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Fallout from Blizzard Hong Kong Incident

605 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

mugwort13 7y ago
But by doing this, Blizzard ended up helping more learn about this struggle. So overall this turned out to be good
JoachimSchipper 7y ago
Earlier discussion on (mostly) the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21201768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21201768.
UseStrict 7y ago
It's a weird day when I find myself agreeing with Marco Rubio. But it's true, China is effectively attempting a global chill on free speech by gating market access. If we don't stand up now, the effects will be felt long into the future.
- SomeOldThrow 7y ago
  The west employs this tactic too but calls it a sanction or embargo.
  - MBCook 7y ago
    Can you give an example of free speech being quieted? We push political issues that way, but I’m not aware of censorship being the trigger.
    - john_moscow 7y ago
      The most well-known one would be James Damore being fired from Google for criticizing the corporate diversity policies [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
      - MBCook 7y ago
        I was expecting an example of the west punishing another government (or companies in another country) for free speech. Google wasn’t censored by a government. That was a decision they decided to make (whatever you think of it, I don’t want to start a relitigation of that mess).
      - AaronFriel 7y ago
        I too remember when a member of congress and a cabinet member both urged Google to fire someone because their comments had hurt the feelings of the American people. No, actually I don't think that's a comparable situation.
      - michannne 7y ago
        While I agree that Damore's termination was an attempt to punish him for the views he had, I wouldn't put it anywhere in the same class as we are seeing with Chinese censorship. This is an entire country, a state government, deciding what people of other countries should be allowed to say, it is on par with Muslim views on comedic interpretations of Mohammed, and is likely to entice violence in much the same way.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        The poster was asked to give an example of free speech being quieted, and gave an example of exactly that.
        michannne 7y ago
        Damore was not quieted though. He was punished, but not quieted, as a matter of fact the controversy surrounding his termination bolstered his audience even further, and from the get go, he was never restricted on what he could or could not say by anyone.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        And blizzard/China didn't "quiet" either, they just "punished". Because apparently it's not quieting if you've punished someone for saying something. and now let me go grab my eyeballs off the floor because they just rolled out of my head.
    - acollins1331 7y ago
      How about the president of the United States demanding that pro sports players be fired for not standing for the anthem?
      - _-david-_ 7y ago
        The president can say anything he wants and nobody will be fired or jailed for not standing. If China bans stuff they can jail people for doing watching stuff.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - falcolas 7y ago
    China is targeting individual speech, sanctions and embargos target governments and governmental policy. There's a bit of a difference there. That said, I think that China's efforts - by using companies as their proxies - are being much more effective.
    - intopieces 7y ago
      >are being much more effective Absolutely. They’re beating us at our own game and revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy - those are just ways we think are good to make money. If a better system comes along we’re the first to jump on it.
      - christophilus 7y ago
        > revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy Dunno about you, but I draw the opposite conclusion. The reaction so far has made it clear that a lot of Americans value freedom and democracy, and that they see these corporate actions as unacceptable.
        vernie 7y ago
        I'm going to give it another week before drawing any conclusions. Chances are people will just move on to the next outrage of the moment.
        SomeOldThrow 7y ago
        The media is doing all the reacting. Where are you getting this pulse from?
      - michannne 7y ago
        How does censorship reveal that our values were never freedom and democracy? If anything, it shows just how well freedom and democracy works in America despite how many conflicting ideologies exist in our nation, compared to any other country.
      - jknoepfler 7y ago
  - jknoepfler 7y ago
    No, it doesn't. Let's take an actual country rather than something vacuous like "The West". To start a company in the United States (for example), you do not need "an American business partner" controlled by the federal government of the United States. The fate of your company is not tied 100% to the approval or disapproval of that business partner's actions, which in the case of China are vigorously and actively policed. Whatever your political views, and in particular whatever you twit, or facebork, or say on camera, you will not be denied the right to do business in the United States of America. If you could get an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet, Emperor Norton was the legitimate sovereign ruler of the United States, and frankly you think the ideal government is a blend of Iran and North Korea (two countries which the United States does embargo), you might have to deal with some weird fallout from public reaction, but you'd still be in business. Furthermore the editor of the Wall Street Journal who published your editorial might suffer some backlash for the utterly weird thing they chose to publish, but they would not be fined or imprisoned or tortured or executed by any state-run apparatus (as they would in China). Embargoes are the exception, not the rule, and they are not used as a means to enforce political speech. It'll be a cold day in hell before I try to defend the foreign policy tactics of the United States, but to pretend that a business embargo on a select few countries constitutes something on the order of the Chinese stranglehold on business in their country is just false.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      > suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet ... but you'd still be in business. I wonder how that would have gone at the height of McCarthyism.
      - nobodyandproud 7y ago
        I wonder how long McCarthyism lasted. I also wonder how long the CCP has been in power for.
      - jknoepfler 7y ago
        Make an argument, don't be intellectually lazy. How do you think it would have gone? Spitballing some historical fiction for the admittedly bizarre editorial? There would have been a public hue and cry. The editor who published the opinion piece would have lost their job, heads would have rolled (figuratively, not literally) in the WSJ editorial board. The person who wrote the editorial would have had a bad time in the public sphere (they still would). The author of the editorial would almost certainly not have gone to jail or been arrested, tortured, or executed, nor would they have lost their property or business, nor would their family. Nor would the editor who published the editorial. If the author had been a government employee, they probably would have lost their job. If they were a high-profile public persona (an actor, for example), they probably would have been blacklisted. But to be clear, that would be the worst of it - even during an extraordinary period of paranoia and fear. If you believe otherwise, dig up some historical precedent to support the argument. For the record: I do not think the United States of America is a just country in many regards, but if you're going to complain about injustice, at least get the facts straight. (Edit: I'm just so puzzled by the bizarre false equivalence on this issue. It's like suggesting that Norway and the United States have the same track record on public healthcare because the Norwegian state health plan stopped covering acupuncture from 1985-1990 (imaginary example). They don't have the same track record, it's not close, slapping some words together on the internet doesn't make it so.)
- yellow_lead 7y ago
  Noticing this a lot more recently with the NBA controversy too.
  - Analemma_ 7y ago
    The NBA at least seems to be walking back their initial condemnation of Morey's comments, China be damned: [0]. We should give them credit for that. Conversely, there's been radio silence from Blizzard so far. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/sports/adam-silver-nba-china-hong-kong.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/sports/adam-silver-nba-ch...
    - f-securus 7y ago
      But they ejected fans that had HK posters?
      - sp332 7y ago
        Things are moving pretty fast. Silver came out on the side of free speech, as far as I can see, just a few hours before the fan was ejected for yelling "Free Hong Kong". It's possible that the Philadelphia officials thought they were following the league's lead even if the NBA's official stance had changed.
        jessaustin 7y ago
        Someone else should probably try it. Then again, NBA tickets are expensive... maybe something to try in the fourth quarter?
      - Rebelgecko 7y ago
        It'll be interesting to see what happens at the next Laker home game. Someone raised like $40k on GoFundMe to hand out pro-HK shirts
      - 556343throwaway 7y ago
        Because those fans were causing a disruption, not because of their message.
- SilasX 7y ago
  Where are the usual geniuses that feel obligated to explain to us that this doesn't violate the First Amendment, with the subtle implication that we therefore shouldn't care about it?
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    I'm not sure the Venn diagram overlaps in the way you think it does. If someone points out to you that someone getting fired from their company for something they said is not a government infringement of free speech, that doesn't necessarily mean they don't think it's an important event. Just that the government didn't and maybe can't have anything to do with it. You have to know what direction you're pointed in to start talking about making a difference. In this particular situation, I'd say: - China is wrong to suppress free expression of HKers, and furthermore I believe it's incumbent upon HKers to assert their, as I see it through the lens of my culture, natural born right to that expression. - Blizzard and the NBA are wrong to discourage the expression of its employees or associates on this particular matter (supporting another culture asserting values like our own), but those harmed do not have the same recourse as a citizen would against their government (with the obvious exceptions of protected classes, which I'm not sure applies here, IANAL). There is only market recourse, aka boycott⁎, or potentially government regulation to protect political speech in the workplace (not sure if that already exists, but it sounds like a dangerous path to me as all kinds of wacky shit could be claimed to be political). ⁎ It strikes me that an embargo or sanction is a kind of political boycott, is that what you'd like to see? Because I'm not outright opposed to a government curtailing business with other governments that refuse to share foundational values. But this is a tricky road too because it basically leads to the kinds of debates like those made to refuse service to PoC or LGBT communities. In the US we have the SCOTUS to help decide those questions, what is the global analogue?
