Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

That's really sad and stupid. Now magically all the tech giants are blocking the accounts of HKers.

Here you have the power and the dark side of the cloud: one click and it's game over

"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD [...]"

That's pretty close to "Blizzard can remove you from Grandmasters as soon as you open your mouth". Sad to see such a cowardice from corporations, although in the case of Blizzard it was kind of to be expected after all their visual modifications to Hearthstone in order to appeal to the chinese market.

The act didn't bring Blizzard into public dispute. Blizzard banning the player brings Blizzard into public disrepute because it shows that they are cowardly whores willing to do anything for money.

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something.

He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

Companies are spineless and will do pretty much anything for money.

We've seen it from the NBA, Blizzard, Disney, and the like. The fact of the matter is that if you want to do business in China, you have to be open to censoring things that they don't like.