Yahoo! Bans "Allah" in Screen Names

szembek writes "According to The Register it seems that Yahoo! is banning the use of the string "Allah" in all screen names. The issue apparently became apparent when Linda Callahan attempted to use her surname in her screen name. The following link has an interesting list of terms that Yahoo does allow, and ones they don't."

It's a good thing...

...slashdot hasn't!

Re:It's a good thing...

I had a run in with the filters before. I usually use stripe or stripe7 as my handle even in games that I play online. On Shattered Galaxy [www.sgalaxy.com], I used to go by stripe in their 2-3 years of beta. Then when they went commercial, I found out that it was a banned name! Turns out anything with strip in it was banned. Similarly Grape gets banned because it had rape in it. What gets banned is getting rediculous. What next? Banning capital A because it might be used to spell Allah? What about local slang, Randy is a common name I see in the US. In the UK it's slang for someone who is sexually excited. Does that mean all Randy's are soon to be banned in the UK? or worldwide?

Re:It's a good thing...

A few years back there were a lot of unhappy people in Scunthorpe as their town was always excluded for some reason?

Re:It's a good thing...

Yeah, the same three English teams always seem to get caught in the filtering software:

• Arsenal
• Scunthorpe
• Manchester-fucking-United

Re:It's a good thing...

Didn't AOL get some stick for doing this in the last century? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_Problem [wikipedia.org]

My new handle should be "skeet skeet skeet"

"What's so dope about skeet [wikipedia.org]? White people don't know what it means yet... When they figure it out, they're going to be like, 'My God, what have we done?!'"

Re:It's a good thing...

If you do, are you allowed to use a avatar? :) :)

Jesus Christ!

Is apparently allowed though.

Re:Jesus Christ!

On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions. Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.

Make no mistake -- Yahoo is behaving cowardly in this instance. This has nothing to do with respecting other cultures, and all about avoiding undue attention to the corporate entity. Clearly in this case, terrorism has be effective.

Re:Jesus Christ!

A theological perspective [desiringgod.org] on the difference.

Re:Jesus Christ!

However ignoring demands and dealy harshly with the IRA would seem to contradict what you are saying here. What really started working with the IRA was discussion and resolution(after Maggie "we do not deal with terrorists" Thatcher left). It hasnt been always smooth and a perfect prcess... but there are a lot less bombs going off in London these days. And offshoot nutter(ie The Real IRA) seem to be geting stamped out(I suspect by the actual real IRA combined with law enforment).

Im not suggesting that this is always the way to go. However I think it would be a more positive step to allow some other hope for people who firmly beleive that their only option to fight back is to wire exoplosives to themselves and walk into crowed cafes or crash airliners into large, occupied skyscrapers. There will always be nutter prepared to do this for their cause... but the nutters need a support network. A support network involves money and people. The IRA got into trouble when their US fundign started drying up. But there were still nutter to blow stuff up. Its because the animosity and hatred become an instituion. Its viewed as a good thing to hate the english/americans/whoever.

I should disclaim that I am half Irish and my mother was born in Belfast. She left when she was 6 but was raised in a firm republican family(my grandmother was buried with the flag of the Republic. Her sister was killed and her brother maimed by a pub bomb. My great grandmother ran a safe house and stored guns for the IRA against the blacks and tans during the civil war). For many years my mother would not become a citizen of Australia as it would involve swearing an oath to the queen. She had no rational reason to hate the english, and she is not a bad person, but she did. It was ingrained that deeply from a distance of thousands of miles from The Troubles. Later in life she realised this... and became a citizen. Ive witnessed levels ranging from dislike to hatred for the other side. Of course its a lot less these days. I wouldnt say that I understand where a young palistinian young is coming from... I obviously can not... but I know something about irrational disputes that get ingrained in people... and in families.

Re:You really are a space cadet

wut. What war with spain? The last time the UK was at war with spain was, christ, the 18th century?

Yep, that's exactly right- there has been NO need for the UK to control Ireland since the 18th century. ALL of the rest has been human rights violations.

Ireland was never useful as a strategic property, unless you planned to invade the US or something.

Wrong. During the Reformation, when England went Protestant, a very real fear was that the Catholic Spanish Armada would use Catholic Ireland as a steping stone to attack England. To prevent that, Cornwall invaded Ireland, and used Scotish Presbyterian settlers to kick the Irish off their land. ALL of the "troubles" can be traced to that invasion.

And the IRA only fought over the north; the south, and vast majority, is completely free.

You don't think the IRA started in 1921 do you? No, they've been around since the 1700s.

And it still remains in UK hands, so the IRA didn't get what they wanted.

Actually, the UK is negotiating a date to hand it over- and the IRA already got an election out of the deal.

Re:Jesus Christ!

Agreed some of the issues involved here are totally bizarre.

Like not being allowed to see or hear ossama's messages, we know they're out there but no where can you find them subtitled or dubbed or directly translated in any way.

All you get are summaries from the news, holy crap the public doesn't know anything about why he's upset and no one has gotten upset?

They actually got the most recent one on the net and in it he was talking about being denyed the option of peace talks... super.

Re:Jesus Christ!

I am a christian and go to church every Sunday. So I will set the record straight. There are at least a few "Christians" that would threaten the same kind of violence as these Islamic extremists. Thankfully the seem to be a lot fewer of them.