  - COGlory 7y ago
    I appreciate the sentiment, but surely there's a less inflammatory way to make this point?
- tempsy 7y ago
  Something tells me this will end with Apple in the middle. Can't think of a company more exposed to both China and the US.
  - ciabattabread 7y ago
    Apple’s rainy day fund will come in real handy.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - briffle 7y ago
    You mean that company that is all about privacy, and refuses to help the US government access phones of domestic terrorism incidents, but moves all china iCloud storage (and keys) to another company based in China? Apple has tried very hard to appease both sides, and if they suffer for it, it's their own fault.
- point78 7y ago
  Almost all Americans can agree on freedom of speech.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    Not recently.
    - enraged_camel 7y ago
      That's because most people don't understand that "freedom of speech" and "free speech", while related concepts, are actually different. Freedom of speech is what the US Constitution guarantees. It says the government cannot limit people's ability to speak their mind, and cannot punish people for speaking their mind. Note that it says nothing about what private entities can do, especially on platforms they own and operate. "Free speech", as exercised nowadays (mostly) by conservatives who complain about being "silenced", is the (in my opinion ridiculous) idea that one should be able to say anything they want without any consequences whatsoever, and that they are entitled to any platform they choose to spread that message. These are the same people who advocate for a "marketplace of ideas", but get bent out of shape when that marketplace reacts negatively to their opinions. In my opinion, we need to rid ourselves of the idea that all ideas are equally valid and deserve equal amounts of airtime and consideration. Furthermore, it is okay to completely dismiss certain ideas on their total lack of merit, and furthermore take (private) action to prevent their spread. For example if I post on this site that "all people of <insert ethnicity> need to be exterminated" it would be completely okay for others here to downvote/flag my post (i.e. "censorship") and for HN to ban me (i.e. "de-platforming").
      - rayiner 7y ago
        I’m not referring to the concept that there shouldn’t be social repercussions for speech people find distasteful. Of course there should be—shaming and ostracism are powerful tools for enforcing morality, deeper and more fundamental than law. I’m talking about folks using “speech is violence” as a pretext for regulating speech through the government. (This tends to come to a head in the campus context, because when public colleges “deplatform” people, that is government action subject to the first amendment.) Conservatives tried this too, recruiting the aid of the government to fight against obscenity, Communism, etc. And they lost that battle in the end.
- ycombonator 7y ago
  It’s not weird to agree on individual policies and disagree where you don’t. Thank God for America where this still can happen.
Knufen 7y ago
It is scary to see how much more China and the CCP can get away with, I'm looking forward to seeing where it will all end up. Probably not in a good place. Money talks, morals? Not so much.
- dekhn 7y ago
  Right now the leadership in China is terrified! They've been able to get away with a lot, basically using their economic power to get other countries to look the other way with regards to their behavior (suppressing their people, stealing IP, bullying smaller nations). but the moment they got called on it and people started moving their operations to other countries (previously considered "impossible"), they saw the economic impact. And they realized that they can't get away with what they're doing if they aren't providing their citizens with a constantly growing economy, their citizens are going to start getting angry again. It's clear now much of the Chinese leadership were a paper tiger and now that the heat is on, they don't really have a strategy. They just never expect enough people to call them out publicly and embarass them. Maybe they'll keep hold of their own country by suppressing information flow, countrywide surveillance, but whatever power they had over the global economy: severely diminished.
  - BrandonMarc 7y ago
    Indeed. The "decoupling" phenomenon has their attention.
  - Dumblydorr 7y ago
    Their economy is also massively indebted, they got hooked on debt to a degree many here would consider reckless. They've wasted a tremendous amount of money on useless construction, which may be one downfall of a planned economy.
    - dekhn 7y ago
      Agreed. I had a bunch of friends who visited ~5 years ago and were claiming US was so far behind in building that China was going to take over the world. Several went back recently and said "so many ghost towns, what happened?"
coralreef 7y ago
Propose that a suspended player is a US citizen. This feels unconstitutional / illegal, as Blizzard has taken away the player's ability to earn a living based in their political views. The guise of suspension under the violation of "disparagement" feels weak. I'd be interested in seeing how a lawsuit plays out.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  There is no law or constitutional provision in the US that says you can’t refuse to work with someone for their political views.
  - roflchoppa2 7y ago
    idk man it sounds like discrimination to me.
    - gruez 7y ago
      It's legal to discriminate as long as it's not a protected class.
      - montagg 7y ago
        There are some states, like CA, where discrimination based on political views is illegal, but it’s practically-speaking not too hard for an employer to find a more traditional performance reason that may be related to political views. Caveat: IANAL Source: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
        umanwizard 7y ago
        Even then, that refers to employees specifically, and the person in question is probably not a Blizzard employees.
    - 7y ago
macspoofing 7y ago
I don't think it should be an international incident. The reality is that corporations shouldn't be espousing political viewpoints, and nobody should care what their opinion is on controversial policies. They make and sell products and that's all they should stick too. Why should Blizzard get in the middle of what's happening between China and Hong Kong? And to be clear, it isn't just Chinese government versus Hong Kong protestors. The Chinese public, the people who buy and consume Blizzard products, also have very strong opinions on this, as does the Hong Kong public. The problem is that these brands also want the brownie points. So they'll cherry pick safe policies to loudly support when it doesn't negatively affect their bottom line, but stay quiet when it does, making them look like hypocrites and pissing off everyone.
- MBCook 7y ago
  > The reality is that corporations shouldn't be espousing political viewpoints But they MUST. That’s the issue. There is no such thing as remaining neutral. What could they do? Ban the player to make China happy? Now the west is mad and boycotting. NOT ban the player? Now China is pissed and kicking you out of the country. They were damned by someone either way. There was no neutral political stance they could take. International politics is just setup that way. Total neutrality doesn’t exist on that stage.
  - BrandonMarc 7y ago
    Precisely. Don't want to be involved in international politics? Fine - don't involve yourself in international commerce, either.
  - chickenpotpie 7y ago
    Exactly. The problem here isn't that Blizzard is taking sides in international conflicts. The problem is that Blizzard, an American company, is taking China's side in an international conflict.
  - macspoofing 7y ago
    >But they MUST. That’s the issue. Then what is the right answer? HK independence? >There is no such thing as remaining neutral. Of course there is! What does it mean to NOT remain neutral? What position should a corporation take and which controversial topics? How about the IOC? Or FIFA? Or some charity? Or the EU? I don't see European nations, for example, taking any steps to challenge China. I don't see the public boycotting Chinese goods. Why would you expect a video game company to do so? Do you honestly want a video game company to take a position on every single controversial topic .... of which there are thousands? Or only on the ones that you find particularly important? >What could they do? Ban the player to make China happy? No. Ban the player not to make China happy but because he brought politics into a neutral sporting event. The same thing that NFL and NBA did with players kneeling during the anthem because it pissed off half their fanbase.
99_00 7y ago
Xi Jinping Thinks China Is World's Only Sovereign State https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-state https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-sta...
- cooljacob204 7y ago
  That article is jumping to a heck of a lot of conclusions with no real basis.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Gatestone is a conservative think tank with a history of inaccurate reporting and pushing an anti-Muslim bias, so I wouldn't be surprised.
  - dirtyid 7y ago
    It's Gordon G. Chang who has been calling for Chinese collapse via all sorts of deceptive narratives in the last 20 years. No one who studies China takes him seriously.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      I had to wonder about the fascination with a fairly innocuous decades-old opinion of Pres. Carter's. Talk about beating a dead horse...
- gwd 7y ago
  Thanks for this -- I was trying to put into words the concept of tianxia and how that affected China's attitudes towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.
netsharc 7y ago
Great Streisand moves by China though, previously gamers or basketball fans might not really care about what's happening in Hong Kong/China in general, but within 2 days they (China) have raised awareness of what a shitty overlord they are.
- BrandonMarc 7y ago
  Ditto South Park. By telling people they cannot watch South Park, they have guaranteed everyone will want to watch that episode. That's the lesson Dolores Umbridge inadvertently taught us in Harry Potter # 5.
  - celticmusic 7y ago
    There was recently a brouhaha over a cosplayer being accused of blackface for cosplaying a league of legends character named Pyke. This cosplayer was a finalist and the competition in question removed her over it. When I first encountered it this morning my thought was that she ultimately wins because she's getting exposure that she never would have gotten before, and most people aren't ridiculous.
