Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#431

Post by natch » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

IanSanders wrote: post #262

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"

This seems to always be an invitation to corruption though. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and all that. So getting to "trusted" may be hard. In the US we have Brent Kavanaugh, and in China they have the CCP, and in some countries they have religious clerics... I can't think of an example where there is such a body that I would trust.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#432

Post by streb-lo » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

trentnix wrote: post #234

bayesian_horse wrote: post #215

It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not. No easy answers. In this case, maybe there is a relatively simple rule: Supporting democracy must not in itself be regarded as offensive...

It is hard to tell, that is true. And that reality is exploited to silence opposition and control others. That’s why language policing, hate speech laws, Twitter mobs, and bully-the-bully efforts are abominations. So really, the answer is easy: everyone has the right to offend, and has no right not to be offended. Your simple rule doesn’t go far enough.

Hate-speech laws exist because people are programmable.

Try and tell me your opinions are your own and the books and media you consume do not own some portion of them.

Hate-speech laws exist to prevent the programming of people to systematically hate and exterminate other people, a lesson that has been learned many times over in history.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#433

Post by ben_jones » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

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…

From /r/hearthstone

>https://truth.bahamut.com.tw/s01/201910/acd1e702747963b5e6d6... I'm a heartstone player from Taiwan. Just here to share information from another aspect. The picture above is the comment from the official hearthstone account on China social website. (the V means verified) translation:We strongly condemn the player and the casters on what happened in the game last weekend ,and we firmly DISAPPROVE people to state their own political POV in any tournament.The player will be banned from the tournament,and the casters will never be granted the chance to cast any official tournament from now on. Besides,we will firmly PROTECT THE PRIDE OF THE COUNTRY just like what we always do.

——

Remember Blizzard is also the company that prominently feature Pride during many Overwatch events on western streams - but didn’t show the same content on Eastern streams.

I’m deleting anything I have of Blizzard-Activision not because it’ll hurt their bottom line, but so I can know I’m doing the right thing for this particular situation.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#434

Post by pcurve » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

This is how China behaves when it's still far away from being #1 superpower.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#435

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #421

IanSanders wrote: post #262

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…

I don't think it needs to be a moral authority, it can just be an index of well defined problems to lists of the top couple actors responsible for those problems. Such an organization need not say that you should boycott anything (i.e. be a moral authority) but instead can say that IF you think that American companies participating in the Chinese censorship machine regarding Hong Kong is bad THEN boycotting companies…

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#436

Post by ludamad » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

IanSanders wrote: post #262

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…

At least the whole Hearthstone subreddit is ablaze about it, that's more than 1%

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#437

Post by scrollaway » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:09 PM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #61

diveanon wrote: post #27

Can we please start a cultural movement that forces large corporations to choose between appeasing Chinese censors and looking like fools to the rest of the west or getting banned in China. Really seems like a win win scenario.

How about Chinese owners? Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-... AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned…

Tencent isn't the problem with Blizzard.

Hearthstone is massive in China. Hearthstone has far more players than all other regions combined. The chinese market is what keeps the game alive.

That is the problem here.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#438

Post by mola » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #254

Steltek wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that the same lover of freedom that campaigned to take away the freedom of others?

If you think back to before gay marriage was accepted as a culturally obvious fact, some of the arguments against it involved hating gays, but others didn't. Without the ability to tell which beliefs actually motivated his donation, it is not possible to discern if he was against gays or not. (I'll refrain from giving any specific examples in order to avoid starting that debate again, but I think most of us can remem…

What is A genuine reason for being against gay marriage that does not include hating the concept of gays, or the concept of marriage? Two adults want to share their life, with the burdens and rights that non gays get. Really, why would you care if not because you find the concept of same sex couples bad and harmful?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#439

Post by CathedralBorrow » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

50656E6973 wrote: post #401

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that cancel culture though?

Yep: >tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.

Well, can we say that people have their feelings hurt by Blizzard's opinion here, and try to make it normal that everyone should boycott them for it?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#440

Post by busterarm » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 2:10 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #345

loceng wrote: post #259

[flagged]

The big difference is that Nazi Germany wasn’t as fundamentally important to us getting larger, cheaper TVs. Economics clearly trump everything else. It’s ok to harvest organs from countless members of ethnicMinorities as long as the system that does it helps out bottom line. If the Soviet Unions economic system has worked well, we would have supported them too /s

I think you underestimate just how much of the US's immigrant population and culture was either directly German or German-influenced leading up to and in the early years of WWII.

That's a bond that was not easily severed.