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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

(playhearthstone.com)
2525 points hownottowrite | 10 comments | 08 Oct 19 09:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.645s | source | bottom
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zwaps ◴[08 Oct 19 11:13 UTC] No.21190952[source]▶
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 opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.

If that is indeed the way, then our society and the discourse therein is no longer free, and the CCP has won.

We need to keep these firms in our mind. We need to keep a list of when this happens, and we need to sanction this as best as we can. Similarly, anyone standing up to censorship should have our support.

I can be pro HK, or I can be pro China, and I can voice opinions because doing so either way is an equally valid form of free expression. But it can not be that one side gets pre-emptively censored to appease the CCP, or any actor with the power to DEFINE the bar of what is reasonable expression of opinions.

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1. iamsb ◴[08 Oct 19 16:40 UTC] No.21194140[source]▶
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.

Let us not put burden of being politically correct on free market corporations.

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2. bena ◴[08 Oct 19 16:51 UTC] No.21194255[source]▶
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.

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3. dontreact ◴[08 Oct 19 16:52 UTC] No.21194277[source]▶
Supporting HK protests is very different from falsely claiming that the hiring bar was lowered for women (it said this in the doc, I know enough people at Google who participate in hiring committee to know that it was a false statement).
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4. darkarmani ◴[08 Oct 19 17:00 UTC] No.21194361[source]▶
> Let us not put burden of being politically correct on free market corporations.

Isn't that what blizz just did? They were worried about political correctness so they banned someone?

> 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.

Why are you so sure of this?

5. ◴[08 Oct 19 17:00 UTC] No.21194362[source]▶
6. justinclift ◴[08 Oct 19 17:03 UTC] No.21194390[source]▶
> Let us not put burden of being politically correct on free market corporations.

They seem to have picked up the torch themselves on this one.

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7. iamsb ◴[08 Oct 19 17:13 UTC] No.21194508[source]▶
FWIW worth, I have limited knowledge of gaming communities. Most of my concern have been with behavior of twitter when it comes to policing content, specially anti-Islam content which violates blasphemy laws in certain countries like Pakistan. For long time I was of the opinion that twitter is wrong in the way it bans people or removes content which violates these laws. And that twitter should stop operating in those countries instead. Since then I have changed my views about this. I think twitter as a company has every right to operate where ever it pleases and if it means adhering to local laws, so be it.
8. iamsb ◴[08 Oct 19 17:16 UTC] No.21194545[source]▶
There rule specifies that offensive speech is something that is not allowed. I assumed that same rule will apply to all kinds of offensive speech, including the hong kong related comment. I, for one, dont want people to use platform likes those to spew say homophobic comments. If that means they have deal with all such comments which may be deemed offensive have to be banned, so be it.
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9. iamsb ◴[08 Oct 19 17:20 UTC] No.21194603[source]▶
Fair enough. I could have used a different example. Though might be worth a thought experiment might be worth considering if people would in fact confirm they treated women differently in hiring process.
10. justinclift ◴[08 Oct 19 19:43 UTC] No.21196336{3}[source]▶
Their rule specifically says it's at their discretion. And they chose to apply it in this instance.