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Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

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Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#191

Post by ohithereyou »

wpdev_63 wrote: post #166
jrockway wrote: post #14

The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch. It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday. But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The mainstream media is…

You should pickup TF2. It has tighter gun mechanics and doesn't have the ultimate garbage(imo).

TF2 is also less aggressively monetized despite being free to play.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#192

Post by [deleted] »

kop316 wrote: post #73
jasonlotito wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see people give up Blizzard games, but still continue supporting companies like Apple that do far worse, like effectively giving the keys to iCloud to China. I think the conversation is great, and maybe now we'll actually reconsider what the TPP's goal was. But in the end, the people picked money first, so it shouldn't be a surprise when businesses do this as well.

I'm sad to see you downvoted. Its frustrating to me too when a company like Apple champions human rights in the USA then hands over the management of iCloud to China. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#193

Post by hnick »

harshreality wrote: post #74
mantap wrote: post #19

If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. China is trapped. They are stuck with this democratic appendix attached to a communist body. China can't keep Hong Kong under a democratic system as they have zero understanding of democracy. But if they try to repress it they risk endangering China's relationships with the rest of the world. They made a mistake thinking they could transfo…

Hong Kong's entire value , as far as I can see [and I'm referring to the value of Hong Kong as a community including people and businesses, not just their geographic value], either as a place to live or to do business or to visit, comes from it being a SAR with its own government, culture, historical legacy, and lack of interference from its mother country. If it becomes a homogenized satellite of Shenzhen with sky h…

What proportion of China's economy is HK? I don't know a good source but I recall seeing it's a low single digit percentage of China as a whole. They definitely punch above their weight per capita but I feel like China is more than willing and able to take the loss.

After all, with Western governments changing every few years, who will even remember in a decade?

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#194

Post by hnick »

mmazing wrote: post #84
anon1m0us wrote: post #75

I figured it out! Why are we so up in arms about this? Why not before this? Well, because we were insulated from China's behavior. Their heavy handed approach only affected their own citizens. They jailed their own citizens, but not Americans, not other people. We got our supply chain from them and they gave us what we wanted, so we're good. However! Now China's tyranny is leaking out of China. It's getting into aren…

Now here's a thought ... could video games and entertainment be tools for generating change in countries? Could every game developer and internet service pulling their services from China completely compel the population to try to change their regime? I know if suddenly my entertainment was taken away I would flip my shit if it was my government that was responsible. Edit : To offset potential cost to companies, coul…

> I know if suddenly my entertainment was taken away I would flip my shit if it was my government that was responsible.

How would you even know, when all your news is telling you it's the fault of those nasty foreigners?

It's been clear in recent years that even an ostensibly 'free' media results in some people with very strange ideas of reality. It must be so much worse when all the messages are curated.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#195

Post by patrec »

jasonlotito wrote: post #53
jrockway wrote: post #14

The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch. It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday. But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The mainstream media is…

It's interesting to see people give up Blizzard games, but still continue supporting companies like Apple that do far worse, like effectively giving the keys to iCloud to China. I think the conversation is great, and maybe now we'll actually reconsider what the TPP's goal was. But in the end, the people picked money first, so it shouldn't be a surprise when businesses do this as well.

Can you explain why you think that complying with hard legal requirements that are a hard pre-requisite to doing business in an authoritarian country is worse than eroding freedom of speech in a non-authoritarian country?

Apple can chose to operate in China and backdoor iCloud there or they can chose not to operate in China at all. It's hard for me to see how either choice will substantially affect people's liberties in China, it's not like apple products are in any way vital to the surveillance state.

