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The difference is that a country which is committing human rights abuses is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech. The ot
by thatswrong0 7y ago
The difference is that a country which is committing human rights abuses is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech. The other case is a private company not wanting to host right-wing neo-nazi content of which the general public isn’t really accepting. I don’t see the hypocrisy here at all.. tbh I don’t even quite understand how you can conflate the two situations other than the fact the two words “free” and “speech” are involved.
- cloakandswagger 7y agoBoth situations feature people being banned by companies due to their speech because the companies fear backlash from more powerful entities (China or the media/general public respectively). They seem pretty comparable to me.
- vbezhenar 7y agoIt's called double-standards. It's OK to cut free speech for those you don't like, it's not OK to cut free speech for those you like.
- wruza 7y agoFirst they came for the right-wing neo-nazis, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a right-wing neo-nazi. Wonder where this goes this time.
- felipelemos 7y agoThe difference is pretty clear. In a democratic society, the people voices are heard. In a dictatorship, only the small elite that controls the government's voice is heard.
- cthalupa 7y agoI don't follow your argument. Is it that we should not worry about morals and ethics, and instead just look at actions in vacuum, and decide whether or not an action should be taken with no regard to context? It's not hypocritical for someone to believe that Cloudflare should kick nazis off their service and at the same time believe Blizzard should stand up to China. Human beings are capable of exercising nuance and understanding complex topics. I don't want to generally go around punching or kicking people, but if I'm cornered and someone is trying to do harm to me, I'm going to fight back. It's the context around such actiona that defines whether or not it was just.
- dmix 7y agoI love seeing how often people's (mostly on Reddit) answer to the question "how do we determine who're the nazis?" and they answer glibly "easy, they're the literal nazis'. We've seen this all before with the "terrorist" label, the "communist" label in Hollywood blacklists, various Puritan attempts at censorship for sex, films, music, etc. I wished I believed this much in our centralize opaque institutions to create these red lines consistently, reliably, and fairly. Which is amusing because much of the people pushing for this the hardest are often the same people who would never hand over such power in almost any other scenario. The only reliable outcome, that we've seen repeatedly over and over in history is that once you start expanding censorship beyond just the obviously bad-guys (spam, violence, etc) and start wadding into the grey areas of speech is that: a) context and intention, which are critical in day-to-day discourse, are increasing ignored as the system scales and the scope increases b) the line will only keep expanding into a broader and broader group ("you did it for x, why not y?!!") c) false positives dramatically increase d) due process is only afforded in rare situations where the individual is already famous/powerful and can stir up enough controversy forcing the gatekeepers to actually consider it carefully Everything goes great at the beginning as you sweep up the low hanging fruit. It's the long run where this 'solution' really gets tested - which is the phase we're now entering on many platforms.
- falcolas 7y agoFWIW, there is no visible pressure that has been exhibited from China against Blizzard. There have been no statements from China either in support or condemnation of any of the involved actors. The situation is entirely driven by Blizzard, for fear of their potential revenue stream out of China. This is in contrast to the NBA scenario, where China did speak out against the NBA, and later began to cancel contracts.
- zucker42 7y agoThat's because Blizzard did the "right" thing in the government's view. Just because the influence isn't visible doesn't mean it's not there, and invisible influence may be even more pernicious.
- falcolas 7y agoThat doesn't diminish that it was purely Blizzard's decision in the end. Blizzard had a choice, and they picked censoring Blitzchung on their own.
- zucker42 7y agoSo if the U.S. makes a law that fines companies for criticizing the president, and then Blizzard fires an employee for criticizing the president to avoid the fine, it's Blizzard's decision in the end and everything's fine? I don't know if you have considered the implications of this logic.
- themacguffinman 7y agoYou can't say there is no visible pressure on Blizzard while mentioning the NBA in the same breath. China's aggressive move on the NBA is the pressure. It's an example to every company that operates in China: toe the party line, or face local obstruction like the NBA.
- bitL 7y ago"If they could do that to NBA, what would they do to me?"
- belltaco 7y ago>is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech It was a post-game interview on a Blizzard event in a Blizzard broadcast. How is that different from "a private company not wanting to host <content>" ? The player had supported HK freedom on his Twitter in the past, yet was allowed to play in the tournament. Gaming events have not been places for sharing political ideas, like social media is.
- PeterisP 7y agoI think that there would be no meaningful uproar if Blizzard would simply not host or broadcast that interview because they don't like it for whatever reason, and left it at that.