Hateful or discriminatory?
The reason? Can you guess?
According to eBay themselves, "You're not allowed to list items that promote or glorify hatred, violence or racial intolerance, or items that promote organisations with such views on eBay."
Ah, so that would be the hatred, violence and racial intolerance promoted by Escape From Colditz, the 1970s children's board game devised by Major Pat Reid, British war hero and former prisoner of war and sold successfully by Parker for a decade or so. The hatred, violence and racial intolerance endemic in educating a younger generation about WWII and the treatment of prisoners in one of the world's most notorious high security war camps.
Hatred, violence and racial intolerance in a board game? Hmmm... maybe they should come 'round to my house at Christmas. Those Trivial Pursuit sessions can get quite heated.
Could it be what they're actually offended by is the appearance of the Swastika symbol on the game? The Swastika, for those who don't know, had been around for centuries before it was appropriated for use by the Nazis and generally means "luck" or "victory".
Are we to assume therefore that the simple use of the Swastika, even in context, is considered offensive?
No, eBay doesn't seem to think so. Look at all the other Nazi memorabilia and merchandise you can buy. Literally thousands of items at the time of writing: http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=nazi&_sacat=See-All-Categories
But, of course, they'll happily remove your item if some knee-jerk, ill-educated idiot decides to complain. And will they apologise for whipping off my auction without warning or deliberation? Will they sausages.
In the mean time, there are still plenty of opportunities to buy Call Of Duty, God Of War and Grand Theft auto on eBay, kids! Forget learning about real people who fought real wars, or boring old board games. Not when you can shoot some pixellated kraut right in his fucking face, dude!
eBay - you need to revisit this policy. You're in danger of looking like reactionary buffoons. You know, the kind that thrived quite well in Germany in 1938.
7 comments:
But I felt obliged to complain to Ebay. Not because of the Nazi stuff. But because it just irked me you might get money, and I wouldn't.
Didn't realise I had Nazi memorabilia! Thought it was just a game like Monopoly which co-incidently was sent to POW's at places like Colditz with maps and money in it. Are E-bay just allowing the selling of mechandise of bits of the war that they like to remember?
Where will it end? Surely Game Of Life is totally unrealistic these days? Two parents? As for Monopoly, well the Monopolies Commission should have a word. Cludeo, all about someone who gets murdered. No wonder the crime figures are going up! Etc.
I've had a response from eBay which states that they removed the listing because "the box had a swastika on it".
Note that eBay's policy allows "Books and films about WWII or Nazi Germany that do not contain propaganda, even if the Nazi symbol appears on the item."
But not board games. NOT those pesky board games, you hear!?
Indeed, eBay allows you to sell Escape From Colditz, as long as you are selling a version which features the Weimar Eagle in place of the swastika, even though the Weimar Eagle was similarly appropriated by Adolf Hitler for the Nazi party until 1935.
You should send that to Private Eye.
And surely you could just obscure the packaging with some cards?
We had a lengthy correspondence with Brian Degas (co-creator of the BBC TV series Colditz) when we were trying to clear Colditz for the BBC Archive Trial. He told us about the model aircraft he marketed based on the one the real prisoners (and the fictional characters) had made to escape Colditz. It has all the parts, but no glue - so that it would force the boys to use their initiative.
A real hero and a lovely man.
Looks like I wasn't the only one... though when I reported the story to The Sun, they weren't interested. Give it a few months and suddenly it's a story. Hmmm...
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2138635.ece
The story goes on... I complied with eBay, pixellated the swastika so it wasn't recognisable, and resubmitted the auction.
They've taken it down again! What the hell is going on?
it's a big sack of piss isn't it?
the internet is both ultra liberal, and ultra conservative!!
I mean, get this. Photobucket Censored and removed a picture I had up, of a David Hasselhof look-a-like (who looked nothing like him, apart from he had a picture of Dave next to him to prove he was a look-a-like. fail) as he was wearing Speedos.
what the fuck?
I mean, they're not pleasant sure... but offensive? go get fucked!
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