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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

(playhearthstone.com)
2525 points hownottowrite | 3 comments | 08 Oct 19 09:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.637s | source
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scoutt ◴[08 Oct 19 12:21 UTC] No.21191415[source]▶
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' or whatever in an live Blizzard interview. Like it or not, if you urge to call this move "censorship" you (and Blizzard) would have to tolerate slurs like that.

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1. alkonaut ◴[08 Oct 19 15:24 UTC] No.21193287[source]▶
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.

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2. scoutt ◴[08 Oct 19 15:43 UTC] No.21193493[source]▶
>> 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.

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3. alkonaut ◴[08 Oct 19 18:59 UTC] No.21195802[source]▶
These were my opinions, which extend basically to this: Hold companies to higher standards than merely "maximizing profits while following laws". I completely expect companies to take a stand either for or against the protesters in Hong Kong even though all they really want to do is sell computer games in the West, Hong Kong and China and no one asks them what they think. It's an impossible luxury to (as incidents such as this shows) to think it's possible to choose "no politics". There simply is no "no politics" option in business.