>Game publishers and developers certainly have a right to moderate the content that appears on their platforms. And in many cases, moderation is essential to ensure that gamers are safe from harassment, threats of violence, and other dangerous behavior. But silencing gamers from speaking about their identities and experiences puts us all at risk of personal attacks and widespread oppression.
I don't agree with blizzard but this statement really appears contradictory to me. It still advocates censorship and doesn't get at the root of the problem that the censorship was occurring at the behest and pressure of a foreign government. Personally, I think clearly written rules about what is and isn't allowable in a platform, that's enforced equally seems pretty reasonable to me. Enforcing speech selectively, with no clear guidelines will still lead to problems.
No, but selective moderation based on unclear inconsistent guidelines is. Look at hn, I'd say it's heavily moderated, but the guidelines are clear and the moderation is mostly consistent. When accounts and comments get banned or killed here, it's usually obvious how the guidelines were broken, most of the time.
I never said it was. Censorship comes in many forms. I was just pointing out I don't believe all moderation is censorship, but selective, inconsistent moderation can become a form of censorship.
Where is this armchair analysis coming from? Are you American? If so, do you understand the 1st amendment and what it protects?
It doesn't protect me saying "I'm going to kill you tonight, in your house, get ready" or "Hey everyone, there is a fire in the room!" when there isn't.
Not all verbal speech is speech. Not all removal of content is censorship, in the context of free speech.
Censorship has more contexts than just government-protected free public speech. Maybe this doesn't fit the definition of censorship under the context you are framing the term, but it definitely does under other contexts of the term.
Considering this entire discussion is about the censorship/moderation of content with the intent to suppress political speech, I think it is important to be clear. Also, most people don't use the term "censorship" when they talk about moderating forums. It is as radical as saying "taxation = theft".
The fire in crowded theatre comment is kind of a tell that you dont actually know what the history of is and limits are on free speech in the US. It was a comment from the 1920s prior to the dismantling of restrictions on free speech over the next 90 years of court rulings. Plus it may actually be protected speech.
Blizzard is a private company and if they want to moderate/censor certain content on their platforms it is totally up to them. This really isn't a free speech issue.
Just like how you can't post certain types of content on YouTube/Instagram/name your social media.
They are free to do so, and society is free to retaliate against them, and senators are free to send threats to them, about what future action that they might take against blizzard.
From what I can tell, if you read purely on rhetoric, it isn't contradictory- it states moderation is essential to ensure safety from harassment but that moderation should not be used for speaking about personal experiences. For example, it is essential for moderators to prevent "I am going to find where you live and hurt you" but to allow "I feel threatened".
What if my personal experiences are attending klan or nazi rallies, protests against lgbt people, what if I live in a country where it's ok to domestically abuse my spouse and that's my experience? Maybe I live in a place where it's encouraged to round up and beat minorities or gay people. Not being threatening or harassing, where would personal experiences like that fall under?
I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but that's the point about the vagueness, it leads to ridiculous interpretations that will end up still being selectively moderated in the end. Clearly stating what is and is acceptable on a platform and following it consistently removes that ambiguity and doesn't leave it up to arbitrary feelings to decide.
> The statistics are pretty straightforward, and some are outlined in the article. This is a robust and replicated dynamic in Scandinavia; people of “migrant background” are over-represented in rape statistics. It’s an open secret, in that when push come to shove the authorities tend to make excuses rather than lying about it.
> Migrants themselves can often be quite frank and astute observers of cross-cultural differences:
>> “Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” Mr. Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police.
It is my understanding that people are generally discouraged from offering these personal experiences, for fear of likely public reaction, regardless of how illuminating they may be.
I recommend reading up on the history of Free Speech in America. You'll find that all of these issues and more have already been thoroughly discussed in the last 400 years of liberal society.
Political speech is protected, but your right to say you're going to go to someone's house and kill their whole family is generally not protected.
It's pretty clear that Blizzard was not following their own guidebook here. I can't imagine them banning a player who said "Free Catalan!". The banning was only because it was anti china. An anti-Spain statement would have just resulted in some scratching of heads, not a 1 year suspension and revoking of prize money.