On the other hand more and more companies retaliating (out of a desire to curry economic favor with China) against people who exercise their freedom of speech in non-authoritarian countries would seem to affect people's liberties to me.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#196

Post by thaumasiotes »

dmoy wrote: post #190
mattrp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m amazed at just how open (and wrong) cctv’s recent reply to the nba scandal was: “We are strongly dissatisfied and we oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,” CCTV said in its statement in Chinese, which was translated by CNBC“ This is not just wrong, it’s so…

> China is basically no different than it was under Mao This is very much not true. For one, there's rampant consumer capitalism, very little social net, no tens of millions starving to death, and something like 10-100x more personal income. I don't know if you have family that grew up under Mao or not that you can go check with, but, this is a really, really false statement to make. I'm not saying it's all peachy no…

> This is very much not true. For one, there's rampant consumer capitalism, very little social net, no tens of millions starving to death, and something like 10-100x more personal income.

Is this a list of four different differences? Under Mao, when tens of millions of people starved to death, how much of a social net was there?

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#197

Post by dang1234throw »

cwkoss wrote: post #179
dang1234throw wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Chinese and can say some words explaining the perspective from where I sit. I don't think memory of historical wrongs lie at the root of Chinese reactions. They may be the reasons most commonly given, but I don't think it's psychologically operative for most Chinese people. (This as following partly from introspective observation as a Chinese, and partly from the general principle against giving much credence to…

Freedom of speech is a core moral principle in the United States: it is literally the first right enshrined in our constitution and for good reason. I believe much of the recent moral outrage stems from China (and Chinese companies on their behalf) using the financial threat of lost profits to force American businesses to self-censor in ways that do not uphold this value. Allowing totalitarian censorship of unpleasan…

Of course I'm aware that freedom of speech is in the US constitution. It is in the Chinese Constitution as well. My point is that just as you hold genuine doubts about the level of sincerity behind this second fact I gave, most Chinese harbor just as genuine doubts about the level of sincerity behind the first fact you gave.

There are rarely any self-consciously unjust wars. Throughout history, all wars have been justified on moral grounds (including the Nazi invasion of Poland). Doing bad things in the name of morality is extremely common. Why is the Chinese not allowed to wonder whether this description fits current US behavior? (By many American's own admission, it fits American behavior towards the Japanese during the 70s and 80s)

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#198

Post by uoaei »

jbang5 wrote: post #65
jasonlotito wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to see people give up Blizzard games, but still continue supporting companies like Apple that do far worse, like effectively giving the keys to iCloud to China. I think the conversation is great, and maybe now we'll actually reconsider what the TPP's goal was. But in the end, the people picked money first, so it shouldn't be a surprise when businesses do this as well.

Citation needed.

Related: what's the name for this tactic in debate? Where a dissenter insistently demand citations so that the conversation has to pause and then the dissenter nitpicks the citation instead of the argument, effectively derailing the conversation.

It's hard to see this account (jbang5) as anything but an internet troll who, if not literally on the payroll from the Chinese government, is still a useful idiot for their cause.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#199

Post by kulahan »

ohithereyou wrote: post #191
wpdev_63 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should pickup TF2. It has tighter gun mechanics and doesn't have the ultimate garbage(imo).

TF2 is also less aggressively monetized despite being free to play.

I feel like the only way you get "less aggressively monetized" than OW is to have zero microtransactions from the start.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#200

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

kaybe wrote: post #184
mattrp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m amazed at just how open (and wrong) cctv’s recent reply to the nba scandal was: “We are strongly dissatisfied and we oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,” CCTV said in its statement in Chinese, which was translated by CNBC“ This is not just wrong, it’s so…

It's a bit more difficult than that, I think. If you look at free speech in Europe for example, in eg Germany there are laws against hate speech or defamation of individual people (quite differentiated, an opinion is ok and true facts are ok, but invented facts are not). One of the targets is Nazi propaganda, and in general the support is good. Still, the goal is similar, social stability, peace and protection of min…

I sympathize with the idea, but how does one define hate speech? Couldn't The CCP claim that any speech in support of Hong Kong is speech in hate of The CCP? Limiting speech in anyway gets very slippery.
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