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If a streamer had said something, for example, anti-LGBT, Blizzard would have shut them down the same way and everyone would be applauding. Depending on your p

If a streamer had said something, for example, anti-LGBT, Blizzard would have shut them down the same way and everyone would be applauding. Depending on your personal politics, any given corporate action is either 'brave, standing up for principles' or 'obviously a sellout to the corrupt bad guys'.

gpderetta 7y ago
That's consitent with parent's point. The act of shutting down is very often a political act claiming no politics is allowed is hypocritical.
SuperFerret 7y ago
Yes bad ideas are criticized and good ideas are celebrated. That's the way it's supposed to be.
- z3phyr 7y ago
  Its obvious what is good and bad here. But do some roleplay; Its 15th century CE, and you (and all the people) have been conditioned since your childhood that the christian god is one true god and that the christian god is good. Now if a person declares something "blasphemous", everyone will think that the person is on the "bad" side. Setting a precedence lead to ugly slippery slopes and keeping to the absolutes in the guidelines is generally more inclusive.
TulliusCicero 7y ago
"If they had done something good instead of bad, I bet you'd be cheering them on!" Yes, brilliant catch there, you really got us.
- yourbandsucks 7y ago
  'Good' and 'bad' in your sentence are subjective. Millions of mainland Chinese Blizzard customers feel differently on the HK issue than you do. You can think that they're totally, obviously wrong, but that's politics.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - chme 7y ago
    There is a difference between saying 'Freedom for X people' and 'X people are retarded' that has nothing to do with a subjective feeling of 'bad' or 'good'.
    - baddox 7y ago
      There’s also a difference between saying “freedom is great” and “violent separatism is great,” even though both phrases could be used by different people to refer to the same situation.
      - chme 7y ago
        And if someone actually calls for violence against someone else, then this would also be a different matter. Saying: "I want people to just get along together" doesn't imply that one group should be murdered for that to happen.
        lonelappde 7y ago
        Are you not aware of the violent protests in Hong Kong?
  - raymond_goo 7y ago
    No, it's about (being consistent with one's own) morality.
  - ahbyb 7y ago
    You're arguing this in a Western, liberal website. You're fighting a losing battle. They know what you mean, they simply disagree.
  - foobiekr 7y ago
    Millions of Chinese are wrong on this topic.
- lone_haxx0r 7y ago
  I didn't think this was about what the player said, but instead about Blizzard leveraging their influence to shut someone up. I think that'd be wrong even if the player had said something "bad". Now that I think about it, for most people it seems to simply be an issue of good vs bad. Maybe I expected too much of them.
  - zipwitch 7y ago
    It wasn't just Activision-Blizzard banning Blitzchung and confiscating his prize money. The official Hearthstone account on Weibo also parroted the Chinese government party line, "We will, as always, resolutely safeguard the country’s dignity" in Chinese.
    - yourbandsucks 7y ago
      Is that really bad, though? Like if they said, in America, "Of course, USA #1, never forget 9/11, freedom baby", that would just be more boilerplate pandering and not really political. Is the level of hostility that high that even such sweet nothings are treason?
- hailwren 7y ago
  You don't even need concepts of good or bad to make this argument. This is just consistent with Blizzard's already political messaging. They are supporting LGBT rights, of course, they would be anti-anti-LGBT
  - SkyBelow 7y ago
    Except in China. Which shows that in reality they are pro-money and any bias toward or against groups like LGBT is only when it helps their bottom line.
    - true_religion 7y ago
      Is it possible to want to work in China without merely being pro money? I keep hearing that greed is the ultimate motivation, but if you want to work within China for any reason you must follow the governments ethical guidelines. For some people within Blizzard, they want to work within China because it is their country or their ancestoral heritage.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago
  "If I punch a knife-wielding maniac, I'm a hero, but if I punch a baby I go to prison. People are so hypocritical about punching!"
gambiting 7y ago
The point is that there is political messaging that Blizzard is ok with, and political messaging that Blizzard isn't ok with. If you were a Polish streamer and made a comment pro-LGBT, that would absolutely be political in Poland because of the currently ruling right wing party that has called LGBT movement and "gender philosophy" a "cancer" and "rainbow disease" many times - but Blizzard would almost certainly allow it because it alligns with the political views that they are ok pushing. But then as we saw with Hong Kong, there are other political stances that Blizzard heavily punishes, and that's not ok.
- riffraff 7y ago
  I feel blizzard wouldn't really give a damn if you said "sodomites should be illegal stop the gender agenda!" either. The only issue they saw was displeasing the CCP, it's blatantly obvious.
  - LanceH 7y ago
    They probably wouldn't be ok with it. But they also probably wouldn't claw back winnings. That person would just find themselves uninvited in the future. Part of this fiasco is how blatantly it is implementing a government's crackdown on speech.
pjc50 7y ago
It matters what the actual political content is, yes.
unethical_ban 7y ago
You're pulling this moral relativism play. The point is that Blizzard is an American company, with a largely liberal employee base and has explicitly shown support for certain causes. They should take a stand. You can't please everyone, so it might as well be those with the right values. And people who think that Muslims should be interred or that HK should cede all political freedom are wrong.
- RomanBob 7y ago
  >so it might as well be those with the right values. By 'right', you mean of course YOUR right. You can't please everybody, so you should please ME.
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    Yes! What values do you hold? Aren't you disappointed when an organization goes against them? Much less, when they have previously stated they agree with you? Fascism and the removal of political freedom should not be taken lightly. This should not be controversial.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > with a largely liberal employee base Corporations are chartered to act on behalf of the interests of their shareholders, not, insofar as the two groups are different, their employees.
  - unethical_ban 7y ago
    1) Corporations and their boards are not blood-bound to do everything in their power to maximize value. They can act ethically, and it is easily (and morally) defensible that acting with values is in the long term interest of the company. 2) The article specifically references employees, so I also added that angle.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Corporations and their boards are not blood-bound to do everything in their power to maximize value. They can act ethically, and it is easily (and morally) defensible that acting with values is in the long term interest of the company. Sure, but literally anything can be “acting with values”, depending on the value system chosen. There's no particular reason that would be determined by the political preferences of employees. It would be more natural for a corporation interested in sacrificing near term returns for some kind of ethics to do so based on the shareholders preferences than employers (or, if the gesture at ethics was intended as a long term business health approach, to do so based on what it was expected potential future customers would respond well to in the corporate story.)
tannhauser23 7y ago
Yeah that's why you need to be able to distinguish between the morality of supporting a democratic movement and shitting on a vulnerable minority. This is not hard.
yazaddaruvala 7y ago
Hate towards people should not be tolerated. Comments criticizing a person or group of people should not be allowed. Comments criticizing corporate or governmental entities should be encouraged.
filoleg 7y ago
Well yeah, because being pro-LGBT is one of their explicitly stated principles. If they act according to their stated principles, why would there be an outrage. But if they go against their stated principles, like "oh yeah, let's erase all traces of our pro-LGBT stances we care sooo much about in games for Chinese and Russian markets, because uuuuuuuuh... reasons", you bet people would get upset.

