I remember a couple of years ago Microsoft not allowing me to have the motto: ‘World Wide Suicide’ – the title of a Pearl Jam song as it was deemed inappropriate. I assume it was the fact that it contained the word suicide and not that it was an anti war song.

In any event, it seems rather petty to ban a user for such a gamer tag as detailed in the article. Of course Microsoft have the right to ban them if they feel it violates their terms and conditions of usage, but it is petty to do so. I have seen much worse gamer tags doing the rounds.

Only an idiot can’t see this.

Was that a rhetorical question? Because the answer is yes.

The user name fits perfectly into that policy description. Obama is a notorious person (by the way, notorious does not necessarily mean that someone is evil, it means that they are of note, they have a lot of notoriety) and he is currently the president so the possibility of his impeachment would be a sensitive current political event. That is exactly what the policy states, can you people read?

Now, none of this is to say that I agree with the policy. I think that this particular screen name isn’t that offensive honestly, and that’s coming from someone who is a supporter of the President. They probably wouldn’t ban a name that says “vote_for_Obama,” so banning the opposite is a bit of a double standard. Plus given the fact that clearly the person who has such a screen name clearly knows nothing about the structure or current state of american politics, who cares? You can’t just arbitrarily impeach the president; impeachment is not recall, and the congress is currently controlled by the president’s party anyway.

But the real reason why microsoft banned the name is something I think any actual gamer can understand: Games are not the place for politics. I don’t want to get into a political debate with someone while playing Halo or MW2. MS is tired enough of people being rude and obnoxious on their servers already, and they don’t want to have to deal with people becoming more cantankerous because they’re picking fights over politics. Games exist to bring us together despite our political and other differences, and it’s just not cool for people to ruin everyone else’s fun by instigating conflict. Still, I think people should just be adult enough to just not comment on tags like this if they do see them since it’s clearly just dumb kids trying to be provocative for the sake of getting attention that they otherwise aren’t getting from friends and family.

@ Dac2u,

Do you even know what socialism is? Do you realize that every modern western industrialized democracy aside from the United States is effectively socialist (all of Europe, Canada and elements of the Japanese and Australian economies)? Do you realize that socialism does not exist in contrast to capitalism, and that in order for a country to be socialist it must necessarily be capitalist, just with certain socialized industries?

Do you realize that a republic is a form of democracy? If a country is a republic then it is necessarily a democracy, I’m sick of idiots saying that “America’s not a democracy, it’s a republic” as if that justifies being less progressive for some reason. There is no way that a democracy could exist on any scale other than a small local community unless it takes the form of a republic.

Do you realize that the president has not made one proposal that even resembles a patent socialist philosophy? If anything, that problem isn’t that he president is a socialist, the problem is that he isn’t a socialist. American right wingers tend to talk about socialism and communism without knowing a single thing about the political theory or history behind them beyond vague notions of Ronald Reagan being the best guy ever (a terrible a lie) and Stalin being a monster (an unfortunate truth). Please, don’t comment on political matters if you have no understanding of politics.

Personally i’m glad i bought the 60 GB PS3 back when it became $499. That way I dont have to worry about waiting for the return of “Backwards Compatability” through a FIRMWARE UPDATE which is likely to end up happening this year.

I have to admit there is a very strong mainstream bias in support of Obama in the USA. In fact usually when MS does one of these bannings, it is top news on every gaming web site LOL! This will likely be ignored by most of the gaming press in the US, simply because most folks don’t feel Obama should be impeached, and that is the wrong way for the media to handle this.