It's worth noting that while your description of free speech in the USA is somewhat accurate, the USA actually has extremely relaxed restrictions for speech advocating violence. The current federal standard is "imminent lawless action," which means that speech cannot be restricted unless the violence it's advocating is likely to happen immediately. As far as I can tell, you can freely broadcast speech of the form "let's get together sometime and do a bunch of violence against so-and-so." This comes from a Supreme Court case about a Ku Klux Klan rally where the leader addressed the group and literally advocated organized violence against minorities for political purposes (what many would call terrorism).
That's not the only exception. You can't make "true threats." There are laws against conspiracy to commit crimes, which you might have described ("let's get together sometime") in your example.
Conspiracy requires more than speech. Two accountants who agree over drinks that "the shareholders are assholes, we should defraud them!" are not commiting a crime until they take some action past speech alone. Based on a quick Google search of the legal elements of conspiracy crimes, you need an actual agreement/plan to commit a crime and some consummating act that shows intent to follow through.
Point being, these aren't really speech restrictions.
Apparently not, see U.S. v. Shabini, so an overt act requirement isn't a consequence of the 1st Amendment rule; just many laws (but not all) happen to require one.
> It's pretty clear that Blizzard was not following their own guidebook here. I can't imagine them banning a player who said "Free Catalan!". The banning was only because it was anti china. An anti-Spain statement would have just resulted in some scratching of heads, not a 1 year suspension and revoking of prize money.
As far as I've read (which is basically nothing but https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=48310 ), the response to blitzchung came from NetEase, Blizzard's legally-required publisher/distributor in China. Unlike Blizzard, NetEase is a Chinese company.
It seems unsurprising that the Chinese distributor for Hearthstone would react like a Chinese company -- that's the point of the requirement. Was Blizzard even consulted on the response?
I think you're misreading that article. There is no question that suspending Blitzchung and stripping him of his prize money was done by Blizzard, not NetEase.
The Chinese social media statement was from NetEase, and Blizzard may or may not have had any say in that.
The NetEase statement details what the punishment will be. (It is explicitly set in the future.)
I'm quite willing to believe that NetEase made that statement only after discussing the punishment with Blizzard, or hearing an official public statement from Blizzard, or some such. But (and again, I am not informed on the topic) I'd also be willing to believe otherwise.
Blizzard presumably has control of their own checkbook.
They didn't just ban him from playing in China. Some of the tournaments he participated in were in other countries, like Singapore.
To suggest that China should be able to cause a US company to ban a player from playing in Singapore... it's silly. Does Blizzard run it's own company or is it run by the Chinese Government?
Sure, when did Blizzard ban a pro player for making a pro-Catalan statement? Or censor any references to the Spanish Inquisition, and other Spanish atrocities?
Because they sure do that sort of thing for China... Imagination isn't required, you can just look at the world and see that China gets special treatment.
>that's enforced equally seems pretty reasonable to me
What counts as equal?
>The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Blizzard could create the rule "No political messages that cause a large country to ban us" and then equally enforce it by banning "Boo China" and allowing "Yay China".
As such, I don't think equal enforcement of the law gets at the root issue of China being willing to entirely ban things that make them look bad.
Equal in this case might be that when a Collegiate team held up a sign supporting HK, Blizzard gave them the same 6mo ban that Blitzchung eventually settled at.
They then also banned future livestream footage from the entire Collegiate format.
"From another country", which is indeed "not American" in this case. Activision is Delaware corp, headquartered in Santa Monica. Blizzard developed Hearthstone in Irvine, CA. I think it reasonable to consider China a foreign government in this context.
> It still advocates censorship and doesn't get at the root of the problem that the censorship was occurring at the behest and pressure of a foreign government.
Is that actually the root of the problem? I keep reading this claim about how China supposedly strongarmed Blizzard into doing it but what evidence do we actually have for that?
Because it's not like this is unprecedented: Blizzard has been banning plenty of pro-players over voicing their particular political opinions, even when players did it on their personal streams.
The reality is very likely that Blizzard simply does not want any political speech at all, especially not on their major events. As such Blizzchung could probably also have called out Barcelona or Palestine and the result would very likely have been the same.
