[orisho]

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something.

He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

[VicFrank]

This is the rule in question

> Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.

The rule is not "political speech is not allowed" it's "don't make us look bad."

Choosing to ban this player is absolutely picking a side, and it's not with the good guys.

[koonsolo]

You have to ask the question as a company, to allow politics to enter your space.

Now it is supporting HK, next time it is against nazi's, next time maybe against Trump. Once you disallow one, you will "pick a side".

I'm not saying this ban was good or bad, I'm just saying it's more complex than picking side in that debate. Maybe they just don't want to get into the shit of any political debate.

But for the rest, all the support for HK. Maybe this ban brings it even more in the news.

[BigJ1211]

The problem is, you also take a political stance by removing him from your tournament. Intended or not, people will read this as 'shilling' for China. Now I don't follow Hearthstone, but it's quite common to ask players personal questions like "How did you prepare for this match?" and I could see someone answering that with how the HK situation has affected that (less time, extra stress etc.).

This is not automatically a political statement, but just by bringing that up they could have banned and DQ'ed him for the same reason and it would've looked just as bad if not even worse. It would still look political in that situation.

[noxxten]

I completely disagree. It isn't a complex issue and companies don't get to decide whether to "allow" politics or not. Politics are a part of EVERYTHING... Ignoring and trying to moderate that is just foolish.

[glogla]

What you're saying seems to be built on assumption that all "politics" is the same. It absolutely isn't. Evil (fascism, concentration camps, ehtnic cleansing, ...) and fighting against evil, are both political stances, but they are very different.

And "let's not interfere with evil because it would be politics (or affect our bottom line)" is definitely political stance - it's picking the evil side.

[radiator]

I would say this is a rather childish view of the world, to separate things into two categories, evil and good.

[unionpivo]

Sure most of the times its shades of grey.

But sometimes like in this instance it really is black or white.

[glogla]

If you consider concentration camps, gulags, or whatever as anything other than evil, I don't think I can convince you.

Such way of thinking seems really alien to me.

[koonsolo]

Is Trump evil? It's not clear to me, so maybe you have the answer.

At some point, the line of evilness becomes so thin that you will have to "pick a side" if you have done it before. Easier to just not go down that route.

But still, is Trump evil?

[glogla]

> Is Trump evil? It's not clear to me

Trump is corrupt, abuser, a fascist, arguably a traitor of American people. He's racist, sexist and he gives his support to horrible movements (like KKK and alt-right) and normalizes their views. He's responsible for ICE and putting children in concentration camps.

There must be huge gap between perspectives, because I don't understand how it something like this can be unclear.

If not this guy, who would you consider evil if anyone?

[koonsolo]

Ok I was wrong, you can actually divide the world into evil or not. It's not always as clear to me and others, so can you share if following things are evil or not: Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Barack Obama.

[lordlimecat]

>He's responsible for ICE

In what world? ICE was created in 2003.

[tyfon]

Sometimes you just got to voice your opinion [1]

Blizzard chose money over human rights and they will have to stand for it themselves. They've already picked a side, money. Now they lost my money though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salu...

[Iv]

Same here.

I wanted to believe that even despite Activision buying Blizzard, it would stay an awesome company. I should have known better.

Starcraft 1 was the first game I ever bought. I feel sad to have to boycott them now.

[recoil]

One less launcher I have to have installed on my PC at least.

[Iv]

And what's wrong about letting whoever won a tournament have their 10 seconds of free speech to pass on a message?

Are we so afraid of free speech that we must insist on compartmentalizing subjects in that way? Just have Blizzard make a statement saying "That person's opinion is only his own, not Blizzard's" and be done with it.

And yes, that means the next one may shout about veganism or white supremacy. So what? That will benefit or hurt the people speaking, not Blizzard.

[mytailorisrich]

They should have an explicit rule against political displays like they have in football (I mean soccer).

That way it's clear for everyone rather than having a catch-all rule that is arbitrary and does not tell players where the line is.

[NeedMoreTea]

Then there would be arguments that a certain symbol or action is political. Then any hint of something that might, conceivably be a stance or salute. No patterns, pictures or logos of any kind, unless it's of our sponsors.

Like FIFA ludicrously deciding that a poppy on a Remembrance Sunday international is political. They deserved every bit of anti-FIFA vitriol the popular press and internet managed to come up with.

[mytailorisrich]

> Then there would be arguments that a certain symbol or action is political.