Clearly this is not true. You can buy T-Shirts with pictures of Jesus on them in all sorts of poses, there are millions of Jesus jokes. South Park (I just heard on the radio) has an episode called 'Bloody Mary' that appears to be parodying his mother. Where are these "Christian" extremists exactly, and whose embassies are they burning?

Re:Jesus Christ!

There are plenty of self-proclaimed Christians who would do violence on people who violate the letter, or perceived spirit of the Bible.

I think you're exaggerating here. There is a handful of nut-jobs out there, not 'plenty'. "The Last Temptation" drew a good deal of protest but not *1* incident of violence. The South Parks that someone else mentioned were brutal but again no violence! The fact is 99.999999-% of Christians would not burn down the Saudi Embassy if they published cartoons making fun of Jesus.

Re:Jesus Christ!

Where are these "Christian" extremists exactly, and whose embassies are they burning?

You forgot, voting their leader into Presidential office.

Re:Jesus Christ!

can someone please tell him it's the same god ... ?

No we can't, because they arent the same and never have been. The Muslim god, Allah, is based off of a member of the local pantheon at the time their prophet. The Christian god is a bastardization of the Hebrew god which is the result of a Monotheistic push from a violence minority starting roughly around the time of the biblical exodus. Some theorise that is was the result of the Egyptian cult of Aton, started by Akhenaton, that drove a murderous sect of Judeism (see Mose's responce to the Hebrews' rejection of his 10 commandments) to become Monotheistic.

So you see, there's good evidence that, although they all hold the same philosophy on rigorism, the various branches of monotheism are only related by their violent means of enforcing believe (whether used internally or externally)

But your milage may vary.

Re:Jesus Christ!

Ok... So far have only seen non-muslim point of view... If you do know about islam... it is the same god because islam says Both Jesus (know as Isa in Islam)... moses (know as Musa) and Abraham (Ibrahim), david (dawood), john (jahn), Joseph(yusuf).... were all messengers of the same god.... The god of Mohammad... So again... depends how you look at it.. Based on Islam... they are all same god. And then... Whats in a name, rose by.....

Re:Jesus Christ!

There are at least a few "Christians" that would threaten the same kind of violence as these Islamic extremists. Thankfully the seem to be a lot fewer of them.

I see it a bit differently. If a nut did something violent in the name of Christianity, the vast, vast majority of Christianity would denounce the act and the practitioner. That doesn't seem to be the case with Islam. I'm not sure of the reason. Maybe they agree with the sentiment. Maybe they're scared of being targeted themselves. I'd like to think it's the latter rather than the former.

Re:Jesus Christ!

I think that people are people wherever you go. It doesn't matter whether you're a Christian or a Muslim, and both religions have had their ugly moments. The key difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists right now is that Christain fundamentalists typically have a pretty decent quality of life, and Islamic fundamentalists don't. The Christian fundamentalists are capable of the same self-righteous rampaging as the Islamic fundamentalists, but the Christian fundamentalists have so much to lose right now, it seems unimaginable to behave that way (who can afford to burn down a building and go to jail when they're working off that second mortgage?). If you took all of the wealth in the US and Europe and handed it over to the Middle East, I have a feeling that you'd soon see an awful lot of poor, desperate, angry Christians burning flags in the street while a bunch of well-fed, well-clothed Muslim families watched from their living rooms and wondered what in the hell could possibly make those Christian lunatics so rabid.

Fundamentalists of any religion are crazy, and poor, desperate fundamentalists of any religion are dangerous.

Poverty is not the root of religiousfundamentalism

The key difference between Christian fundamentalists and Islamic fundamentalists right now is that Christain fundamentalists typically have a pretty decent quality of life, and Islamic fundamentalists don't.[...]If you took all of the wealth in the US and Europe and handed it over to the Middle East, I have a feeling that you'd soon see an awful lot of poor, desperate, angry Christians burning flags in the street while a bunch of well-fed, well-clothed Muslim families watched from their living rooms and wondered what in the hell could possibly make those Christian lunatics so rabid.

The wealth of the US and Europe is handed over every day to the Middle East. At about $60 a barrel. Many of your top-brand islamic fundamentalists their pockets with your money. In fact, the GDP per capita of Saudi Arabia is $12900, that is 13 times that of Mali ($1000), a peaceful stable secular democracy. The Malinese are (mostly) moslem, but very nonfundamentalist. If you want a poor Christian country, there is Malawi ($700). Comparably quiet.

No, being the haves or have nots doesn't seem to be the explanation. Try again.

Re:Jesus Christ!

For the record, that hammas (sp?) was elected as the majority in Palestine makes me think I need to disagree with you on this point. Maybe it's localized by geo or something, but at least in that part of the world I do not think the minority is so minor.
-nB

Re:Jesus Christ!

On the whole, Christians don't threaten death to company executives or members of the press if they disagree with their opinions.

On the whole, muslims don't, either.
Some fanatics, yes. But right-wing born-again christians also not only threaten but on a few occasions have actually killed abortion doctors or activists and others they dislike.

Jews, Christains, Atheists...there's lots of wackos amongst those groups, but in the last few decades radical islam wins hands down for self-righteous violence and terror.

Depends on
a)