February 22nd, 2006
Yahoo Mail Lifts Ban on Allah in Usernames
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
Interestingly, this particular issue was brought to the forefront not by someone wanting to register allah as a username, but by someone who had allah as a substring in their name. And I never even heard of this before today.
Linda Callahan has since converted to Gmail after not being able to register a username with her last name. Her son, Ed Callahan said “She was disgusted by (Yahoo’s policy) and saddened. It was discriminatory. They disallowed ‘allah’ but allowed ‘jesus’ and ‘god,’ and I don’t think there is a rational explanation for that.”
Early Wednesday, Yahoo issued a statement about its new policy and the reasons for the original ban.
“A small number of people registered for IDs using specific terms with the sole purpose of promoting hate, and then used those IDs to post content that was harmful or threatening to others, thus violating Yahoo’s Terms of Service,” the statement said. “‘Allah’ was one word being used for these purposes, with instances tied to defamatory language. We took steps to help protect our users by prohibiting use of the term in Yahoo usernames. We recently re-evaluated the term ‘Allah,’ and users can now register for IDs with this word because it is no longer a significant target for abuse.” Source: News.com
We Say: I can see their reasoning on the original ban, and I can see how it would be difficult to look for specific substrings and not limit real names at the same time. At any rate, Linda might be happier with Gmail anyway. I certainly like it better (though I still haven’t had a look at the new Yahoo email UI which might change my mind).
Ryan says:
Actually, it’s not a Yahoo! Mail thing. It’s a Yahoo! thing. Registration is centralized for applications. So if you wanted an account for 360, Calendar or Music, you wouldn’t have been able to include “allah” until now.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:29 pm
David Johnston says:
Don’t forget Flickr!
February 22nd, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Ramsey says:
I understand the reasoning too, but that does not mean that it is not blatantly discriminatory. If I registered the username “praiseYahweh” and then went on to propagate hate speech with it, would they ban the string “Yahweh”? Or “Jesus,” “God,” or “Buddah?” I doubt it. But they had no trouble with “Allah.”
What is happeneing is that, out of fear, we allow the crimes and atrocitities committed by a few people to lead us to discriminate against all people who share their background. This simply promotes the circle of hate. And the unreasonable people on both sides of the aisle speak the loudest, drowning out the voices of moderation from both sides.
Sorry if the soapbox speech is inappropriate in this forum.
February 23rd, 2006 at 9:12 am
Fo Sho says:
big_bALLAH_69 coming to a yahoo chat room near ya. woot.
June 27th, 2008 at 12:09 pm