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Comment by throwaway894345 | Hacker News Reader

> In an increasingly uncertain world, this protective use of the red cross emblem has become more and more important. In the past ten years, there have been 162 fatalities among Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement personnel including two Canadians.

I don't understand how these two sentences are related and the article doesn't explain it as far as I can tell. They seem to be vaguely insinuating that video games appropriating the red cross logo have caused these deaths, which is surely an absurd claim but I can't figure out what else they might mean.

EDIT: A lot of defensive responses. To be clear, no one is impugning the Red Cross or disrespecting the work they're doing. I merely don't understand the reasoning in TFA.

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I don't think they are insinuating that. I think they are claiming that pulling the Red Cross into public domain dilutes its symbolism from the neutral humanitarian organization they intend it to stand for, to "generic medical symbol potentially used by anyone", which could potentially open personnel up to violence.

Putting those two sentences together is how you insuate such a thing.

EDIT: There's a really big issue here with the public perception of the Red Cross. I expect most people think of the Red Cross as a purely benevolent organization. They're the folks with the bell-ringing Santa Clauses, for example. Who can argue with Santa Claus? So while most people are going to see this as "don't pick on the little, helpful people", if you're more familiar with the history the Red Cross, you'll be remembering some scandals they've been involved with. Some of that is accountable to the fact that it's a gigantic organization and corruption is not unavoidable at such a scale. But also, the stakes are so very high that you'd hope they had a better handle on it.

The bell ringing Santa Claus is the Salvation Army, unless they both do it.

This is an extraordinary naive comment.

Claim is stronger than insinuate.

claim: verb (used with object) to demand by or as by virtue of a right; demand as a right or as due

insinuate: verb (used with object) to suggest or hint slyly

Sometimes one is forced to wonder if some people actually read what they write, or listen to what they say.

[Claiming/insinuating] that using the Red Cross as a generic logo dilutes its symbolism, which could potentially lead to deaths is clearly a weaker statement than [claiming/insinuating] that its use in video games has caused specific deaths.

It doesn't matter which the verb is, the second half of the first sentence is a much weaker, and more defensible, statement than GP's "vague insinuation" of a concrete incident.

No, they are not insinuating that the use of the Red Cross in video games can be directly tied to specific deaths. Yes, they are insinuating, fairly clearly, that making the logo generic could lead to less recognition of the unique neutral status of the Red Cross, and this gradual loss of recognition could potentially lead to more deaths.

Gotta love how you misread their comment and then accused them of not reading what they wrote.

Yep, that was pretty dumb of me.

I have a tendency to be needlessly antagonist sometimes.

I’m trying to improve.

> generic medical symbol potentially used by anyone

But didn’t that ship sail a century ago?

Since exactly everything related to medical services/material/staff uses a red cross in the physical world, isn’t it natural that it does in movies (or games)? Is the argument here that it can be used when depicting proper use (e.g war movie or war game) but shouldn’t be used more than that since that’s the rule in the real world? That at least makes some sense.

I have been an army medic myself with a red cross armband and while I knew that this was somehow related to the Geneva convention I wasn’t actually aware that it was the exclusive right of military medical staff. Every single gadget/vehicle/facility is plastered with the symbol so it sure feels like the generic “medical whatever” symbol.

Their logo is just the flag of Evil Switzerland, anyway

That's certainly not true in the UK. The British Red Cross use it, and the military presumably do in war zones, but everything else you'd think would have a red cross tends to have something else. White crosses on green first aid kits, blue star of life (or blue NHS logo) on ambulances, green crosses at pharmacies...

Not saying getting here from there is ready. But it may be possible.

Now that you mention it the same is what I saw: equipment had the cross on green while staff and vehicles used the white cross on a red circular bottom. I thought the choice was esthetic/camouflage but it’s the Geneva convention at work.

IF you are in combat and you see a red cross vehicle, it is important for your first reaction being "that is not where the enemy is" vs firing at it.

