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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#201

Post by tomatotomato37 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
narrator wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six Corporations control 90% of the media in America. They can make business decisions to censor whomever they want and they are global corporations doing lots of business in China.

> Six Corporations control 90% of the media in America Totally incomparable. America has the First Amendment. Its government and corporations can be held accountable in courts. Any rando has the capacity to pine off about anything on Twitter. Meanwhile China boasts a centralised bureaucracy literally censoring Winnie the Pooh images because its dictator doesn’t like his resemblance. Yes, America has a media ownership…

As has been spammed in many threads about hate speech type censorship before, only the government is legally accountable to the First Amendment, private businesses and that corporate personhood BS can use their own freedom of speech to censor whoever they want on their platforms.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#202

Post by adolph »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #188
zwaps wrote: post #139

Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…

So far I've noticed: 1> New Top Gun Movie removed a patch on Tom Cruises jacketdue to Chinese funding. 2> NBA issued an apology for an owner showing Hong Kong support and China stopped NBA broadcasts. 3> Blizzard 4> Apple Hides Taiwans Flag emoji Sounds trivial but they're the tip of the iceberg for censoring freedom of expression based on a DICTATOR's whim. Xi "Winnie The Poop" is an autocrat and once he sealed his…

It is “Pooh” with an H not a P at the end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#203

Post by monocasa »

jessaustin wrote: post #186
johnday wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking me to defend me disagreeing with the original point - the burden of argument should really be on them, but anyway... Tiananmen square is an immediate and obvious pick. People who publicly referenced the events of Tiananmen square were not allowed to interact with China on a business level. If Hearthstone had existed back then and the streamer had mentioned Tiananmen square, Blizzard would (I think) have…

They have some sort of partnership arrangement, but it really is a surprise to me to find out that a partnership like that has had the censorious effects we've seen here. It's hard to imagine that this would have played out the same way for a partnership with a firm based in e.g. Russia or UK or Brazil. [EDIT: Or even a firm from those nations that owned 5% of Blizzard.] I guess I'm saying that I didn't "see this com…

Blizzard is partially owned by a Chinese company.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#204

Post by abbadadda »

alimbada wrote: post #158

It's a shame but I feel like the majority of gamers won't care. They'll either be ignorant of this or they'll just shrug and continue playing. I boycotted Activision and by proxy Blizzard when Activision acquired them a long time ago but their continuing success shows I'm part of an extremely tiny minority.

At this point it goes far beyond just gamers. From the NBA to Google, this effect is everywhere. To be explicit, the effect is U.S. firms letting China dictate what they do or do not care about on a global political scale.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#205

Post by _ZeD_ »

adolph wrote: post #202
nickthemagicman wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far I've noticed: 1> New Top Gun Movie removed a patch on Tom Cruises jacketdue to Chinese funding. 2> NBA issued an apology for an owner showing Hong Kong support and China stopped NBA broadcasts. 3> Blizzard 4> Apple Hides Taiwans Flag emoji Sounds trivial but they're the tip of the iceberg for censoring freedom of expression based on a DICTATOR's whim. Xi "Winnie The Poop" is an autocrat and once he sealed his…

It is “Pooh” with an H not a P at the end. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh

wooosh

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#207

Post by Synaesthesia »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #144
narrator wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Six Corporations control 90% of the media in America. They can make business decisions to censor whomever they want and they are global corporations doing lots of business in China.

> Six Corporations control 90% of the media in America Totally incomparable. America has the First Amendment. Its government and corporations can be held accountable in courts. Any rando has the capacity to pine off about anything on Twitter. Meanwhile China boasts a centralised bureaucracy literally censoring Winnie the Pooh images because its dictator doesn’t like his resemblance. Yes, America has a media ownership…

No it’s not comical, considering we’re looking at an American corporation doing the censoring here.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#208

Post by XCabbage »

johnday wrote: post #162
tomp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well thank God then that wasn't my argument. What I'm saying is, China is co-opting modern liberal censorship in the West to do it's own political censorship (edit: in the West).

And no, they aren't. The two things may look superficially similar but Chinese political censorship is much, much older and the process but which it is done hasn't changed in a long time.

The only reason Blizzard was legally able to engage in this punishment - which involved stripping the player of his winnings - was that there's a player handbook banning offensive conduct and including this as a penalty. If that provision had not existed, China and Blizzard could not have used it. And the only political faction in the west who demand such codes of conduct are the SJWs.

When tomp says that China coopted the machinery of censorship laid by SJWs for its own purposes, he's entirely correct.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#209

Post by zipwitch »

benj111 wrote: post #176
oh_sigh wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only problem is China is too big to care. Streisand effect only affects those people where a spotlight from a small percent of the internet heavily affects them

I interpreted it as in relation to Blizzard.

Yeah. China won't ultimately care whatever we do, but Blizzard can me made to feel it. Their own annual gaming convention is coming up in less than a month, and hopefully this will backfire on them badly.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#210

Post by sword_smith »

tomp wrote: post #142

China is very smart. They saw what was happening in the West - oppression of freedom of speech on account of "hurt feelings" - and applied the same principles for their own nefarious purposes ("hurt Chinese feelings" a.k.a. political censorship). Literally noone could have seen this coming. /s edit: XCabbage better explains what I was trying to say. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21191253

They (China and foreign dictators) find the openings they can in Western society and echo those narratives that are convenient for them. This is a very good analysis.
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