Microsoft removes "unacceptable symbols" from font. Nazis unimpressed by removal of swastika symbol, Jews ticked off by removal of Star of David symbol.
Redmond, Washington - Microsoft today added a Critical Update to the Windows Update website in order to protect its consumers, and the entire world, from the ravages of extreme stupidity and intolerance. By removing two swastika symbols from the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font, included with Office 2003, Microsoft "has protected countless children from racial intolerance agendas of supporters of Nazism", according to Bill Gates. "Likewise, by removing the Star of David, Microsoft has affirmed its position with regards to religious equlity.
According to experts, the swastika is an ancient symbol with many meanings to many diverse groups of people. Buddhists often correspond this symbol to the footsteps of Buddha. For other cultures, it symbolized good luck. It wasn't until the 1920s that the symbol earned the damnation of people across the world, due to the Nazis decision to use the symbol to represent their agenda of purifying the world through the destruction of those they deemed unfit to live.
Many Jewish people have expressed outrage that the Star of David, a common symbol of Judaism, has been removed as "unacceptable", the same category given to the swastika symbols.
Is the world really a safer place with those characters gone from the font? What symbols will Microsoft next deem unacceptable? And why was this a "Critical Update", released with the same urgency as software patches to prevent worldwide infection by virulent computer viruses?