This saves lives, and protects those who run into danger zones to save people.

If we slap red cross symbols on people with medical equipment that you see in video games, it'll just dilute the meaning and maybe next time someone sees a vehicle with the red cross symbol they'll think "oh, that's just the enemy's medics" and throw a grenade that way.

If I understand correctly the red cross will treat anyone regardless of the side they came in with.

Is there even a single documented case where this has happened?

Of Red Cross buildings/vehicles/personnel being bombed? Lots of them. Here are the first three I found on Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolo_hospital_airstrike

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/us-admits-bombing-red-cross-...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1523489/

So there were video games in 1935 that caused the Dolo air strike? I think the issue is around why (or whether) video games cause this, not if there were ever assholes who tried to bomb them.

Except they aren’t claiming that it’s only video games.

They’ve only mentioned it as one avenue of misuse.

Is there any evidence at all that misuse from video games or any other kind of media have contributed to any of these fatalities?

I guess the reasoning is as follows: Ignoring or being ignorant about visual signals associated with live/health threatening objects/situations (Red Cross sign, high voltage logo, radiation/pathogen/hazards logos etc.) undoubtedly cost(ed) lives in the past, and actions which are contributing to confusion about those signs should share some part of the blame, instinctively proportionally to their public influence. I think I can live with this approach, if we don't stretch it too far.

It's not unthinkable to conceive a scenario in which this symbol is misinterpreted, loss of health or life or property follows, and the ignorance of the perpetrators cannot be pinpointed - maybe it'd be lack of proper education, maybe missing classes during military training, maybe seeing red-cross logo misused in games, maybe bad memory - the thing is that all of those explanations are IMO "reasonable", so we might want to do at least something about each of those (if possible).

The claim is not only about video games. And it makes more sense to be proactive about protecting their brand, rather than only reacting once an issue arises.

Also how would you even prove such a connection? What combatant is ever going to say “I’m sorry, I shot you because I thought you were the enemy’s medic and not the red cross due to decades of brand dilution”.

Not seeing where videogames caused these...

Are they supposed to wait until videogames cause an issue, and not be proactive? And how would you ever prove such a thing?

> Are they supposed to wait until videogames cause an issue

I'm asking "are they insinuating that appropriation of their trademark contributed to the deaths that they cited".

> And how would you ever prove such a thing?

Presumably *if* they are alleging a causal relationship between trademark appropriation and violence against personnel they have some reason to suspect that the causal relationship exists.

The logos of the Red Cross, among a few others, are specifically mentioned in international law, including the Geneva Conventions. Firing on vehicles or personnel displaying the logos is, unless they do some very specific bad things, a war crime.

There are a number of incidents mentioned in the post and in this thread where Red Cross workers were injured or killed by combatants. Do I have any reason to believe any of them involve "appropriation of their trademark contributed to the deaths"? No, although I would believe that the defense in most cases would be "a mistake was made". But the Red Cross (and a lot of other people) have good reason to defend those logos.

International Humanitarian Law (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/home):

"Rule 25. Medical personnel exclusively assigned to medical duties must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they commit, outside their humanitarian function, acts harmful to the enemy."

"Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."

"Rule 29. Medical transports assigned exclusively to medical transportation must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy."

"Rule 59. The improper use of the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions is prohibited."

(The Red Cross logos are such distinctive emblems.)

I don't dispute that the RC logo is special per international law; I don't see what that has to do with anything here. I also don't object to "the Red Cross wants to protect its trademark"; I only object to the implication that appropriation of the RC logo in the media poses any kind of threat to RC personnel.

Right. There are several less well known protective marks, all red symbols on a white background. There's a red crescent, and a red crystal (an uncontroversial geometric shape which conveniently is also hollow so you can put some other symbol in there if that's important to you) and historically a red lion with sun.

The purpose of these symbols is to unambiguously identify protected vehicles, protected buildings, protected people.

