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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

#601

Post by zentiggr »

mbesto wrote: post #532
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #353

Absolutely agree, it's time for American video games to stop publishing in China. It's not worth the Chinese influence on our society.

> It's not worth the Chinese influence on our society. US shareholders probably disagree.

Then US shareholders need to be reminded of the fact that they are moral agents as well as financial ones.

The reality is that while a "shareholder" title means you want dividends from your holdings, that title attaches to a real human being or entity run by human beings, and the moral or immoral consequences of your policy as shareholder DOES affect the world.

It's time for shareholders to put their money where their morals are. And for those who choose to support immoral policies to be called on it.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#602

Post by GooglyMoogly »

Shivetya wrote: post #380
KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #353

Absolutely agree, it's time for American video games to stop publishing in China. It's not worth the Chinese influence on our society.

American video games? What about American companies that have factories there or other presence there? Hello Apple! Hello Tesla! Hello Google. Blizzard has been bending over backwards for some time with regards to China but this is the first time I remember them taking action against someone who does not work for them. the simple matter is, you cannot pick and choose, all the companies must be shamed into not bending…

Google is blocked in China for refusing to censor what China wants. Bing works in China.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#605

Post by vonmoltke »

dependenttypes wrote: post #258
vonmoltke wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the NBA ... so publicly siding with Beijing I must have missed something, because all the coverage I have seen is of Adam Silver publicly supporting Morey and Tsai. Additionally, the Nets cancelled a media event in Shanghai over this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21184008

Silver says that is not an apology[1], and the message quoted reads more like a diplomatic version of "Sorry this upset you, but tough shit". I'm not sure where the author of that opinion column got the idea that the message was an apology.

[1] https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/10/8/20904593/nba-china-co...

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#606

Post by scoutt »

alkonaut wrote: post #566
scoutt wrote: post #238

With the risk of being flagged I may say that Blizzard did the right thing BUT ONLY if the interview was a an official post-match interview. Otherwise they did wrong, since they cannot force people into not telling whatever they want by any other mean. I think it is the right thing to do in order to avoid future sociopolitical references in official post-match interviews: imagine someone saying 'power to the whites'…

Sort of agree, but I’ll add that the constraints need to be clearer too. I’m sure pro athletes have contracts that mention what they can and cannot say in the league TV interviews when it comes to political or commercial messages for example. This just had a vague catch all formulation. Also: Blizzard should stand up for liberal democracy. It’s as simple as that. One can’t treat all political messages the same.

>> contracts

From the blog post: "players ... must abide by the official competition rules."

They have a set of rules to follow. I don't know how much clear these are.

>> Blizzard should stand up for liberal democracy

Blizzard sells videogames and hosts a tournament. Liberal democracy is a moral philosophy, point of view, preference that goes well with you and others, but many may not agree. It's a right to not agree to the same idea.

And of course is not up to Blizzard to choose which philosophy is right or wrong. It's like the old bar rule: "no religion, no politics".

Disclaimer: I am not in favor of China or dictatorships or against democracy.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#607

Post by dmix »

Aarostotle wrote: post #520
ndury wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These studio's should not stop publishing their games in China. The issue lies that these studio's happily comply with whatever restrictions a govt is willing to oblige due to possibly playerbase loss. Think lootboxes, forbidden skins in regions, exc... exc.. Companies as big as Blizzard should be prepared to lose 5/10/15% of their playerbase to defend free speech, the thing is they do not care about free speech. All…

This one is tricky. I always thought they have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, so they have to tread that line as well. Does anyone know how that fits into the picture?

American companies have American customers, investors, and employees too. And European, Canadian, Aussie, etc.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/nba-china-hong-k...

Corporations have a strong incentive not to piss off the rest of the world to serve one country. They've been able to get away with it for a while but the demands from China will naturally keep growing and growing (as all censorship does once you give in to it).

The eagerness of companies to completely abandon free speech and differing opinions will eventually have real consequences.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#609

Post by GhostVII »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #310
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…

Isn't that cancel culture though?

The idea of "cancel culture" is generally surrounding boycotting people for opinions unrelated to what they are doing. Blizzard suspending the Hearthstone player could be considered "cancel culture," although I don't really think it fits super well, but boycotting Blizzard is protesting a specific action that happened recently, not an irrelevant opinion or statement they have apologized for. It is standing up for the ideals of free speech, not shutting them down.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#610

Post by shadowgovt »

umvi wrote: post #594
shadowgovt wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason we constrain the government the way we do is that Blitzchung is still perfectly free to go on his own blog, or out in the street, or to any media network willing to broadcast him and share his view, and the FBI won't lock him up. It's a key distinction, and yes, the media still has the liberty to not broadcast is views (because the same liberty that lets them refrain from repeating "I support Hong Kong pro…

> The reason we constrain the government the way we do is that Blitzchung is still perfectly free to go on his own blog ...unless Cloudflare or Amazon or whomever is hosting his blog arrives at the same conclusion as Blizzard. I would argue free speech as a philosophy doesn't work unless corporations are on board.

They don't need to be on board; they just need to be competing. "It's possible the solution to these speech issues is to aggressively enforce antitrust."
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