    - esrauch 7y ago
      That... doesn't really seem the same.
    - kaybe 7y ago
      So what would be the PC way to cosplay a specific dark-skinned character when you are really light-skinned?
      - celticmusic 7y ago
        There is no PC way, that's the problem. People just need to get over themselves.
      - apacheCamel 7y ago
        Be a light-skinned Pyke. The costume IMO is the most important part. If you have the look, you don't need to put on black-face to have a killer cosplay.
rossdavidh 7y ago
And yet, I see absolutely no talk, even from the U.S. Senators who are quoted, of the U.S. actually doing anything about it that would make a difference.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  To be honest, for once the market seems to be doing a pretty good job.
- BrandonMarc 7y ago
  I'm not so sure. I think Trump's hot air about suggesting companies leave China is something.
heyyyouu 7y ago
What is really interesting about this is how completely and utterly horrible a job Blizzard did in anticipating and preparing this very obvious possibility, and thus is so poorly handling every single aspect of this.This so obviously was likely to happen that it easily could have been anticipated and planned for to be dealt with in a much, much more professional way, and yet clearly they didn't, and it's beyond inexcusable for any major company to drop the ball like this. And they just continue to prove their incompetence in how they're (not) responding now -- they should be in crisis PR mode, yet they're just sitting there, paralyzed. How they've (mis)handled this will be studied by business and PR students for years to come.
- legohead 7y ago
  They could have gotten away with it had they not been so severe. They: Banned the player, fired the casters, and took back the player's winnings. They should have just banned the player for a year and left it at that. (not agreeing with anything that they did, just looking at it from a PR perspective)
  - stereolambda 7y ago
    I think the details that you mention wouldn't be so important in the media narrative (although maybe they would in the gamers' perception). The ban alone probably speaks to the imagination the most. I am, for one, moderately optimistic looking at the Western counter-outrage and people ditching Blizzard. We need strong and widely held convictions to defend our basic liberty. Coming from the former Eastern Block, I can easily imagine what is it like to have an unfree government convincing the world that we want to live under its "protection", applying material pressures and pseudo-patriotic propaganda to make it appear so etc. If clumsy Chinese silencing play will trigger more popular defensive reactions, it's good. And in economy, historically totalitarian regimes can be extremely good in catching up (see Stalin's industrialization), not so good in outrunning.
    - yifanl 7y ago
      As a single data point, I've uninstalled all my (2) blizzard games and tried to purge what data I could from my account. I submitted a ticket to delete all my data, but they requested a government photo id... and given that I don't trust Blizzard with my game data, I definitely don't trust them with that.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dak1 7y ago
The CCP can move quickly and decisively to ban access to the world's 2nd largest market, and it uses that power to chill speech and force governments and companies to take actions it wants that are antithetical to a free society. Small nations and individual companies cannot stand up to this coercion individually, and free, market economies lack the organization to respond in a cohesive way. The optimistic belief that economic growth and market integration would liberalize authoritarian or totalitarian countries should by now be wholly debunked. The CCP is responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities and violations of human rights today, and has largely managed to silence the world from even speaking out against its actions. Individuals should do everything they can to express their opposition to this state of affairs, but the only viable response is for the governments of free peoples who care for and value these freedoms to jointly act in response. If we value freedom over money, there must be economic consequences (including economic isolation) for China for its actions, and we should not be reluctant about promoting these freedoms globally, including within China. The GATT and WTO rules in place today are not sufficient to counter the threat China represents. It's time to rewrite the rules of global trade to prevent the CCP from freely benefiting from trade while simultaneously using it as a hammer to blunt and distort the values that enabled the markets from which it benefits.
- LocalH 7y ago
  It'd be really nice if the world pulled out of that market, which would decimate it and teach China that they don't own the world. That would never happen, anyway. That's the real power of money.
- jackcodes 7y ago
  Do you think a union would hold any power, almost like an ‘accredited travel agent’? Sign up and show you won’t bend you initial ethics to suit China.
  - nordsieck 7y ago
    > Do you think a union would hold any power Power over whom? China? No. US Companies? It depends on the context: how damaging would a strike be, and how much of the important people can you get to join? In the context of pro gaming, I have serious doubts that any union is viable outside games with a franchise model. There are just too many hungry people and too few spots at the top to ever have a meaningful strike. Even with a franchise, the result of a Union forming may just be the dissolving of the franchise model (or the failure of the game as an esport) rather than the Union achieving political power.
Schnitz 7y ago
Blizzard has shown their true colors: make money at all costs.
- ProAm 7y ago
  This is almost every company ever to be fair.
  - shultays 7y ago
    I am sure some companies stops at some point. At least I want to believe I am working for one
  - abegnoche 7y ago
    American companies for sure, rest of the world it depends.
  - johnzim 7y ago
    True, but it hurts more when it's a company with such a great history and strong relationship with its customers. I think people don't really care about what Nestlé or Monsanto do because they've never really cared about those companies, but people care about Blizzard.
- notadoc 7y ago
  That has become the attitude of many companies toward China. Money and market access >
tempsy 7y ago
Another incident: A fan at a 76ers game was escorted out after shouting "free Hong Kong" before a game against a CBA team in Philadelphia yesterday. https://twitter.com/Christie_Ileto/status/1181779722243575809?s=20 https://twitter.com/Christie_Ileto/status/118177972224357580...
- YayamiOmate 7y ago
  It would be interesting what wpukd happen if people on NBA games started wearing FreeHK shirts. Would they be ejected during game? That would really mean that china effectively censors US citizens. Also what would happen if crowd pulled HK support en masse, escort out everyone?
  - Rebelgecko 7y ago
    We may see in a few weeks: https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-hong-kong-tshirts-on-nba-opening-night https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-hong-kong-tshirts-on-nba-ope...
- bduerst 7y ago
  Were they escorted out because of what they were saying, or were they escorted out for being annoying and disrupting the game?
  - magashna 7y ago
    Have you been to a basketball game? It would be really difficult to "be annoying" or "disrupt" the din of noise that fills an arena.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      Yes, and I've seen people (obnoxious drunks) get escorted out. This is also a pre-season game.
mytailorisrich 7y ago
And that's why FIFA bans all political displays or comments, and displays of any symbols in general... I expect Blizzard to follow suit.
- carapace 7y ago
  But aren't FIFA a bunch of morally bankrupt scam artists? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Corruption
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Isn't that what GP said? Banning speech sure seems "morally bankrupt" to me...
    - carapace 7y ago
      You're right! Now that I think about it, my comment could have been a snarky joke. I didn't think it through. (^_^)
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  Interesting, the MLS (Major League Soccer), a US professional soccer league, recently faced this issue because a flag associated with an antifa/anti-nazi affiliated group was being displayed by fans at some matches. At first they banned it, then after some consideration they temporarily unbanned it. (Temporarily, because the league said they will reconsider its flag rules in the off-season.) https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/mls-lifts-ban-on-iron-front-flag-after-working-with-sounders-supporters-groups-and-others/ https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/mls-lifts-ban-o...
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    There is plenty of this in European football. I remember fan groups flying Che Guevara flags at many games with no problems. It really becomes a problem when teams and players do it, and even more in international settings. Hence FIGA's rule, which is aimed at keeping the game neutral and an inclusive sport.
greggman2 7y ago
I'm mixed on this. I'm 100% for Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai to express his support for Hong Kong. I'm not so sure it's okay for him to do it on Blizzard's show/event. 27 years ago Sinead O'Connor ripped up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live when it was broadcast live. She's was arguably right to critize the Pope but was she right to do it from Saturday Night Live's Live broadcast? IIRC because of that incident SNL added a 5 or 10 second delay so they'd have time to cut if something similar happened again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor#Saturday_Night_Live_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor#Saturda... Anyway, I'm support of the HK protestors and having written that in public now I wonder if I'm banned from China. I also believe I want US businesses to all stick up for freedom of expression and not sell out to China. I'm just saying in the context of using the Blizzard event I'm not so ready to condemn Blizzard's initial response. In the new context of what's happened since then though I hope they change their direction. IIRC Sinead O'Connor was pretty much universally condemned even though if I understand correctly she was right.
- neuroticfish 7y ago
  >I'm not so sure it's okay for him to do it on Blizzard's show/event. >She's was arguably right to critize the Pope but was she right to do it from Saturday Night Live's Live broadcast? >I also believe I want US businesses to all stick up for freedom of expression and not sell out to China. Well this is what happens when our culture is so insistent on upholding capitalism as a virtue. When our best platforms for speaking up are businesses, it's only fair for us to use them like we would any other service that we're paying for (whether directly or through our taxes that fund their allowances, or through our suffering of their practices). Why do people only come to the defense of corporations when the "invisible hand of the market" is punching up?