It's true that in some countries people slap red crosses (in particular) on stuff that shouldn't have them and doesn't need them. But that doesn't make it a good idea. In a video game in particular you could use any symbol and players would soon get the idea. How long do you think it takes Mario players to realise that one of the mushrooms makes Mario bigger, while a different one is an extra life?

> Firing on vehicles or personnel displaying the logos is, unless they do some very specific bad things, a war crime.

Well, that settles it. Any games depicting red crosses should be patched to check if the player is shooting at vehicles or people marked with a red cross in the game, and if so, report him to the nearest police unit for an arrest.

I believe that's somewhat the point of the second sentence quoted earlier. They are saying they've got people dying while serving with the Red Cross - and perhaps an implication is that dilution of the symbol is one cause.

Irrespective they are asking to be taken seriously - it's not Kleenex™ asking to not to use kleenex generically.

I don't have a problem with people protecting their trademarks, whether Kleenex or RC. I just didn't think they were going to make the "trademark violations kill" argument. Kind of puts the MPAA's "You wouldn't steal a car..." marketing into perspective.

They are not proposing a 1:1 relationship between use in games and medics being killed. That's not really how the meaning of symbols change. They are saying that using the medical symbol for game or media elements who are appropriate targets dilutes the clarity of the symbol. I think the argument is pretty straightforward and I'm not sure how one would "document" a symbolic dilution beyond suggesting that it will happen.

Also, if you are asking for examples in media, they are extremely easy to find. Here's an example from a comic strip commenting on TF2: https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/217534009_hZ5oD/0/1050x100...

This only works with people who follow your rules of warfare.

Otherwise, the red cross symbol just becomes a huge target painted on you.

People do in fact generally (but not always) respect the neutrality of the Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations, including in current conflicts between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan, where they've had access to prisoners from both sides and run landmine injury rehabilitation centers.

This is true. But not following the rules of war, particularly if you are the weaker side, is not a good idea.

They should probably create a more distinctive logo to avoid that, it’s a lot easier to think the Red Cross is public domain than something more distinctive.

If they do that and all the ambulances, hospitals etc. change to the new symbol, that symbol will have the same problem in a few decades because it will be similarly omnipresent. Considering it’ll probably take about as long for all the equipment and buildings to relabel, it doesn’t seem like a practical solution.

I don't think that's likely to be the case. A red cross has already become established a generic symbol for medical things. It is unlikely that would change if the Red Cross organization changed its logo.

While we're here, LIFEGUARD is also a trademark and they expect all pool watchers to pay the license fee for pool watching gear with that word on it.

Maybe we need anti trust legislation for trademarks.

> If we slap red cross symbols on people with medical equipment that you see in video games, it'll just dilute the meaning and maybe next time someone sees a vehicle with the red cross symbol they'll think "oh, that's just the enemy's medics" and throw a grenade that way.

The red cross is used by the enemies medics. It's one of main allowed uses.

The issue comes with a distinction not commonly used in video games, true medics using the red cross as a logo are designated non-combatants, while they are armed they are only to use their weapons in protection of themselves or their patients and under no circumstances are they to directly engage in offensive military operations.

It's also part of the reason why combat medics in the US no longer use the symbol, without it they can act offensively

Also the Taliban have no qualms about destroying an ambulance or shooting a medic.

> Also the Taliban have no qualms about destroying an ambulance or shooting a medic.

They've gone back and forth depending on their perception of how well the ICRC is doing its job:

* Withdrawal: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-taliban-withdraws-icrc-s...

* Restoration: http://cms.trust.org/item/20181012103241-lymfx

* https://www.npr.org/2019/09/16/761152686/taliban-lifts-ban-o...

Article 19 of the First Geneva Convention covers all medical units, not just the Red Cross. It is just as illegal to target an enemy medic as it is to target a Red Cross medic. Both are war crimes.