gpderetta 7y ago

That's consitent with parent's point. The act of shutting down is very often a political act claiming no politics is allowed is hypocritical.

SuperFerret 7y ago

Yes bad ideas are criticized and good ideas are celebrated. That's the way it's supposed to be.

z3phyr 7y ago
Its obvious what is good and bad here. But do some roleplay; Its 15th century CE, and you (and all the people) have been conditioned since your childhood that the christian god is one true god and that the christian god is good. Now if a person declares something "blasphemous", everyone will think that the person is on the "bad" side. Setting a precedence lead to ugly slippery slopes and keeping to the absolutes in the guidelines is generally more inclusive.

TulliusCicero 7y ago

"If they had done something good instead of bad, I bet you'd be cheering them on!" Yes, brilliant catch there, you really got us.

yourbandsucks 7y ago
'Good' and 'bad' in your sentence are subjective. Millions of mainland Chinese Blizzard customers feel differently on the HK issue than you do. You can think that they're totally, obviously wrong, but that's politics.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- chme 7y ago
  There is a difference between saying 'Freedom for X people' and 'X people are retarded' that has nothing to do with a subjective feeling of 'bad' or 'good'.
  - baddox 7y ago
    There’s also a difference between saying “freedom is great” and “violent separatism is great,” even though both phrases could be used by different people to refer to the same situation.
    - chme 7y ago
      And if someone actually calls for violence against someone else, then this would also be a different matter. Saying: "I want people to just get along together" doesn't imply that one group should be murdered for that to happen.
      - lonelappde 7y ago
        Are you not aware of the violent protests in Hong Kong?
- raymond_goo 7y ago
  No, it's about (being consistent with one's own) morality.
- ahbyb 7y ago
  You're arguing this in a Western, liberal website. You're fighting a losing battle. They know what you mean, they simply disagree.
- foobiekr 7y ago
  Millions of Chinese are wrong on this topic.
lone_haxx0r 7y ago
I didn't think this was about what the player said, but instead about Blizzard leveraging their influence to shut someone up. I think that'd be wrong even if the player had said something "bad". Now that I think about it, for most people it seems to simply be an issue of good vs bad. Maybe I expected too much of them.
- zipwitch 7y ago
  It wasn't just Activision-Blizzard banning Blitzchung and confiscating his prize money. The official Hearthstone account on Weibo also parroted the Chinese government party line, "We will, as always, resolutely safeguard the country’s dignity" in Chinese.
  - yourbandsucks 7y ago
    Is that really bad, though? Like if they said, in America, "Of course, USA #1, never forget 9/11, freedom baby", that would just be more boilerplate pandering and not really political. Is the level of hostility that high that even such sweet nothings are treason?
hailwren 7y ago
You don't even need concepts of good or bad to make this argument. This is just consistent with Blizzard's already political messaging. They are supporting LGBT rights, of course, they would be anti-anti-LGBT
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Except in China. Which shows that in reality they are pro-money and any bias toward or against groups like LGBT is only when it helps their bottom line.
  - true_religion 7y ago
    Is it possible to want to work in China without merely being pro money? I keep hearing that greed is the ultimate motivation, but if you want to work within China for any reason you must follow the governments ethical guidelines. For some people within Blizzard, they want to work within China because it is their country or their ancestoral heritage.
PhasmaFelis 7y ago
"If I punch a knife-wielding maniac, I'm a hero, but if I punch a baby I go to prison. People are so hypocritical about punching!"

gambiting 7y ago

The point is that there is political messaging that Blizzard is ok with, and political messaging that Blizzard isn't ok with. If you were a Polish streamer and made a comment pro-LGBT, that would absolutely be political in Poland because of the currently ruling right wing party that has called LGBT movement and "gender philosophy" a "cancer" and "rainbow disease" many times - but Blizzard would almost certainly allow it because it alligns with the political views that they are ok pushing. But then as we saw with Hong Kong, there are other political stances that Blizzard heavily punishes, and that's not ok.

riffraff 7y ago
I feel blizzard wouldn't really give a damn if you said "sodomites should be illegal stop the gender agenda!" either. The only issue they saw was displeasing the CCP, it's blatantly obvious.
- LanceH 7y ago
  They probably wouldn't be ok with it. But they also probably wouldn't claw back winnings. That person would just find themselves uninvited in the future. Part of this fiasco is how blatantly it is implementing a government's crackdown on speech.

pjc50 7y ago

It matters what the actual political content is, yes.

unethical_ban 7y ago

You're pulling this moral relativism play. The point is that Blizzard is an American company, with a largely liberal employee base and has explicitly shown support for certain causes. They should take a stand. You can't please everyone, so it might as well be those with the right values. And people who think that Muslims should be interred or that HK should cede all political freedom are wrong.

RomanBob 7y ago
>so it might as well be those with the right values. By 'right', you mean of course YOUR right. You can't please everybody, so you should please ME.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  Yes! What values do you hold? Aren't you disappointed when an organization goes against them? Much less, when they have previously stated they agree with you? Fascism and the removal of political freedom should not be taken lightly. This should not be controversial.
dragonwriter 7y ago
> with a largely liberal employee base Corporations are chartered to act on behalf of the interests of their shareholders, not, insofar as the two groups are different, their employees.
- unethical_ban 7y ago
  1) Corporations and their boards are not blood-bound to do everything in their power to maximize value. They can act ethically, and it is easily (and morally) defensible that acting with values is in the long term interest of the company. 2) The article specifically references employees, so I also added that angle.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Corporations and their boards are not blood-bound to do everything in their power to maximize value. They can act ethically, and it is easily (and morally) defensible that acting with values is in the long term interest of the company. Sure, but literally anything can be “acting with values”, depending on the value system chosen. There's no particular reason that would be determined by the political preferences of employees. It would be more natural for a corporation interested in sacrificing near term returns for some kind of ethics to do so based on the shareholders preferences than employers (or, if the gesture at ethics was intended as a long term business health approach, to do so based on what it was expected potential future customers would respond well to in the corporate story.)

tannhauser23 7y ago

Yeah that's why you need to be able to distinguish between the morality of supporting a democratic movement and shitting on a vulnerable minority. This is not hard.

yazaddaruvala 7y ago

Hate towards people should not be tolerated. Comments criticizing a person or group of people should not be allowed. Comments criticizing corporate or governmental entities should be encouraged.

filoleg 7y ago

Well yeah, because being pro-LGBT is one of their explicitly stated principles. If they act according to their stated principles, why would there be an outrage. But if they go against their stated principles, like "oh yeah, let's erase all traces of our pro-LGBT stances we care sooo much about in games for Chinese and Russian markets, because uuuuuuuuh... reasons", you bet people would get upset.