- moksly 7y ago
  I don’t know about SNL, but the thing that pisses me off about Blizzard is that they have been parading around as a company that supports human rights. They recently held a pro LGBT+ event, they’ve held numerous humanitarian aid campaigns and they even have a statue outside their headquarters that features one of their core values “Every voice matters”. You simply can’t do all that, and then go against democracy and basic human rights like this, and then expect people to not call you out for your bullshit.
meowface 7y ago
I wonder if this will affect the Starcraft 2 Nation Wars tournament that's currently ongoing. China, Hong Kong, and "Chinese Taipei" (as Blizzard insists the team be called in the tournament) are all participants in the tournament, though the Chinese team just happened to recently eliminate the Hong Kong team, so it would have to be another country's team to pull an "I am Spartacus" in support of the banned player and Hong Kong.
- xkcd-sucks 7y ago
  Maybe the Taiwan team can throw the match by rushing worker units at the Chinese team's tank units
- bena 7y ago
  You do know why "Chinese Taipei" is contentious right? The island of Taiwan houses an entity that considers itself the rightful government of China in exile, the Republic of China (ROC). Mainland China is currently governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC). Both governments consider themselves "China". They consider the other government as an illegitimate entity occupying territory illegally. The PRC refuses to deal with any nation that treats the ROC as a nation. That means it is not recognized by the UN, the Olympic committee, etc. If you make any sort of inference that the island of Taiwan is not the territory of and under the control of the PRC, they will flat out drop your ass. The compromise is "Chinese Taipei". Because "Taiwan" sounds too much like its own nation to the PRC and "Taiwan, China" sounds too much like a subordinate of the PRC to the ROC. So it's not Blizzard that's insisting the team be called Chinese Taipei, it's the PRC and ROC. Although, they'd much rather the other government not exist.
jackcodes 7y ago
Let them have their LAN party
Exquisites 7y ago
I would love to see protesters at Blizzcon wearing the HK protester attire.
asar 7y ago
Interesting that the stock price of Activision Blizzard is basically unfazed.
- to-too-two 7y ago
  It’ll take a lot more than a bad PR move to affect their stocks. Call of Duty Modern Warfare drops in a day or so. They’ve got plenty of money making assets, and swaths of fans who don’t care about politics.
- hguant 7y ago
  Should go up tbh - they've shown investors that they value shareholder profits/keeping markets open more over all other considerations (fanbase, PR, not being hypocrites, etc).
- larkeith 7y ago
  Investors know long public outrage lasts.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
darawk 7y ago
It's almost as though we need a president interested in some kind of trade...conflict with China. If only we had one of those.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here or take HN threads further into political flamewar. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21204717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21204717.
  - darawk 7y ago
    It's an interesting commentary on the state of discourse that the mere suggestion that the sitting president may have done something good is considered political flamewar bait.
    - aslaan 7y ago
      Please don't turn this political discussion into a political discussion. Edit: Please remember that only negative comments regarding President Trump are allowed in this political discussion about free speech.
      - dang 7y ago
        Many topics discussed on HN inevitably have some political overlap. That doesn't make it ok to post flamebait, cheap one-liners, and so on. This standard is well established here, and if you read the HN guidelines you'll find much there that expresses it. For example: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." In other words, when the topic becomes political, that's when the guidelines matter even more, and commenters need to abide by them. Otherwise we end up with internet flamewar the same as most other places on the internet, and that's not interesting. All scorched earth is the same. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html
AcerbicZero 7y ago
So, Twitter et al. have been training corporations to pay attention to various levels of public outrage, and the public outrage has been training corporations on how to mitigate that outrage without impacting the bottom line too dramatically, and now we're surprised these pliable flexible money gumbys' are bending to the whim of someone with (potentially) more money? As a bonus, "we" (The West) have recently demonstrated hundreds upon hundreds of examples of free speech being relegated to a distant second to certain "special" feelings our society holds, and now "we" are trying to tell China that their certain special feelings aren't worthy of this level of protection? If our values mean nothing to us, then there is no reason to be surprised that those values mean just as little to others.
- AzzieElbab 7y ago
  Since Twitter is blocked in China, I bet it is corpotate regional managers who are flipping out about posts that reach maybe 1 percent of China's population
  - tandr 7y ago
    1% of 1'500'000'000 is 15 million people
    - AzzieElbab 7y ago
      True but nevertheless insignificant
Knove 7y ago
First, I introduce myself. I am a Chinese, an ordinary citizen. I want to express my view rationally: the so-called repression of speech, freedom of speech, that also scores what freedom of speech, Hong Kong incident involves national dignity, just as the United States don't want 911 to be supported by some people (example: Imagine a well-known person, just days after 911, publicly declaring that 911 was a Great National Renaissance Movement .)(More seriously, it involves the level of the Chinese nation.) To say that, I just want to express that this is the common view of the Chinese people at present. That's why there are Chinese people who support 911 on Twitter. They want to express that Americans support Hong Kong's behavior. In their hearts, it's the same behavior as supporting 911. While being indoctrinated with China's harmfulness theory by the media, I hope that you can rationally understand these recent events, rather than trust the media.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- zanny 7y ago
  > United States does not want to be talked about 911 As a US citizen, please talk about 9/11. The response Americans had in the wake of that tragedy is reprehensible - the entire country gave unanimous support to the government to commit war crimes in nations around the world - including our own. Torture, illegal detainment, wars founded on lies to make private contractors rich, expansive laws like the Patriot Act, NDAA expansions, and establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, all of which grossly violate civil liberties and privacy. The rest of the world should criticize America for 9/11, for being responsible for the destabilization of countries that led to such a degree of organized terror in the decades leading up to it, as much as we should be criticized for the heinous acts domestically and abroad committed in response to it (or at least, that were excused by it).
  - Knove 7y ago
    Maybe what I mean is not clear enough. I imagine that a star, just a few days after 9/11, openly declared that 9/11 was a great recovery movement.
eberfreitas 7y ago
Real question: How is what China is doing any different from what we've seen the US do to Venezuela (the Adobe incident) or even Cuba for that matter?
- jpambrun 7y ago
  I am with you on this. The story on the Canadian food truck being withheld money from Square Canada because JP Morgan asserted that the coffee came from Cuba comes to mind. From my perspective, outside of the US and China, both are overreaching quite a bit.
- pnw_hazor 7y ago
  China did not do this, Blizzard and the NBA did it. These are US companies/associations that supposedly support human and civil rights. China can do whatever they want, Blizzard, the NBA, and others are voluntarily appeasing China (or act like they are trying to do so) and tossing their carefully developed facade of supporting human and civil rights out the window. In contrast, Adobe is following a US law.
- larkeith 7y ago
  One is standard international politics, with one government imposing sanctions on another. The other is a violation of Westphalian sovereignty. Though it should be noted that the US has not been shy of such violations itself, and with them earned itself quite a bit of ill will - Venezuela is just not such a case.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  The US issued sanctions against Venezuelan government officials known to be be corrupt; the sanctions don't apply to all, or even most, of Venezuela. Adobe simply used those sanctions as an excuse to cut off support for everyone in Venezuela so they could pull out without having to refund anyone. Also, with respect to both countries, we aren't trying to use our US economic power to force a Venezuelan or Cuban company to do what we want. The US government has made its stance toward both countries clear for the last several decades, it's not like they tricked US businesses into going into Venezuela or Cuba and then tried to pull the rug out from beneath them.
aagha 7y ago
It's interesting to see that no where in this thread or in the Vice article posted by OP, is Robert Kotick's name mentioned. It's not until Kotick, Morhaime (Blizzard co-founder) and Allen Brack (President) start feeling the heat will they reverse course.
- MS90 7y ago
  Morhaime stepped down as CEO last year, and his advisory role with the company ended back in April.
aasasd 7y ago
Cory Doctorow and Neal Stephenson both have entire novels featuring in-game markets of MMOs (‘For the Win’ and ‘Reamde’). Hopefully the authors have done more research than I did, but the claim is that MMOs have multibillion-dollar markets of in-game items and currency, with the companies running the games thus controlling the flow of money. And the markets can be used for supranational transfer or laundering. And plenty of people in China, India and elsewhere are farming in-game gold full-time. Would Blizzard give up such a segment to let some dudes make a few loud comments?
eutropia 7y ago
Stock is down ~3.5% since Monday, is that a meaningful swing? Not sure if shareholders care...
marv3lls 7y ago
"but it is incredibly disturbing that American companies would willingly participate in the Chinese government’s propaganda campaign." Not counting the U.S. media, of course!
interdrift 7y ago
Welp, I guess we had a good run. Time to show the Chinese that they will never take away our freedom