And the law will fall on offenders with the force of ten eider feather pillows

While I like the play on words I don’t think we should be posting unsupported cynicism like this.

I think that the cynism here is fully supported.

Was anybody prosecuted by the infamous 2007 attack to an ambulance in Baghdad shown by Wikileaks, (oh, yes... Manning of course. Silly me. I almost forgot)

Was anybody jailed for the men and woman and children burnt alive by the "strictly forbidden under international laws" white phosphorus in Fallujah? noope

Were the systematic bombing of hospitals and civil buildings in Gaza, Pakistan or Syria investigated?

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-gaza-hospitals-tar...

Was somebody prosecuted by what they did to Omran Daqneesh and his family?.

Or by the annexation of Crimea?

I could spent the next hour enumerating cases of war crimes written in flashing neon letters, solved with a path in the shoulder to the criminals. Is a fact that war crimes go often unpunished when commit by "the good guys".

And the military must receive training for it. If a soldier "throws a grenade" at a red cross, it's lack of training, not video games.

If trained soldiers were instinctively doing what they have done before in video games, we would have FAR bigger problems than this

>> They seem to be vaguely insinuating ...

What we say doesn't matter. What the Red Cross says doesn't matter. The Geneva Convention protects certain symbols. That's the end of the debate. The red cross/crescent is owned by the Red Cross and any use by anyone else is completely subject to their permission.

This system was setup for a good reason. Those of us whose lives may one day be protected by that symbol (wounded soldiers) need it to remain above reproach. Every soldier may one day be bleeding on a cot in a field hospital, that symbol on the tent his only protection from instant death. The use of the red cross/crescent/crystal/star is not something that should be up for constitutional debate.

No, I don't see they claiming that the use in games caused these deaths. What I think they are claiming is that it is necessary to protect the symbol such that when we see it, we know that we really are dealing with the Red Cross, not with some other random thing related to medicine. And that if the symbol becames banalized, this takes away the protection that the symbol should bring to them.

I understand this, but, perhaps in the long term they should consider using a more complex symbol, and including the Red Cross name in it. It is much more difficult to protect a symbol when it is so generic and simple to draw it.

The Red Cross, Red Crescent, and new Red Crystal are specific logos (like all trademarked logos), with the additional aspect that they are recognized in international laws, including the Geneva Conventions. Vehicles, for example, carrying the Red Cross logos are not supposed to be fired upon (https://www.haaretz.com/1.4929066), and no other vehicles are supposed to display the Red Cross logos.

If you use the IBM logo or the ATT death star in an unauthorized fashion, you get a nastygram from IBM or ATT because you are diluting their brand. Diluting the brand of the Red Cross means that there is an increased likelihood of "mistakes", and a mistake in a combat zone is a bad thing.

I think this quotation best summarizes the article

"When someone misuses the red cross,(the video game industry being just one of many), we seek their cooperation in ending the unauthorized use"

The red cross is a protect trademark so this seems reasonable.

Right, but they could make that point without invoking the deaths, so presumably they're engaging in some kind of persuasion about why it's important to respect their trademark.

Presumably because persuasion is apparently necessary, as evidenced by some folk arguing against some of their reasoning or statements regarding the issue.

> Presumably because persuasion is apparently necessary, as evidenced by some folk arguing against some of their reasoning or statements regarding the issue.

Fine, so what's the persuasion in this case? Is it really "misuse of trademark in fiction media contributed to these killings of Red Cross personnel"? Because that's a pretty fantastic claim that requires evidence if you are to persuade someone.

I believe they're trying to convince folk that unapproved (over)use of their trademark "weakens the brand" in the minds of individuals enough that they worry it could lead to that symbol not affording the protection on the battlefield that it has traditionally enjoyed in the past, and therefore could lead to deaths which might have been avoided.

There needs to be some minimum complexity for a trademark. A cross is one of the most common human symbols. It's ridiculous to attempt to police the world for the use of it in a certain color.

