From the article: This article does a good job at pointing out how egregious this is, as GOG's response on Twitter (CW: Replies have actual Nazis in them) absolutely doesn't fully address this. I...
From the article:
GOG has apologized for a "Slavic adventure" newsletter sent out today that featured a number of very distinct Nazi runes in its subject line.
To be clear, this is not a misunderstanding, or images that look kind of alike, or a misinterpretation of an ambiguous situation: That's a Sonnenrad, a kolovrat, and the extremely unmistakable double Siegrune of the SS—quite possibly second only to the swastika as the most distinctive emblem of the Nazi regime.
This article does a good job at pointing out how egregious this is, as GOG's response on Twitter (CW: Replies have actual Nazis in them) absolutely doesn't fully address this. I can't imagine any method of displaying these symbols in this order would look like anything else. An earlier response on Reddit makes things look even worse to me:
What was displayed in several devices as doppelrune is out of our control. ᛋ was displayed as ϟ on several devices (might display for you differently here as well just letting you know). We should pay more attention to checking it on a different systems and devices. I also recognize that placing two such runes next to each other could create an unfortunate association with symbols used by the Nazi regime. This was noticed before distribution, and out of respect for local sensitivities, the material was not sent to the German community.
Emphasis mine. They saw the problem before distribution, and chose to let it fly anyways, taking only the steps necessary to avoid literally breaking German law.
First, it does display very differently for me on Tildes than on reddit. Second, I found this response very illuminating:
What was displayed in several devices as doppelrune is out of our control. ᛋ was displayed as ϟ on several devices (might display for you differently here as well just letting you know).
First, it does display very differently for me on Tildes than on reddit.
Second, I found this response very illuminating:
The Sowilo rune is part of my cultural and historical heritage.
Then why didn't you actually use the Sowlio as you did in the following paragraph?
ᛋ was displayed as ϟ on several devices
You specifically used the Greek Koppa, ϟ, unicode U+03DE instead of the Sowlio, ᛋ, unicode U+16CB. You could have even used the less confusable variation from Elder Futhark, ᛊ, unicode U+16CA.
Even if that could be explained away, the double usage has zero meaning outside of use by the Schuztstaffel.
Uff, honestly I have no idea that double Siegrune is a Nazi rune. Also,
Uff, honestly I have no idea that double Siegrune is a Nazi rune.
Also,
The Siegrune (a single lightning bolt rune also known as the Sig or Sowilo rune) is banned in Germany when used as a hate symbol or in a Nazi context.
The ban does not apply if the symbol is used for art, historical research, education, or countering anti-constitutional activities.
Using two in a row has no plausible reference to anything other than the SS, even if you ignore the presence of other runes that are well-known Nazi symbols. It very much is a situation where the...
Using two in a row has no plausible reference to anything other than the SS, even if you ignore the presence of other runes that are well-known Nazi symbols. It very much is a situation where the only more recognizably Nazi reference they could have included would have been a proper swastika/Hakenkreuz. The fact that they held this back from Germany is evidence that they were aware of this, too.
Yeah choosing to deliberately send it after reviewing it AND preventing it from going to German subscribers means they absolutely cannot pretend that they didn't know what they were sending. They...
Yeah choosing to deliberately send it after reviewing it AND preventing it from going to German subscribers means they absolutely cannot pretend that they didn't know what they were sending. They 100% knew and decided they had no problem with it
Devil's advocate: if you had shown me that subject line without further context, I would not have been able to tell you it was problematic. Even after reading the article, I can see the...
Devil's advocate: if you had shown me that subject line without further context, I would not have been able to tell you it was problematic. Even after reading the article, I can see the association of the last 2 symbols with the SS but the first two mean literally nothing to me.
Given the rest of the conversation about how they specifically didn't sent it to German recipients though, this is pretty inexcusable.
I keep broadly abreast of hate symbols for work related reasons. I'd have clocked that line, but not everyone does. However that sort of proves this was intentional, or at minimum directly sourced...
I keep broadly abreast of hate symbols for work related reasons. I'd have clocked that line, but not everyone does.
However that sort of proves this was intentional, or at minimum directly sourced from Nazi sources. Slavic runes aren't really a thing and this is about a Slavic game. So why use runes? (Well the Polish person says they're his culture.)
And then out of all the Futhark you could use you coincidentally use just the Nazi ones? You specifically use two of one "important to your culture" in a row? You're Polish and didn't think two in a row was a problem? Even though that's also illegal in Poland? Even if you give grace to the "sun" someone put those specific runes in there on purpose. Unless you look up a Nazi source to put your "Slavic" runes in your email header, I find accident hard to buy.
The reddit response is also damning IMO. The game makers knew better and said as much; GoG knew better and sent it anyway for no reason other than "we shouldn't let modern usage override the meaning of these runes that I used without actual meaning".
Even a passing familiarity with either Norse runes or hate symbols would result in knowing about the Nazi uses of these particular ones. There are more obscure runes used by neo-Nazis who aim for...
Even a passing familiarity with either Norse runes or hate symbols would result in knowing about the Nazi uses of these particular ones. There are more obscure runes used by neo-Nazis who aim for more plausible deniability, but this isn't even that. Even if they hadn't demonstrated their full awareness of the problem by holding this email back from German subscribers to avoid breaking the law, letting this email go through by accident would still demonstrate a despicably negligent screening process, since these are unicode characters that are easy to copy-paste into your search engine of choice and doing so would reveal their use as hate symbols very quickly.