605 points by rahuldottech 7y ago

But by doing this, Blizzard ended up helping more learn about this struggle. So overall this turned out to be good

Earlier discussion on (mostly) the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21201768 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21201768.

UseStrict 7y ago

It's a weird day when I find myself agreeing with Marco Rubio. But it's true, China is effectively attempting a global chill on free speech by gating market access. If we don't stand up now, the effects will be felt long into the future.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago
The west employs this tactic too but calls it a sanction or embargo.
- MBCook 7y ago
  Can you give an example of free speech being quieted? We push political issues that way, but I’m not aware of censorship being the trigger.
  - john_moscow 7y ago
    The most well-known one would be James Damore being fired from Google for criticizing the corporate diversity policies [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
    - MBCook 7y ago
      I was expecting an example of the west punishing another government (or companies in another country) for free speech. Google wasn’t censored by a government. That was a decision they decided to make (whatever you think of it, I don’t want to start a relitigation of that mess).
    - AaronFriel 7y ago
      I too remember when a member of congress and a cabinet member both urged Google to fire someone because their comments had hurt the feelings of the American people. No, actually I don't think that's a comparable situation.
    - michannne 7y ago
      While I agree that Damore's termination was an attempt to punish him for the views he had, I wouldn't put it anywhere in the same class as we are seeing with Chinese censorship. This is an entire country, a state government, deciding what people of other countries should be allowed to say, it is on par with Muslim views on comedic interpretations of Mohammed, and is likely to entice violence in much the same way.
      - celticmusic 7y ago
        The poster was asked to give an example of free speech being quieted, and gave an example of exactly that.
        michannne 7y ago
        Damore was not quieted though. He was punished, but not quieted, as a matter of fact the controversy surrounding his termination bolstered his audience even further, and from the get go, he was never restricted on what he could or could not say by anyone.
        celticmusic 7y ago
        And blizzard/China didn't "quiet" either, they just "punished". Because apparently it's not quieting if you've punished someone for saying something. and now let me go grab my eyeballs off the floor because they just rolled out of my head.
  - acollins1331 7y ago
    How about the president of the United States demanding that pro sports players be fired for not standing for the anthem?
    - _-david-_ 7y ago
      The president can say anything he wants and nobody will be fired or jailed for not standing. If China bans stuff they can jail people for doing watching stuff.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- falcolas 7y ago
  China is targeting individual speech, sanctions and embargos target governments and governmental policy. There's a bit of a difference there. That said, I think that China's efforts - by using companies as their proxies - are being much more effective.
  - intopieces 7y ago
    >are being much more effective Absolutely. They’re beating us at our own game and revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy - those are just ways we think are good to make money. If a better system comes along we’re the first to jump on it.
    - christophilus 7y ago
      > revealing that American values were never freedom and democracy Dunno about you, but I draw the opposite conclusion. The reaction so far has made it clear that a lot of Americans value freedom and democracy, and that they see these corporate actions as unacceptable.
      - vernie 7y ago
        I'm going to give it another week before drawing any conclusions. Chances are people will just move on to the next outrage of the moment.
      - SomeOldThrow 7y ago
        The media is doing all the reacting. Where are you getting this pulse from?
    - michannne 7y ago
      How does censorship reveal that our values were never freedom and democracy? If anything, it shows just how well freedom and democracy works in America despite how many conflicting ideologies exist in our nation, compared to any other country.
    - jknoepfler 7y ago
- jknoepfler 7y ago
  No, it doesn't. Let's take an actual country rather than something vacuous like "The West". To start a company in the United States (for example), you do not need "an American business partner" controlled by the federal government of the United States. The fate of your company is not tied 100% to the approval or disapproval of that business partner's actions, which in the case of China are vigorously and actively policed. Whatever your political views, and in particular whatever you twit, or facebork, or say on camera, you will not be denied the right to do business in the United States of America. If you could get an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet, Emperor Norton was the legitimate sovereign ruler of the United States, and frankly you think the ideal government is a blend of Iran and North Korea (two countries which the United States does embargo), you might have to deal with some weird fallout from public reaction, but you'd still be in business. Furthermore the editor of the Wall Street Journal who published your editorial might suffer some backlash for the utterly weird thing they chose to publish, but they would not be fined or imprisoned or tortured or executed by any state-run apparatus (as they would in China). Embargoes are the exception, not the rule, and they are not used as a means to enforce political speech. It'll be a cold day in hell before I try to defend the foreign policy tactics of the United States, but to pretend that a business embargo on a select few countries constitutes something on the order of the Chinese stranglehold on business in their country is just false.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    > suggesting that Western Capitalism is corrupt, Marx was the one true prophet ... but you'd still be in business. I wonder how that would have gone at the height of McCarthyism.
    - nobodyandproud 7y ago
      I wonder how long McCarthyism lasted. I also wonder how long the CCP has been in power for.
    - jknoepfler 7y ago
      Make an argument, don't be intellectually lazy. How do you think it would have gone? Spitballing some historical fiction for the admittedly bizarre editorial? There would have been a public hue and cry. The editor who published the opinion piece would have lost their job, heads would have rolled (figuratively, not literally) in the WSJ editorial board. The person who wrote the editorial would have had a bad time in the public sphere (they still would). The author of the editorial would almost certainly not have gone to jail or been arrested, tortured, or executed, nor would they have lost their property or business, nor would their family. Nor would the editor who published the editorial. If the author had been a government employee, they probably would have lost their job. If they were a high-profile public persona (an actor, for example), they probably would have been blacklisted. But to be clear, that would be the worst of it - even during an extraordinary period of paranoia and fear. If you believe otherwise, dig up some historical precedent to support the argument. For the record: I do not think the United States of America is a just country in many regards, but if you're going to complain about injustice, at least get the facts straight. (Edit: I'm just so puzzled by the bizarre false equivalence on this issue. It's like suggesting that Norway and the United States have the same track record on public healthcare because the Norwegian state health plan stopped covering acupuncture from 1985-1990 (imaginary example). They don't have the same track record, it's not close, slapping some words together on the internet doesn't make it so.)
yellow_lead 7y ago
Noticing this a lot more recently with the NBA controversy too.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  The NBA at least seems to be walking back their initial condemnation of Morey's comments, China be damned: [0]. We should give them credit for that. Conversely, there's been radio silence from Blizzard so far. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/sports/adam-silver-nba-china-hong-kong.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/sports/adam-silver-nba-ch...
  - f-securus 7y ago
    But they ejected fans that had HK posters?
    - sp332 7y ago
      Things are moving pretty fast. Silver came out on the side of free speech, as far as I can see, just a few hours before the fan was ejected for yelling "Free Hong Kong". It's possible that the Philadelphia officials thought they were following the league's lead even if the NBA's official stance had changed.
      - jessaustin 7y ago
        Someone else should probably try it. Then again, NBA tickets are expensive... maybe something to try in the fourth quarter?
    - Rebelgecko 7y ago
      It'll be interesting to see what happens at the next Laker home game. Someone raised like $40k on GoFundMe to hand out pro-HK shirts
    - 556343throwaway 7y ago
      Because those fans were causing a disruption, not because of their message.
SilasX 7y ago
Where are the usual geniuses that feel obligated to explain to us that this doesn't violate the First Amendment, with the subtle implication that we therefore shouldn't care about it?
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  I'm not sure the Venn diagram overlaps in the way you think it does. If someone points out to you that someone getting fired from their company for something they said is not a government infringement of free speech, that doesn't necessarily mean they don't think it's an important event. Just that the government didn't and maybe can't have anything to do with it. You have to know what direction you're pointed in to start talking about making a difference. In this particular situation, I'd say: - China is wrong to suppress free expression of HKers, and furthermore I believe it's incumbent upon HKers to assert their, as I see it through the lens of my culture, natural born right to that expression. - Blizzard and the NBA are wrong to discourage the expression of its employees or associates on this particular matter (supporting another culture asserting values like our own), but those harmed do not have the same recourse as a citizen would against their government (with the obvious exceptions of protected classes, which I'm not sure applies here, IANAL). There is only market recourse, aka boycott⁎, or potentially government regulation to protect political speech in the workplace (not sure if that already exists, but it sounds like a dangerous path to me as all kinds of wacky shit could be claimed to be political). ⁎ It strikes me that an embargo or sanction is a kind of political boycott, is that what you'd like to see? Because I'm not outright opposed to a government curtailing business with other governments that refuse to share foundational values. But this is a tricky road too because it basically leads to the kinds of debates like those made to refuse service to PoC or LGBT communities. In the US we have the SCOTUS to help decide those questions, what is the global analogue?
- COGlory 7y ago
  I appreciate the sentiment, but surely there's a less inflammatory way to make this point?
tempsy 7y ago
Something tells me this will end with Apple in the middle. Can't think of a company more exposed to both China and the US.
- ciabattabread 7y ago
  Apple’s rainy day fund will come in real handy.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- briffle 7y ago
  You mean that company that is all about privacy, and refuses to help the US government access phones of domestic terrorism incidents, but moves all china iCloud storage (and keys) to another company based in China? Apple has tried very hard to appease both sides, and if they suffer for it, it's their own fault.
point78 7y ago
Almost all Americans can agree on freedom of speech.
- rayiner 7y ago
  Not recently.
  - enraged_camel 7y ago
    That's because most people don't understand that "freedom of speech" and "free speech", while related concepts, are actually different. Freedom of speech is what the US Constitution guarantees. It says the government cannot limit people's ability to speak their mind, and cannot punish people for speaking their mind. Note that it says nothing about what private entities can do, especially on platforms they own and operate. "Free speech", as exercised nowadays (mostly) by conservatives who complain about being "silenced", is the (in my opinion ridiculous) idea that one should be able to say anything they want without any consequences whatsoever, and that they are entitled to any platform they choose to spread that message. These are the same people who advocate for a "marketplace of ideas", but get bent out of shape when that marketplace reacts negatively to their opinions. In my opinion, we need to rid ourselves of the idea that all ideas are equally valid and deserve equal amounts of airtime and consideration. Furthermore, it is okay to completely dismiss certain ideas on their total lack of merit, and furthermore take (private) action to prevent their spread. For example if I post on this site that "all people of <insert ethnicity> need to be exterminated" it would be completely okay for others here to downvote/flag my post (i.e. "censorship") and for HN to ban me (i.e. "de-platforming").
    - rayiner 7y ago
      I’m not referring to the concept that there shouldn’t be social repercussions for speech people find distasteful. Of course there should be—shaming and ostracism are powerful tools for enforcing morality, deeper and more fundamental than law. I’m talking about folks using “speech is violence” as a pretext for regulating speech through the government. (This tends to come to a head in the campus context, because when public colleges “deplatform” people, that is government action subject to the first amendment.) Conservatives tried this too, recruiting the aid of the government to fight against obscenity, Communism, etc. And they lost that battle in the end.
ycombonator 7y ago
It’s not weird to agree on individual policies and disagree where you don’t. Thank God for America where this still can happen.

