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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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321–330 of 1001 posts

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#321
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).

[flagged]

How about Julian Assange?

'Cancel culture' may not be censorship in its technical definition, but isn't that effectively what it's achieving? A comedian, for example, tweets some half-baked remark that some (loud minority) find offensive. Of course, they do respond to this negatively but the media also runs with it and this group of loud people call for the cancellation of shows, appearances, and sometimes even call for the firing of the person.

You are correct in that this person, even after all of this, has outlets and ways to practice their freedom of speech - but it's essentially sending other people a not-so-subtle sign that there are certain things they simply shouldn't say, lest they would like a twitter mob aimed at them.

Occasionally, older public remarks are even dug up by journalists and used to smear the character of those people who made the remarks today. There needs to be some form of restitution, but one currently does not seem to be well defined.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#322

So we are at the point where American video game developers are banning people from e-sports competitions for their comments over a domestic issue in a foreign country? Because the Chinese government probably didn't like his comments, that counts as 'public disrepute'? This is just wild to me.

It is wild, but it's also part of their own rules: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGVTuRlXkAA0ovF?format=png

Honest question: Can we call this unfair if it was already laid out as part of their rules?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#323
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is happening there is literally what has led to revolutions in several western countries over the last couple centuries. The Chinese are correct to be afraid, they have spent the last half century cleansing the concept of freedom from their society and they are terrified of what comes next. People are going to start dying publicly in HK very soon, and the rest of the world will have to decide which side of histo…

Considering how Trump bowed down before Turkey about the christian Kurd fighters issue(basically abandoning people who were promised aid in exchange for dismantling their border security), I don't think he's going to care about Hong Kong too much

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#325
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've largely coalesced around the idea that insult should be defined by the insulted. I know that is not an opinion I share. I suspect it is not one many people share at all. I think it's just the one of a vocal minority on the far left. Ideas have a place in the open. If they're going to die somewhere, it needs to be in public discourse.

> I think it's just the one of a vocal minority on the far left. I think you might be allowing your bias to zero in on one particular group here. Outrage politics is everyone's tool these days, not just one "side" (if you insist on picking sides). I don't consider myself to be on either side, but a counterpoint for you to consider: "if you're not with us, you're against us", or "pry my guns from my cold dead hands"..…

> I don't consider myself to be on either side, but a counterpoint for you to consider: "if you're not with us, you're against us", or "pry my guns from my cold dead hands"

You’re mixing up two different things. There’s a difference between shutting down discourse, and expressing an unwillingness to compromise. The two examples you give are the latter. There is nothing wrong with being unwilling to compromise, and expressing that in an emotional way (e.g. the Resist movement).

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#326
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Stoller has been doing some coverage on just how much control China has built in Western economies. Quite scary. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-joe-biden-empowered-c...

It's called trade. US americans send $ to China for cheap goods and manufacturing, Now, Chinese have $ to spend in the US. Not really scary. It's better for superpowers to have intertwined economies, rather than be isolated. Less incentives for conquest and war.

Not really. One super power now has majority ownership of the other. They can now conquest with little business disruption ;)

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And because Blizzard is a private company, offering a service they maintain, they have the house right, they have the final say about who can partake and who can't. Except it's not a matter of some Chinese customers taking their business elsewhere. They don't have "the house right" if they are facing consequences from the Chinese government for exercising their freedom of association.

"They are a private company" is quite literally always the argument for why Facebook, Twitter, Google, Cloudflare etc should be able to ban anyone, any time for any arbitrary reason. I get why people are upset at Blizzard's behavior, but the outcry looks a bit fake. It looks more like there's a lot of anger because it hit somebody they agree with. Had the player said something supporting China, and Blizzard banned hi…

> "They are a private company" is quite literally always the argument for why Facebook, Twitter, Google, Cloudflare etc should be able to ban anyone, any time for any arbitrary reason.

Exactly, and usually, that's also the consensus on HN on any such issues: It's the companies infrastructure and ecosystem.

There is no "human right to service", if they don't want you there then they can just kick you out and usually wouldn't even need much of a justification, that's what hundreds of pages of ToS, EULA, and whatnot are there for.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#328
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…

A better solution would be for all hearthstone pro players to start talking about hong kong on solidarity.

Here's a list of some of the personalities I follow:

@TrumpSC @Kripparrian @G2Thijs

None of them have spoken out. Perhaps they would if asked.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#329

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.

Personally I've requested my account be deleted.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#330

I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our area…

> Which makes me believe we need some kind of trusted "morality authority", which would process information similar to this and make informed decisions who to boycott

Just sounds like cancel culture to me. And it has horrible results.

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