It has come to my attention that a certain game, BIA, aka brother in Arms is being targeted for being banned by scratch. I don’t have any stakes in the matter. However I have seen time and time again were these conflicts occur with the same thing happening each time. People judge fandoms and games without actually understanding what they are about. I’ve played BIA, I has almost no guns, weapons or anything actually violent, it’s more like a board game then an actual video game. However a lot of people just assume it’s violent, while yes it has violence, it’s not shown, it’s just implied. The argument it’s historically relevant is true, so is the argument that a certain painter and his actions should be censored. What’s not true is all the assumptions about the game. How can you say “I haven’t played it, but I know-“ well then you don’t have a full perspective, and thus your going on less accurate data then the people who have played it for months and spend dozens of hours on the game. They have made friends, worked harder and created communities with the remix’s of BIA, they should be allowed to have the right for you to at least try and look into the problem before declaring it unsafe for scratch. My argument isn’t that is should be allowed, but for everyone to come together and actually look at something with actual evidence for once instead of assuming things. It’s not that I’m invested in this particular issue, it just seems to me that on scratch people have problems about dealing with banned things, entire communities are just wiped out from existence sometimes, and they deserve to be honestly examined by users who actively try and seek the truth. Am I wrong to believe this? What is the actual way to deal with banned communities?

I believe the recreations which got banned did have images of a certain historial figure who is not considered appropriate in any context except educational. As BIA is a game and not an educational project, the presence of that certain figure is likely the cause of the ban.

I do not believe the BIA franchise itself is banned by scratch, if it was, the search term would be unable to come up with results (that is not the case, if you search “Brother in arms”, while you do not find any BIA projects directly, there are still results.

yadayadayadagoodbye wrote:

I believe the recreations which got banned did have images of a certain historial figure who is not considered appropriate in any context except educational. As BIA is a game and not an educational project, the presence of that certain figure is likely the cause of the ban.

I do not believe the BIA franchise itself is banned by scratch, if it was, the search term would be unable to come up with results (that is not the case, if you search “Brother in arms”, while you do not find any BIA projects directly, there are still results.

I would like to point out that that particular person isn’t prominent in all of the banned projects, and as a side point I would like to adress that this franchise has existed for over a year without much controversy or banning. And almost no one has complained or said it is not user friendly, although I could be wrong I haven’t read through all the comments.
But yes you are right it is the mustache man that caused it most likely, but some people trying to defend scratch has accused it of being very violent with gore, which there is no gore, and I have projects with far more violent elements.

BearBane wrote:

yadayadayadagoodbye wrote:

I believe the recreations which got banned did have images of a certain historial figure who is not considered appropriate in any context except educational. As BIA is a game and not an educational project, the presence of that certain figure is likely the cause of the ban.

I do not believe the BIA franchise itself is banned by scratch, if it was, the search term would be unable to come up with results (that is not the case, if you search “Brother in arms”, while you do not find any BIA projects directly, there are still results.

I would like to point out that that particular person isn’t prominent in all of the banned projects, and as a side point I would like to adress that this franchise has existed for over a year without much controversy or banning. And almost no one has complained or said it is not user friendly, although I could be wrong I haven’t read through all the comments.
But yes you are right it is the mustache man that caused it most likely, but some people trying to defend scratch has accused it of being very violent with gore, which there is no gore, and I have projects with far more violent elements.

although it does appear to be aimed at 11+, you are right that people need to examine the games before taking them down, this is present with other things that ST has done, like banning people for being ‘collab accounts’ when they have no proof and the user is not a collab account.

I do agree that it shouldn't really be banned, other 12+ rated games like Fortnite and i think even 18+ games like GTA are not fully banned (if a GTA remake has gore it will be taken down if ST becomes aware.

If you have a question about a Scratch Team action, please use the Contact Us button at the bottom of every page to ask the Scratch Team directly. However - please make sure it is a specific project that you want to discuss (preferably your own project - not sure if they will respond if the question isn't from the project owner).