Knufen 7y ago

It is scary to see how much more China and the CCP can get away with, I'm looking forward to seeing where it will all end up. Probably not in a good place. Money talks, morals? Not so much.

dekhn 7y ago
Right now the leadership in China is terrified! They've been able to get away with a lot, basically using their economic power to get other countries to look the other way with regards to their behavior (suppressing their people, stealing IP, bullying smaller nations). but the moment they got called on it and people started moving their operations to other countries (previously considered "impossible"), they saw the economic impact. And they realized that they can't get away with what they're doing if they aren't providing their citizens with a constantly growing economy, their citizens are going to start getting angry again. It's clear now much of the Chinese leadership were a paper tiger and now that the heat is on, they don't really have a strategy. They just never expect enough people to call them out publicly and embarass them. Maybe they'll keep hold of their own country by suppressing information flow, countrywide surveillance, but whatever power they had over the global economy: severely diminished.
- BrandonMarc 7y ago
  Indeed. The "decoupling" phenomenon has their attention.
- Dumblydorr 7y ago
  Their economy is also massively indebted, they got hooked on debt to a degree many here would consider reckless. They've wasted a tremendous amount of money on useless construction, which may be one downfall of a planned economy.
  - dekhn 7y ago
    Agreed. I had a bunch of friends who visited ~5 years ago and were claiming US was so far behind in building that China was going to take over the world. Several went back recently and said "so many ghost towns, what happened?"

coralreef 7y ago

Propose that a suspended player is a US citizen. This feels unconstitutional / illegal, as Blizzard has taken away the player's ability to earn a living based in their political views. The guise of suspension under the violation of "disparagement" feels weak. I'd be interested in seeing how a lawsuit plays out.

umanwizard 7y ago
There is no law or constitutional provision in the US that says you can’t refuse to work with someone for their political views.
- roflchoppa2 7y ago
  idk man it sounds like discrimination to me.
  - gruez 7y ago
    It's legal to discriminate as long as it's not a protected class.
    - montagg 7y ago
      There are some states, like CA, where discrimination based on political views is illegal, but it’s practically-speaking not too hard for an employer to find a more traditional performance reason that may be related to political views. Caveat: IANAL Source: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
      - umanwizard 7y ago
        Even then, that refers to employees specifically, and the person in question is probably not a Blizzard employees.
  - 7y ago

macspoofing 7y ago

I don't think it should be an international incident. The reality is that corporations shouldn't be espousing political viewpoints, and nobody should care what their opinion is on controversial policies. They make and sell products and that's all they should stick too. Why should Blizzard get in the middle of what's happening between China and Hong Kong? And to be clear, it isn't just Chinese government versus Hong Kong protestors. The Chinese public, the people who buy and consume Blizzard products, also have very strong opinions on this, as does the Hong Kong public. The problem is that these brands also want the brownie points. So they'll cherry pick safe policies to loudly support when it doesn't negatively affect their bottom line, but stay quiet when it does, making them look like hypocrites and pissing off everyone.

MBCook 7y ago
> The reality is that corporations shouldn't be espousing political viewpoints But they MUST. That’s the issue. There is no such thing as remaining neutral. What could they do? Ban the player to make China happy? Now the west is mad and boycotting. NOT ban the player? Now China is pissed and kicking you out of the country. They were damned by someone either way. There was no neutral political stance they could take. International politics is just setup that way. Total neutrality doesn’t exist on that stage.
- BrandonMarc 7y ago
  Precisely. Don't want to be involved in international politics? Fine - don't involve yourself in international commerce, either.
- chickenpotpie 7y ago
  Exactly. The problem here isn't that Blizzard is taking sides in international conflicts. The problem is that Blizzard, an American company, is taking China's side in an international conflict.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >But they MUST. That’s the issue. Then what is the right answer? HK independence? >There is no such thing as remaining neutral. Of course there is! What does it mean to NOT remain neutral? What position should a corporation take and which controversial topics? How about the IOC? Or FIFA? Or some charity? Or the EU? I don't see European nations, for example, taking any steps to challenge China. I don't see the public boycotting Chinese goods. Why would you expect a video game company to do so? Do you honestly want a video game company to take a position on every single controversial topic .... of which there are thousands? Or only on the ones that you find particularly important? >What could they do? Ban the player to make China happy? No. Ban the player not to make China happy but because he brought politics into a neutral sporting event. The same thing that NFL and NBA did with players kneeling during the anthem because it pissed off half their fanbase.

99_00 7y ago

Xi Jinping Thinks China Is World's Only Sovereign State https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-state https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13497/china-sovereign-sta...

cooljacob204 7y ago
That article is jumping to a heck of a lot of conclusions with no real basis.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Gatestone is a conservative think tank with a history of inaccurate reporting and pushing an anti-Muslim bias, so I wouldn't be surprised.
- dirtyid 7y ago
  It's Gordon G. Chang who has been calling for Chinese collapse via all sorts of deceptive narratives in the last 20 years. No one who studies China takes him seriously.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    I had to wonder about the fascination with a fairly innocuous decades-old opinion of Pres. Carter's. Talk about beating a dead horse...
gwd 7y ago
Thanks for this -- I was trying to put into words the concept of tianxia and how that affected China's attitudes towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.

netsharc 7y ago

Great Streisand moves by China though, previously gamers or basketball fans might not really care about what's happening in Hong Kong/China in general, but within 2 days they (China) have raised awareness of what a shitty overlord they are.

BrandonMarc 7y ago
Ditto South Park. By telling people they cannot watch South Park, they have guaranteed everyone will want to watch that episode. That's the lesson Dolores Umbridge inadvertently taught us in Harry Potter # 5.
- celticmusic 7y ago
  There was recently a brouhaha over a cosplayer being accused of blackface for cosplaying a league of legends character named Pyke. This cosplayer was a finalist and the competition in question removed her over it. When I first encountered it this morning my thought was that she ultimately wins because she's getting exposure that she never would have gotten before, and most people aren't ridiculous.
  - esrauch 7y ago
    That... doesn't really seem the same.
  - kaybe 7y ago
    So what would be the PC way to cosplay a specific dark-skinned character when you are really light-skinned?
    - celticmusic 7y ago
      There is no PC way, that's the problem. People just need to get over themselves.
    - apacheCamel 7y ago
      Be a light-skinned Pyke. The costume IMO is the most important part. If you have the look, you don't need to put on black-face to have a killer cosplay.

rossdavidh 7y ago

And yet, I see absolutely no talk, even from the U.S. Senators who are quoted, of the U.S. actually doing anything about it that would make a difference.