I'd like to see how much they spend on this, and will reconsider donating to the red cross in the future if they continue this foolhardy errand.

Donating to the red cross is downright evil already. This is the same organization which, in the US at least, will not take blood from gay cis men who sleep with men, even though it's happy to take blood from straight trans women who sleep with men — biologically identical acts, with the only difference being sexual orientation.

> There needs to be some minimum complexity for a trademark. A cross is one of the most common human symbols.

The Red Cross symbol is sui generis, it is not a (normal) trademark.

Use of the symbols in peace time is prohibited under Article 44 of the First Geneva Convention (except as allowed under that article).

>It's ridiculous to attempt to police the world for the use of it in a certain color.

It's protected because it protects medics, the wounded and other vulnerable non-combatants in war. It's a vital humanitarian tool.

Speculating here.

In conflict zones, the red cross symbol has often protected them from being a target. It might have been one of the primary meanings and uses of the symbol. Could they mean, with those two sentences, that having the red cross be used, in for example, video games, for other meanings (like health pack or whatever) waters down that original important meaning of the symbol as the Red Cross organisation identity?

I’m just speculating, but could it be that a combatant in war seeing a red cross previously though “that’s the Red Cross” while they today might, more often than before, just think: “that’s medics”?

“[As an example of an increasingly unstable world,] … there have been 162 fatalities. [Therefore the value of the Red Cross symbol must be protected as it is desperately needed.]”

…

You're just restating the problem. I don't understand how "Therefore the value of the Red Cross symbol must be protected as it is desperately needed" follows from "[As an example of an increasingly unstable world,] … there have been 162 fatalities."

1. The world is dangerous and people get hurt.

2. The Red Cross helps these people.

3. Their symbol is a tool which improves Red Cross's ability to help.

4. Misuse or casual use of the symbol dilutes its utility.

5. Therefore, please cease its casual use.

Seems to be a reference to geopolitical instability. In modern times (post WW II) the Red Cross is seen as responders to natural disasters. But it seems they feel they’re increasingly responding to man-made disasters (e.g. armed conflicts). That’s at least my interpretation.

(Edited to clarify timeframe)

Hiatorically, the Red Cross was foundes in response to the suffering caused by the Crimean War in the 1860s and their mission is to help people who get caught in armed comflicts. The symbol is protected by international law as a sign of medical facilities and medical personal who may not be attacked. Using the red cross for any other purspose is considered abusive and is formally a war crime. It may sound absurd, but keeping the narrow and important meaning of the symbol intact saves lives.

This is entirely backwards. The International Committee of the Red Cross's roots are firmly fixed in a need to respond to armed conflict in 19th century Europe, and early national-level Red Cross groups focused on the same for quite some time. Disaster relief and public health came along much later.

Yeah, and if you believe police officers, nurses, and other first responders are public servants--as I do--then you should see the pay ranges of Red Cross "employees." They are definitely public servants (nearly unpaid compared to other first responders). Easily the best organization I have ever known or worked for.

>> In an increasingly uncertain world, this protective use of the red cross emblem has become more and more important. In the past ten years, there have been 162 fatalities among Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement personnel including two Canadians.

> I don't understand how these two sentences are related ...

Lots of their people are getting killed; thus the protection provided by the emblem is very important to them.

I am an American with a life long love affair with Canada. I follow Canadian news and media pretty closely.

Claims like these are what I read about all the time in Canada. As an American, to me their culture has moved to a very strange place as far as worry and blame.

Trying putting the whole article in context instead of picking apart two sentences. What they're saying is that the Red Cross Emblem is being watered down, so much so that it's losing it's symbolism of humanitarian protection status and impartiality and as such are becoming a target in conflict zones.

> Trying putting the whole article in context instead of picking apart two sentences. What they're saying is that the Red Cross Emblem is being watered down, so much so that it's losing it's symbolism of humanitarian protection status and impartiality and as such are becoming a target in conflict zones.