No because they would not allow anything.

> Like FIFA ludicrously deciding that a poppy on a Remembrance Sunday international is political

If you start allowing this sort of display to commemorate a war then you open the door to plenty of highly political displays because wars are obviously highly political and sensitive issues.

Even in the UK wearing a poppy or not is political.

[NeedMoreTea]

Hardly, it's a symbol of remembrance of dead, not of a war. It's a hell of a stretch to call the use of a white poppy political.

Most remembrance ceremonies have veterans of both sides attending, and are used for reconcilliation - unlike e.g. WW2 anniversaries such as the now comically overblown D Day fun days.

[mytailorisrich]

War dead.

If they start to allow one country to commemorate their war dead then they have to allow other countries to do the same, and as said these can be very political and sensitive issues. And then if they allow that why not another commemoration? Thus it is sensible not to allow anything.

[makomk]

The poppy doesn't even commemorate people who died in the war as a whole. It's specifically about the soldiers who were fighting the war and killing for it, and that's why it's politically controversial - the whole thing has jingoistic pro-war, pro-military overtones and they seem to have become more dominant over the years, especially after we helped invade Afghasnistan and Iraq and the British Legion decided to to make it a symbol of support for our soldiers there. Perhaps the best symbol of what it has become was the time the British Legion decided that a photo of little kids in "future soldier" shirts waving huge inflatable poppies was a good representation of the values the campaign represented...

[NeedMoreTea]

Pretty much the whole of Europe marks remembrance day. It is about reconciliation and as far as it can be made so, is apolitical. Politicians of all sides and nationalities, including the "other" side have and do attend different country events. Perhaps less so with this generation of politicians who will make a cup of tea political if they can, but that is not the act of remembrance.

Not to mark _a_ war, but all war. That point is important.

[calcifer]

> Blizzard should not pick a side.

Not picking a side is siding with the status quo, which is Chinese oppression in Hong Kong.

[orisho]

Not picking a side is not allowing political discussion, no matter who you (or they) perceive to be right. Coincidentally, this is also the choice that makes most sense to a corporation which stands to lose a lot from picking a side. Players will likely respond to sensationalist reporting of this case, but forget about it soon after, while the Chinese government is not gonna go easy on Blizzard picking the other side.

[x220]

But nearly every large company in America engages in political discussion when they talk about diversity, feminism, and inclusion. I think that's a good thing, but it's clearly not the case that these companies shy away from making progressive statements.

[mlang23]

All they are doing is saying things which a certain audience wants to hear. Nobody really cares about inclusion or diversity. They just claim to do so, because in this day and age, they will benefit from doing so.

[bmarquez]

It doesn't cost large companies any money to make feel-good progressive political statements on social media.

However when it conflicts with their pocketbook, they stay quiet or internally oppose them (example: Zuckerberg trashing Warren for antitrust and privacy issues).

[chii]

That player has forced blizzard to appear as though they endorsed the protesters.

Being protesters for freedom, they ironically did not respect another (unrelated) entity's freedom to choose.

[x220]

The freedom to oppress is no freedom at all

[dang]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments/flamebait to Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ryanlol]

There shouldn't be room for such cowardice to exist in this world.

[Isinlor]

In other words they do pick a side - they side with Chinese government, because the communist party has a leverage on them.

But we have a leverage too!

If we manage to damage their brand and profit, they may decide that censorship is not to their benefit.

We need to be loud and clear - communism will not be tolerated. Otherwise, it will start to creep trough Blizzard and many other companies, and limit our freedoms too.

[vkou]

Which is exactly how sports leagues operate, be they FIFA, the Olympic Committee, the NFL, the NBA...

If you expect them to be the high water mark of social justice, you're going to be deeply disappointed.

(Meanwhile, various tech firms have been criticized for picking a side, or allegedly picking a side in social conflicts over the past few years... Damned if you do, damned if you don't, apparently.)

[ajuc]

Blizzard is much more directly supported by money from its customers, it's very easy to boycott online games provider.

[thefj]

Didn't the NFL had an issue with kneeling a while ago? Did they fire the players?

[ajuc]

> Blizzard should not pick a side.

You cannot "not pick a side" in a situation like this. Blizzard clearly picked Chinese money over human rights.

They behave rationally as a company, but I hope they will still lose on this. The fact this is a rule changes nothing - they created that rule.