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

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#701

Post by xigency » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #613

A lot of comments here seem to take as a given that banning any offensive speech in any forum leads inexorably to situations like this, where the "offensive speech" is political speech offensive to an authoritarian government. But this implies that it's impossible to distinguish between different kinds of "offensive" speech based on any meaningful criteria whatsoever, and this just seems to be fundamentally incorrect…

"The Most Intolerant Wins"

> Let’s go one step further, “Should a society that has elected to be tolerant be intolerant about intolerance?”

> We can answer these points using the minority rule. Yes, an intolerant minority can control and destroy democracy. Actually, as we saw, it will eventually destroy our world.

> So, we need to be more than intolerant with some intolerant minorities.

[0] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#702

Post by __s » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #675

treis wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. I think Blizzard has a legitimate "time and place" argument here. They shouldn't regulate competitors speech across the board but I think it's reasonable to mandate that interviews associated with official events focus on Hearthstone and stay away from controversial topics. Of cou…

If they had just kicked him out of the tournament, I'd definitely be on that side of things. I don't want a world where all competitions are full of people yelling about hot-button issues. But banning him for a year is so obviously disproportionate, it's hard to see how it could have happened if not for fear of China.

Also firing the interviewers

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#703

Post by alexandre_m » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

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…

There's also South Park being banned in China because of an episode that depicted the way everyone tries to please the Chinese government. Oh the irony.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#704

Post by Gigablah » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

the_resistence wrote: post #542

kllrnohj wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the NBA to Google You probably want to use a different example than Google here. Particularly since Google doesn't have a China presence because they refused to censor search results, and relationships there still appear to be less than solid to say the least. Your statement works with most U.S. firms, but very much doesn't at all for Google in particular.

Goog has research labs in SH and elsewhere.

If merely hiring people in China is objectionable now, you have a really long list of companies to work through

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#705

Post by iamaelephant » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #428

Shivetya wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What factories? Everyone already has or currently is moving manufacturing operations from China to Viet Nam or India. 5 more years and the only factories China will have are going to be domestic.

Tesla is literally opening their Shanghai Gigafactory this year.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#706

Post by rcoveson » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

streb-lo wrote: post #432

trentnix wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> ...people are programmable.

This particular cynicism justifies far too much. A liberal (as in liberty) society must trust the super-majority of its population to agree on and uphold its ethical foundations. Policing hate speech weakens one of those foundations no matter how you justify it, but if you justify it by saying "people are programmable and so can't be trusted to hear what hateful people have to say," it weakens it enormously.

A huge percentage of our speech is attempted "programming." Political debate, religious preaching, even mathematical models of the universe are attempts to get others to think about something a certain way. But it would be unethical to ban any of those things, because people aren't "programmable," they're suggestible.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#707

Post by theseadroid » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

cco wrote: post #625

theseadroid wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I wonder where did you get the less liberal part? From my experience China has become greatly more liberal during the last 30-50 years. When Nixon "opened up" China it was during the culture revolution and those were really tragic years for Chinese people. Since then average Chinese has become less poor and more liberal steadily each year.

That's a totally fair point, I think maybe since 1980's might be more accurate? In my experience, and this is mostly for Chinese who fled to either Hong Kong or the US at some point in their lives, if they are >40 years old they dislike China and view it as an oppressive regime. That makes sense since they ran away. If they are Does that not gel with your experience?

I agree with you that >40 years old dislike China more as they never benefitted from the China's economic take-off that happened after 1990.

But I think for regular Chinese, the younger they are, the more liberal their world views are. This is because the education they received are more westernized each year (You might be surprised). Younger Chinese are generally more proficient in English. And to learn English people have to expose themselves to original English materials. I still remember when I was learning English I got access to things like TED, Open courseware such as Harvard's Justice, shows like the Newsroom, movies like the 12 Angry Men. China's human right records today is not good, but it was much much worse 30 years ago. Back then rural Chinese would kill new born female babies, have no issue buying and selling women (here's a movie about the topic[1]) and toddlers. People from different provinces fought and discriminated each other. And those are not government sponsored, just people being poor and illiterate. Now average Chinese are more literate and many more attended higher education (there's no higher education during the culture revolution)[2]. To this end I need to thank Nixon and people doing business with China. The average Chinese has a better life and can think more rationally thanks to economic and educational improvements.

On the other hand, internet censorship has become more strict after 2010. People do find ways to access VPN, it's just they don't discuss sensitive topics on Chinese internet.

1. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blind_mountain_2007

2. http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/cn (notice the Tertiary education section)

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#708

Post by hannasanarion » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #675

treis wrote: post #644

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. I think Blizzard has a legitimate "time and place" argument here. They shouldn't regulate competitors speech across the board but I think it's reasonable to mandate that interviews associated with official events focus on Hearthstone and stay away from controversial topics. Of cou…

If they had just kicked him out of the tournament, I'd definitely be on that side of things. I don't want a world where all competitions are full of people yelling about hot-button issues. But banning him for a year is so obviously disproportionate, it's hard to see how it could have happened if not for fear of China.

The tournament was already over, and he had won. They took back his prize money.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#709

Post by mzzter » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

blhack wrote: post #589

a_c wrote: post #477

Interesting how an incidence in gaming garner more eye balls on the topic of Hong Kong politics than whole month combined. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... Good for the people of Hong Kong. The topic of Hong Kong didn't struck me as sensational/desperate as it deserves until a Hong Kong friend send me this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yXTHODE24Q Am moved by the clip, especial…

I had no idea that that second video would have the effect on me that it did. I'm sitting in my office here crying.

Same, the pain in the voices got to me.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#710

Post by bena » Tue, Oct 08, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

iamsb wrote: post #694

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…

Would you oppose firing of James Damore as well? Look I understand that we need to have free expression and free speech. Absolutely. But a business wants to protect itself from negative political reputation. If the gamer was talking about say LGBT rights, and his opinions were considered against the current acceptable position on the matter, and then he was banned, I am sure everyone would have applauded blizzard. Le…

Yeah, it's a tricky situation. This could be dismissed with the phrase "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" that gets bandied about when certain people get deplatformed.

By going after Blizzard for suspending this guy for his speech, you're saying that you care more about the targets than the action. That certain actions are ok as long as we're hurting the right people.

So that's what they actually have to defend. They can't hide behind "free speech" now that it's speech they support. They have to make the case as to why this speech should get a pass while other speech should not.