Wow that's a lot of snark.

1. I did read the entire article, I just didn't quote it all because that's not what quotes are for. Note that the site guidelines advise against accusations of not reading TFA.

2. "as such are becoming a target in conflict zones." So basically the absurd "videogames thus killings" argument that I addressed in my original post?

3. I got a couple dozen upvotes in a few minutes, so I'm not the only one confused by this.

The argument is that diluting the mark can cause confusion, and that confusion can cause death.

"Videogames cause death" feels like a bad-faith oversimplification of the point they're trying to make. It's understandable, as video games are often wrongly attributed as creating violence... but that's not what they're saying.

They don't want video games to stop representing medics, for example... they just don't want the red cross to be synonymous with health, because it's much more specific than that.

> The argument is that diluting the mark can cause confusion, and that confusion can cause death. "Videogames cause death" feels like a bad-faith oversimplification.

I was being terse, not bad faith. In particular, "videogames cause death" is not a less robust argument than "trademark appropriation can cause confusion which can cause death". Moreover, I'm specifically being charitable and saying "I don't think this is what TFA means because it's so ridiculous, but I can't identify a better likely meaning".

But apparently there are a lot of people who think the "trademark violation => death" (again, brevity, not mockery) argument is serious, so I invite them to support their position with examples.

If I start putting the toilet symbol on doors without toilets behind them, eventually you're going to stop expecting toilets behind the door. You don't need an example to know that.

This also isn't about trademark, the red cross is outlined in the Geneva Conventions as a symbol with a specific meaning. That meaning is specific because it's meant to protect aid workers as neutral parties in conflict.

> If I start putting the toilet symbol on doors without toilets behind them, eventually you're going to stop expecting toilets behind the door. You don't need an example to know that.

Good grief. Can you think of a reason why your analogy about changing how a symbol is used in real life might not apply to a debate about how symbols are used in fiction?

Let me offer up an analogy that isn't completely and obviously broken:

If you watch enough Doctor Who, does it make you believe that real life police boxes are actually camouflaged time machines?

It's about the ubiquity in fiction. If every police box in fiction was a time machine, it stands to reason someone may be confused when encountering a real police box for the first time.

The misuse of the red cross, especially in video games, is rampant to the point that the Red Cross is worried about confusion.

There's additional issue with the fact that video games are very common, but warzones and disaster areas less so. So it's quite possible the fictional association, if overused, could redefine the real-life usage for many people. We already see some of this in the comment section... many people don't understand the difference between "health" as a concept and the red cross as an element protected by international law.

It seems reasonable to try and claw that meaning back.

> It's about the ubiquity in fiction. If every police box in fiction was a time machine, it stands to reason someone may be confused when encountering a real police box for the first time.

This is the silliest thing I've ever heard, and not every fictional red cross symbol is a threat anyway. This whole thing seems at least as ridiculous as the moral panic about violent video games in the early 2000s, except that I kind of expect ridiculous moral panics from conservative parents not so much from the official communications arm of one of the largest NGOs in the world. Absent any actual evidence I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree.

Asking works of fiction to stop using a symbol doesn't seem at all like a moral panic to me. What they're saying is "this symbol has a specific meaning, and it's important to us that it's not diluted."

They're not calling for video games to be banned or even re-labeled, they're just trying to prevent the red cross from losing the intended meaning (which comes with an international treaty intended to protect aid workers)... it seems like the method of applying this mostly consists of asking nicely.

I wasn't clear. I'm not suggesting the RC are engaging in moral panic, but that their reasoning (the absurd proposed causal relationship and complete and utter lack of evidence) resembles a particular phenomenon which happened to be a moral panic.

Has the world ever not been "increasingly uncertain"?

Some people seem to look back on the period of time between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 as a relatively stable period in "the West".

It's not an insinuation of anything, they're trying to emphasize the gravity of what they do to discourage casual use of the symbol. Their intention is in the headline.

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