players by saying they'll go to their homes and kill them for supporting whichever side, or threatening to rape/kill their families when arguments turn nasty, and vile comments being made about one another.

It's better to not discuss it at all-- as per the Announcement Kenny linked.

I understand fully that emotions are high, and people are losing loved ones, so it's bound to bubble up and explode at some point and for some people the exploding part happens online. But we want to be a safe space for everyone, and allow some people to forget about what's going on around them even if it's for just a little bit.