From the perspective of "was this an accident" having multiple Nazi symbols is more damning, and the more obscure ones may suggest someone deeper into the ideology. And, I'd guess your point is...
From the perspective of "was this an accident" having multiple Nazi symbols is more damning, and the more obscure ones may suggest someone deeper into the ideology.
And, I'd guess your point is that the other two symbols being less recognizable supports the "how was this missed" case. If you missed it, maybe many or all but the source(?) weren't paying attention, instead of there being some broader problem going on.
I think my initial point was that I completely understand how a single person could make this mistake. But GoG isn't a single person or even a small team, they're a company with a marketing...
I think my initial point was that I completely understand how a single person could make this mistake. But GoG isn't a single person or even a small team, they're a company with a marketing department. There is at least one person who's literal job is to be aware of and look for exactly this kind of thing and correct it before it ever escapes to the public. And if there isn't, that's in and of itself a significant mistake.
I was one of them. I thought it was... weird but I justified it thinking that maybe they were just runes. And in fact they were talking about a game that maybe have runes in the lore.
I was one of them. I thought it was... weird but I justified it thinking that maybe they were just runes. And in fact they were talking about a game that maybe have runes in the lore.
The devs stated on Reddit that they explicitly removed runes with Nazi associations, even though it was extra work to do so. GoG could have used one of the runes that the game uses, but instead...
The devs stated on Reddit that they explicitly removed runes with Nazi associations, even though it was extra work to do so. GoG could have used one of the runes that the game uses, but instead they sent what they did. There is no good reason for them to have picked the runes that they did, and their response shows they knew what those two lightning bolts represented.
From the article:
This article does a good job at pointing out how egregious this is, as GOG's response on Twitter (CW: Replies have actual Nazis in them) absolutely doesn't fully address this. I can't imagine any method of displaying these symbols in this order would look like anything else. An earlier response on Reddit makes things look even worse to me:
Emphasis mine. They saw the problem before distribution, and chose to let it fly anyways, taking only the steps necessary to avoid literally breaking German law.
First, it does display very differently for me on Tildes than on reddit.
Second, I found this response very illuminating:
Mine renders the same in browser, in three cheers and on reddit, but I think it's the device being used that would have the different fonts?
Uff, honestly I have no idea that double Siegrune is a Nazi rune.
Also,
Using two in a row has no plausible reference to anything other than the SS, even if you ignore the presence of other runes that are well-known Nazi symbols. It very much is a situation where the only more recognizably Nazi reference they could have included would have been a proper swastika/Hakenkreuz. The fact that they held this back from Germany is evidence that they were aware of this, too.
Yeah choosing to deliberately send it after reviewing it AND preventing it from going to German subscribers means they absolutely cannot pretend that they didn't know what they were sending. They 100% knew and decided they had no problem with it
Devil's advocate: if you had shown me that subject line without further context, I would not have been able to tell you it was problematic. Even after reading the article, I can see the association of the last 2 symbols with the SS but the first two mean literally nothing to me.
Given the rest of the conversation about how they specifically didn't sent it to German recipients though, this is pretty inexcusable.
I keep broadly abreast of hate symbols for work related reasons. I'd have clocked that line, but not everyone does.
However that sort of proves this was intentional, or at minimum directly sourced from Nazi sources. Slavic runes aren't really a thing and this is about a Slavic game. So why use runes? (Well the Polish person says they're his culture.)
And then out of all the Futhark you could use you coincidentally use just the Nazi ones? You specifically use two of one "important to your culture" in a row? You're Polish and didn't think two in a row was a problem? Even though that's also illegal in Poland? Even if you give grace to the "sun" someone put those specific runes in there on purpose. Unless you look up a Nazi source to put your "Slavic" runes in your email header, I find accident hard to buy.
The reddit response is also damning IMO. The game makers knew better and said as much; GoG knew better and sent it anyway for no reason other than "we shouldn't let modern usage override the meaning of these runes that I used without actual meaning".
Even a passing familiarity with either Norse runes or hate symbols would result in knowing about the Nazi uses of these particular ones. There are more obscure runes used by neo-Nazis who aim for more plausible deniability, but this isn't even that. Even if they hadn't demonstrated their full awareness of the problem by holding this email back from German subscribers to avoid breaking the law, letting this email go through by accident would still demonstrate a despicably negligent screening process, since these are unicode characters that are easy to copy-paste into your search engine of choice and doing so would reveal their use as hate symbols very quickly.
Does the fact they're lesser known but still currently used by nazi symbols not make it worse in other ways?
As in, why do we still have nazis still keeping this nonsense active? That's certainly bad.
From the perspective of "was this an accident" having multiple Nazi symbols is more damning, and the more obscure ones may suggest someone deeper into the ideology.
And, I'd guess your point is that the other two symbols being less recognizable supports the "how was this missed" case. If you missed it, maybe many or all but the source(?) weren't paying attention, instead of there being some broader problem going on.
I think my initial point was that I completely understand how a single person could make this mistake. But GoG isn't a single person or even a small team, they're a company with a marketing department. There is at least one person who's literal job is to be aware of and look for exactly this kind of thing and correct it before it ever escapes to the public. And if there isn't, that's in and of itself a significant mistake.
I was one of them. I thought it was... weird but I justified it thinking that maybe they were just runes. And in fact they were talking about a game that maybe have runes in the lore.
The devs stated on Reddit that they explicitly removed runes with Nazi associations, even though it was extra work to do so. GoG could have used one of the runes that the game uses, but instead they sent what they did. There is no good reason for them to have picked the runes that they did, and their response shows they knew what those two lightning bolts represented.