Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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.

Give me a break. When companies censor speech HN likes, it's all about how we have to boycott companies to preserve our society. When it's speech HN doesn't like, it's all about how censorship is actually good and that companies are just "showing people the door" via their freedom of association.

People around here need to make up their minds. If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle, and that means tolerating speech you don't like too. You don't get to just lean on freedom of speech selectively.

The hypocrisy of supporting corporate censorship against things you like and opposing it against things you don't --- well, it's breathtaking.

> If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle

Why? I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "Blizzard, you should ban people who make racist statements from your tournaments, but you should allow people whose who voice support for pro-democracy protestors to compete. And if you decide not to do that, I won't watch your tourneys or buy your games."

Are you saying that I am a hypocrite for liking the contents of some speech but not others, and acting on that preference? Note that no one is saying the government should use its monopoly on force to ban speech - we are talking about private action.

> Are you saying that I am a hypocrite for liking the contents of some speech but not others

Not OP, but I believe they are talking about objecting to censorship ostensibly because of freedom of speech, and then not objecting to other censorship.

If you don't believe in freedom of speech then there is no issue, if you do, you can object to the content of someone's speech, but not their right to express it. That is, if you care about not being a hypocrite.

You can believe that censorship in general is appropriate at times, and that there are inappropriate ways to use it.

Censoring racists and serial harassers isn't the same as censoring pro-democracy activists.

If you believe in some kind of censorship, that's great, we probably agree on a lot. You just can't take that position and believe in freedom of speech. If you believe in freedom of speech you object to the content of speech you find objectionable, not the right to say it.