_bxg1 7y ago
To be honest, for once the market seems to be doing a pretty good job.
BrandonMarc 7y ago
I'm not so sure. I think Trump's hot air about suggesting companies leave China is something.

heyyyouu 7y ago

What is really interesting about this is how completely and utterly horrible a job Blizzard did in anticipating and preparing this very obvious possibility, and thus is so poorly handling every single aspect of this.This so obviously was likely to happen that it easily could have been anticipated and planned for to be dealt with in a much, much more professional way, and yet clearly they didn't, and it's beyond inexcusable for any major company to drop the ball like this. And they just continue to prove their incompetence in how they're (not) responding now -- they should be in crisis PR mode, yet they're just sitting there, paralyzed. How they've (mis)handled this will be studied by business and PR students for years to come.

legohead 7y ago
They could have gotten away with it had they not been so severe. They: Banned the player, fired the casters, and took back the player's winnings. They should have just banned the player for a year and left it at that. (not agreeing with anything that they did, just looking at it from a PR perspective)
- stereolambda 7y ago
  I think the details that you mention wouldn't be so important in the media narrative (although maybe they would in the gamers' perception). The ban alone probably speaks to the imagination the most. I am, for one, moderately optimistic looking at the Western counter-outrage and people ditching Blizzard. We need strong and widely held convictions to defend our basic liberty. Coming from the former Eastern Block, I can easily imagine what is it like to have an unfree government convincing the world that we want to live under its "protection", applying material pressures and pseudo-patriotic propaganda to make it appear so etc. If clumsy Chinese silencing play will trigger more popular defensive reactions, it's good. And in economy, historically totalitarian regimes can be extremely good in catching up (see Stalin's industrialization), not so good in outrunning.
  - yifanl 7y ago
    As a single data point, I've uninstalled all my (2) blizzard games and tried to purge what data I could from my account. I submitted a ticket to delete all my data, but they requested a government photo id... and given that I don't trust Blizzard with my game data, I definitely don't trust them with that.

deleted 7y ago

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dak1 7y ago

The CCP can move quickly and decisively to ban access to the world's 2nd largest market, and it uses that power to chill speech and force governments and companies to take actions it wants that are antithetical to a free society. Small nations and individual companies cannot stand up to this coercion individually, and free, market economies lack the organization to respond in a cohesive way. The optimistic belief that economic growth and market integration would liberalize authoritarian or totalitarian countries should by now be wholly debunked. The CCP is responsible for some of the most horrific atrocities and violations of human rights today, and has largely managed to silence the world from even speaking out against its actions. Individuals should do everything they can to express their opposition to this state of affairs, but the only viable response is for the governments of free peoples who care for and value these freedoms to jointly act in response. If we value freedom over money, there must be economic consequences (including economic isolation) for China for its actions, and we should not be reluctant about promoting these freedoms globally, including within China. The GATT and WTO rules in place today are not sufficient to counter the threat China represents. It's time to rewrite the rules of global trade to prevent the CCP from freely benefiting from trade while simultaneously using it as a hammer to blunt and distort the values that enabled the markets from which it benefits.

LocalH 7y ago
It'd be really nice if the world pulled out of that market, which would decimate it and teach China that they don't own the world. That would never happen, anyway. That's the real power of money.
jackcodes 7y ago
Do you think a union would hold any power, almost like an ‘accredited travel agent’? Sign up and show you won’t bend you initial ethics to suit China.
- nordsieck 7y ago
  > Do you think a union would hold any power Power over whom? China? No. US Companies? It depends on the context: how damaging would a strike be, and how much of the important people can you get to join? In the context of pro gaming, I have serious doubts that any union is viable outside games with a franchise model. There are just too many hungry people and too few spots at the top to ever have a meaningful strike. Even with a franchise, the result of a Union forming may just be the dissolving of the franchise model (or the failure of the game as an esport) rather than the Union achieving political power.

Schnitz 7y ago

Blizzard has shown their true colors: make money at all costs.

ProAm 7y ago
This is almost every company ever to be fair.
- shultays 7y ago
  I am sure some companies stops at some point. At least I want to believe I am working for one
- abegnoche 7y ago
  American companies for sure, rest of the world it depends.
- johnzim 7y ago
  True, but it hurts more when it's a company with such a great history and strong relationship with its customers. I think people don't really care about what Nestlé or Monsanto do because they've never really cared about those companies, but people care about Blizzard.
notadoc 7y ago
That has become the attitude of many companies toward China. Money and market access >

tempsy 7y ago

Another incident: A fan at a 76ers game was escorted out after shouting "free Hong Kong" before a game against a CBA team in Philadelphia yesterday. https://twitter.com/Christie_Ileto/status/1181779722243575809?s=20 https://twitter.com/Christie_Ileto/status/118177972224357580...

YayamiOmate 7y ago
It would be interesting what wpukd happen if people on NBA games started wearing FreeHK shirts. Would they be ejected during game? That would really mean that china effectively censors US citizens. Also what would happen if crowd pulled HK support en masse, escort out everyone?
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  We may see in a few weeks: https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-hong-kong-tshirts-on-nba-opening-night https://www.gofundme.com/f/free-hong-kong-tshirts-on-nba-ope...
bduerst 7y ago
Were they escorted out because of what they were saying, or were they escorted out for being annoying and disrupting the game?
- magashna 7y ago
  Have you been to a basketball game? It would be really difficult to "be annoying" or "disrupt" the din of noise that fills an arena.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Yes, and I've seen people (obnoxious drunks) get escorted out. This is also a pre-season game.

mytailorisrich 7y ago

And that's why FIFA bans all political displays or comments, and displays of any symbols in general... I expect Blizzard to follow suit.

carapace 7y ago
But aren't FIFA a bunch of morally bankrupt scam artists? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Corruption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Corruption
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Isn't that what GP said? Banning speech sure seems "morally bankrupt" to me...
  - carapace 7y ago
    You're right! Now that I think about it, my comment could have been a snarky joke. I didn't think it through. (^_^)
pnw_hazor 7y ago
Interesting, the MLS (Major League Soccer), a US professional soccer league, recently faced this issue because a flag associated with an antifa/anti-nazi affiliated group was being displayed by fans at some matches. At first they banned it, then after some consideration they temporarily unbanned it. (Temporarily, because the league said they will reconsider its flag rules in the off-season.) https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/mls-lifts-ban-on-iron-front-flag-after-working-with-sounders-supporters-groups-and-others/ https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/mls-lifts-ban-o...
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  There is plenty of this in European football. I remember fan groups flying Che Guevara flags at many games with no problems. It really becomes a problem when teams and players do it, and even more in international settings. Hence FIGA's rule, which is aimed at keeping the game neutral and an inclusive sport.

greggman2 7y ago

I'm mixed on this. I'm 100% for Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai to express his support for Hong Kong. I'm not so sure it's okay for him to do it on Blizzard's show/event. 27 years ago Sinead O'Connor ripped up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live when it was broadcast live. She's was arguably right to critize the Pope but was she right to do it from Saturday Night Live's Live broadcast? IIRC because of that incident SNL added a 5 or 10 second delay so they'd have time to cut if something similar happened again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor#Saturday_Night_Live_performance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin%C3%A9ad_O%27Connor#Saturda... Anyway, I'm support of the HK protestors and having written that in public now I wonder if I'm banned from China. I also believe I want US businesses to all stick up for freedom of expression and not sell out to China. I'm just saying in the context of using the Blizzard event I'm not so ready to condemn Blizzard's initial response. In the new context of what's happened since then though I hope they change their direction. IIRC Sinead O'Connor was pretty much universally condemned even though if I understand correctly she was right.

neuroticfish 7y ago
>I'm not so sure it's okay for him to do it on Blizzard's show/event. >She's was arguably right to critize the Pope but was she right to do it from Saturday Night Live's Live broadcast? >I also believe I want US businesses to all stick up for freedom of expression and not sell out to China. Well this is what happens when our culture is so insistent on upholding capitalism as a virtue. When our best platforms for speaking up are businesses, it's only fair for us to use them like we would any other service that we're paying for (whether directly or through our taxes that fund their allowances, or through our suffering of their practices). Why do people only come to the defense of corporations when the "invisible hand of the market" is punching up?
moksly 7y ago
I don’t know about SNL, but the thing that pisses me off about Blizzard is that they have been parading around as a company that supports human rights. They recently held a pro LGBT+ event, they’ve held numerous humanitarian aid campaigns and they even have a statue outside their headquarters that features one of their core values “Every voice matters”. You simply can’t do all that, and then go against democracy and basic human rights like this, and then expect people to not call you out for your bullshit.

