Gay Reference Controversy
Microsoft has come under some criticism for its attitude to homosexuality and Xbox Live. Users may not use the string "gay" in a gamertag (even in a non-homosexual context, for example as part of a surname), or refer to homosexuality in their profile (including self-identifying as such), as the company considers this "content of a sexual nature" or "offensive" to other users and therefore unsuitable for the service. After banning 'Teresa', a lesbian gamer who had been harassed by other users for being a homosexual, this policy gained wide condemnation. A senior Xbox Live team member, Stephen Toulouse, has clarified the policy, stating that "Expression of any sexual orientation is not allowed in gamertags" but that they are "examining how we can provide it in a way that won't get misused". GLAAD weighed in on the controversy as well, supporting the steps that Microsoft has taken over the years to engage the LGBT community.
Read more about this topic: Criticism Of Microsoft
Famous quotes containing the words gay, reference and/or controversy:
“KRUMPACKER: Yes London’s a little too gay for us
Don’t think I mean anything coarse
But I’m afraid we couldn’t stand the pace.
What about it Klip?
KLIPSTEIN: You said it, Krum.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)