Hearts of Iron 4 developers Paradox Interactive have prohibited the use of Discord profile pictures of historical figures born after 1st January 1800, save for official in-game portraits, amid an uproar caused by a moderator banning somebody for using a photograph of Republic of Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Discord server members are still free to “use any official Hearts of Iron IV in-game portraits, including those from after 1800, with the exception of prominent leaders of Nazi Germany,” according to a Discord post attributed to game director Laszlo “Batya” Pieper (copied to Reddit). In the same post, Pieper notes that “Paradox never aims to review history or take positions on political figures, and we clearly handled that responsibility poorly.”

The whole furore began last week. I’m not able to get hold of the incendiary moderator post, because Paradox have now restricted access to their Discord and removed some threads, but according to a number of angry emails sent to RPS, the mod in question described Atatürk as controversial, with reference to his disputed involvement in the Armenian genocide of 1913-1922. As reported by Strategy and Wargaming, Paradox games have weathered a few review bombs on Steam over the past week, apparently in response to the ban. It seems likely that the ill will builds on disgruntlement about Hearts of Iron 4’s lack of official Turkish language support.

In a Discord post last week (via Reddit), Batya apologised for what he characterised as spotty enforcement of rules around the use of profile images of real statespeople and politicians. “We understand what Atatürk means to many of you, as the founder of the Republic of Türkiye and father of the nation,” he wrote. “I want to clarify that neither our games nor our moderation are intended as a comment or judgement on any historical figure, and this is no exception.

“Many of you have written to us in the past days about this and our Discord rules and moderation of historical profile pictures: one of our rules concerns the use of real-world persons as profile pictures,” he went on. “The messages and subsequent discussion we’ve had following this have made it clear that there are concerns about how we enforce our rules, and especially whether this is done in an equal and fair manner. Following these discussions, it’s become clear this rule needs to be revised and has not been enforced consistently.”

In a follow-up post, Batya commented that “the rule at the heart of this incident was not designed for discussion or interpretation on what historical figures are allowed, or to open questions on what should be a straightforward server guideline. This should have been prevented, and we failed.”

Batya’s hope is that a ban on real-world profile images of “political or military characters who were born after Jan 1, 1800” will take the burden of interpretation off moderators. “The aim here is to ensure our guidelines leave no room for ambiguity, nor edge cases in the future, hence the clear cut-off,” he wrote. The new rule has yet to be formally rolled out, as of writing; when it goes live, community members will have seven days to comply. Presumably, you’ll still be free to use the in-game portrait of Atatürk in HOI4.

Batya notes that “we have seen a very troubling volume of abuse and even open threats directed at us, our developers, our moderators, and even others outside of Paradox”. Anybody banned for sending abuse and threats in response to the Atatürk situation will remain banned after the rules are changed.

I don’t have the historical knowledge to comment on Atatürk as a figure, but I will reiterate that Paradox’s desire to avoid “taking a position” on history while designing historical sandbox role-play simulators is, at best, very flawed. I can’t see how drawing a line after 1800 will end the discussion around the usage of unofficial images of “controversial” figures, though I’m interested to know how they arrived at that particular date. Anyway, I’d like to read your thoughts.