meowface 7y ago

I wonder if this will affect the Starcraft 2 Nation Wars tournament that's currently ongoing. China, Hong Kong, and "Chinese Taipei" (as Blizzard insists the team be called in the tournament) are all participants in the tournament, though the Chinese team just happened to recently eliminate the Hong Kong team, so it would have to be another country's team to pull an "I am Spartacus" in support of the banned player and Hong Kong.

xkcd-sucks 7y ago
Maybe the Taiwan team can throw the match by rushing worker units at the Chinese team's tank units
bena 7y ago
You do know why "Chinese Taipei" is contentious right? The island of Taiwan houses an entity that considers itself the rightful government of China in exile, the Republic of China (ROC). Mainland China is currently governed by the People's Republic of China (PRC). Both governments consider themselves "China". They consider the other government as an illegitimate entity occupying territory illegally. The PRC refuses to deal with any nation that treats the ROC as a nation. That means it is not recognized by the UN, the Olympic committee, etc. If you make any sort of inference that the island of Taiwan is not the territory of and under the control of the PRC, they will flat out drop your ass. The compromise is "Chinese Taipei". Because "Taiwan" sounds too much like its own nation to the PRC and "Taiwan, China" sounds too much like a subordinate of the PRC to the ROC. So it's not Blizzard that's insisting the team be called Chinese Taipei, it's the PRC and ROC. Although, they'd much rather the other government not exist.

jackcodes 7y ago

Let them have their LAN party

Exquisites 7y ago

I would love to see protesters at Blizzcon wearing the HK protester attire.

asar 7y ago

Interesting that the stock price of Activision Blizzard is basically unfazed.

to-too-two 7y ago
It’ll take a lot more than a bad PR move to affect their stocks. Call of Duty Modern Warfare drops in a day or so. They’ve got plenty of money making assets, and swaths of fans who don’t care about politics.
hguant 7y ago
Should go up tbh - they've shown investors that they value shareholder profits/keeping markets open more over all other considerations (fanbase, PR, not being hypocrites, etc).
larkeith 7y ago
Investors know long public outrage lasts.

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darawk 7y ago

It's almost as though we need a president interested in some kind of trade...conflict with China. If only we had one of those.

dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here or take HN threads further into political flamewar. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21204717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21204717.
- darawk 7y ago
  It's an interesting commentary on the state of discourse that the mere suggestion that the sitting president may have done something good is considered political flamewar bait.
  - aslaan 7y ago
    Please don't turn this political discussion into a political discussion. Edit: Please remember that only negative comments regarding President Trump are allowed in this political discussion about free speech.
    - dang 7y ago
      Many topics discussed on HN inevitably have some political overlap. That doesn't make it ok to post flamebait, cheap one-liners, and so on. This standard is well established here, and if you read the HN guidelines you'll find much there that expresses it. For example: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive." In other words, when the topic becomes political, that's when the guidelines matter even more, and commenters need to abide by them. Otherwise we end up with internet flamewar the same as most other places on the internet, and that's not interesting. All scorched earth is the same. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html You might also find these links helpful for getting the spirit of this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html

AcerbicZero 7y ago

So, Twitter et al. have been training corporations to pay attention to various levels of public outrage, and the public outrage has been training corporations on how to mitigate that outrage without impacting the bottom line too dramatically, and now we're surprised these pliable flexible money gumbys' are bending to the whim of someone with (potentially) more money? As a bonus, "we" (The West) have recently demonstrated hundreds upon hundreds of examples of free speech being relegated to a distant second to certain "special" feelings our society holds, and now "we" are trying to tell China that their certain special feelings aren't worthy of this level of protection? If our values mean nothing to us, then there is no reason to be surprised that those values mean just as little to others.

AzzieElbab 7y ago
Since Twitter is blocked in China, I bet it is corpotate regional managers who are flipping out about posts that reach maybe 1 percent of China's population
- tandr 7y ago
  1% of 1'500'000'000 is 15 million people
  - AzzieElbab 7y ago
    True but nevertheless insignificant

Knove 7y ago

First, I introduce myself. I am a Chinese, an ordinary citizen. I want to express my view rationally: the so-called repression of speech, freedom of speech, that also scores what freedom of speech, Hong Kong incident involves national dignity, just as the United States don't want 911 to be supported by some people (example: Imagine a well-known person, just days after 911, publicly declaring that 911 was a Great National Renaissance Movement .)(More seriously, it involves the level of the Chinese nation.) To say that, I just want to express that this is the common view of the Chinese people at present. That's why there are Chinese people who support 911 on Twitter. They want to express that Americans support Hong Kong's behavior. In their hearts, it's the same behavior as supporting 911. While being indoctrinated with China's harmfulness theory by the media, I hope that you can rationally understand these recent events, rather than trust the media.

deleted 7y ago
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zanny 7y ago
> United States does not want to be talked about 911 As a US citizen, please talk about 9/11. The response Americans had in the wake of that tragedy is reprehensible - the entire country gave unanimous support to the government to commit war crimes in nations around the world - including our own. Torture, illegal detainment, wars founded on lies to make private contractors rich, expansive laws like the Patriot Act, NDAA expansions, and establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, all of which grossly violate civil liberties and privacy. The rest of the world should criticize America for 9/11, for being responsible for the destabilization of countries that led to such a degree of organized terror in the decades leading up to it, as much as we should be criticized for the heinous acts domestically and abroad committed in response to it (or at least, that were excused by it).
- Knove 7y ago
  Maybe what I mean is not clear enough. I imagine that a star, just a few days after 9/11, openly declared that 9/11 was a great recovery movement.

eberfreitas 7y ago

Real question: How is what China is doing any different from what we've seen the US do to Venezuela (the Adobe incident) or even Cuba for that matter?

jpambrun 7y ago
I am with you on this. The story on the Canadian food truck being withheld money from Square Canada because JP Morgan asserted that the coffee came from Cuba comes to mind. From my perspective, outside of the US and China, both are overreaching quite a bit.
pnw_hazor 7y ago
China did not do this, Blizzard and the NBA did it. These are US companies/associations that supposedly support human and civil rights. China can do whatever they want, Blizzard, the NBA, and others are voluntarily appeasing China (or act like they are trying to do so) and tossing their carefully developed facade of supporting human and civil rights out the window. In contrast, Adobe is following a US law.
larkeith 7y ago
One is standard international politics, with one government imposing sanctions on another. The other is a violation of Westphalian sovereignty. Though it should be noted that the US has not been shy of such violations itself, and with them earned itself quite a bit of ill will - Venezuela is just not such a case.
gamblor956 7y ago
The US issued sanctions against Venezuelan government officials known to be be corrupt; the sanctions don't apply to all, or even most, of Venezuela. Adobe simply used those sanctions as an excuse to cut off support for everyone in Venezuela so they could pull out without having to refund anyone. Also, with respect to both countries, we aren't trying to use our US economic power to force a Venezuelan or Cuban company to do what we want. The US government has made its stance toward both countries clear for the last several decades, it's not like they tricked US businesses into going into Venezuela or Cuba and then tried to pull the rug out from beneath them.

aagha 7y ago

It's interesting to see that no where in this thread or in the Vice article posted by OP, is Robert Kotick's name mentioned. It's not until Kotick, Morhaime (Blizzard co-founder) and Allen Brack (President) start feeling the heat will they reverse course.

MS90 7y ago
Morhaime stepped down as CEO last year, and his advisory role with the company ended back in April.

aasasd 7y ago

Cory Doctorow and Neal Stephenson both have entire novels featuring in-game markets of MMOs (‘For the Win’ and ‘Reamde’). Hopefully the authors have done more research than I did, but the claim is that MMOs have multibillion-dollar markets of in-game items and currency, with the companies running the games thus controlling the flow of money. And the markets can be used for supranational transfer or laundering. And plenty of people in China, India and elsewhere are farming in-game gold full-time. Would Blizzard give up such a segment to let some dudes make a few loud comments?

eutropia 7y ago

Stock is down ~3.5% since Monday, is that a meaningful swing? Not sure if shareholders care...

marv3lls 7y ago

"but it is incredibly disturbing that American companies would willingly participate in the Chinese government’s propaganda campaign." Not counting the U.S. media, of course!

interdrift 7y ago

Welp, I guess we had a good run. Time to show the Chinese that they will never take away our freedom