But because this is China, there's a whole lot of people heavily, and professionally, invested in spinning the situation as much as possible, very comparable to that whole Ubisoft situation with R6:Siege "censorship".
I hope I don't ruin anyone's fun here, but the people in charge only care about one thing: profit. Free market capitalism has protesting built in -- stop buying their games.
My direct response to all these recommendations is: Haha hahaha! A bunch of armchair man children "protestors" signing petitions and virtue signaling on Twitter and social media aren't going to accomplish anything.
Stop giving blizzard money. It means you'll have to actually suffer a bit to make your point.
Even better, demand your money back. With interest. Mention specific numbers so it's easy for them to add up between you and me.
They'll point to some time limited policy. So it won't matter, you won't actually get your money back. But an increase in customer support volume making this same "free market" demand should raise eyebrows on their end.
It reminds them it isn't solely future revenue, but all the goodwill investment over time from the past revenue too.
I partially agree: I think it's pretty silly trying to petition some big corporation run by sociopaths to behave better towards their customers. If you don't like the way they're treating you, then stop buying their crap.
However, I do applaud people who organize boycotts, because that really is free-market principles at work (even if it usually doesn't work out that well, but sometimes boycotts do work). Hit them in the pocketbook. Boycotts can be good because one person getting disgusted and not buying the company's crap isn't going to change anything, but huge hordes of people following along will.
Blizzard, you want to be allowed to operate inside the United States? You can't ban people for criticizing other countries. You want to continue to ban people for that? Oh well, now you have to pay a fine.
Why are we fine with the US govt forcing companies not to do business with certain entities and countries, but we're not fine with forcing companies to uphold the values the US operates on?
The US isn't the largest consumer market, but it's a big one and full of easy cash. It'd be nice to see America put up a moral barrier of entry to prevent pro-facist business operation and it'd be easy to tally on a balance sheet so everyone would be hit equally.
>but we're not fine with forcing companies to uphold the values the US operates on?
What does this even mean? The law generally can't afford to be that arbitrary. If you want to enforce something you need to have a clear law. Telling companies they can't restrict expression on their own platforms would be a surprising step for the US to take (however much I may disagree with what Blizzard has done).
The "man children" part seems unreasonably ad-hominem. There's nothing petty about caring about political speech. There's nothing wrong with caring just a little, enough to express disgust (better than saying nothing).
I also am not convinced that cosplaying as a protest character isn't a reasonable form of protest. Remember it was merely a tweet from an NBA account that set off outrage in the past.
I find the parent post a bit hypocritical. He's being an armchair protestor advisor to what he or she deems as "armchair protestors".
Not to mention the "advice" he gives is being implemented concurrently with the protests. Lots of people have been deleting their accounts and requesting refunds. Shoot I even sold my Activision shares. Whether this "vote with your wallet" attitude survives the test of time, we'll see.
I love they can just use google docs and publish a "site" like this so easily to share. No html required. I hope Google doesn't start getting political and pulling these kinds of docs.
It sort of relies on the goodwill of Google’s excess server capacity when the document becomes popular, but I think it’s a small price to pay in showing solidarity.
Plus in many ways, it’s also free advertisement for Docs and Google as a whole. “Our platform is so scalable, we can easily make a single Google Doc support the web traffic of almost the entire internet.”
My grandparents escaped from the Holocaust. Why should anybody be polite to corporate agents of the Chinese government? What is with this obsession over "civility" when people are literally being shot in the streets, millions of Muslims are being put into death camps, and political prisoners are disappearing? There's no room for politeness towards anyone complicit in literal genocide.
American CEOs working with the CCP don't want civility. They want subservience to a dictator in the name of their profits.
Blizzard is motivated by money, that seems to be the chief complaint: Blizzard behaves on the basis of profitability rather than morality. So why would a moral appeal have any effect?
A boycott would get results, this just gets clicks.
> whatever actions against blizzard that they are trying to achieve
That is what seems so hackneyed about this. This is like doing marketing for “whatever product we decide to sell”. The goal should be defined first.
What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a “good” response? When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want Blizzard to do?
This Google doc is an attention-seeker’s manifesto; it is highly inflammatory and uses emotionally provocative language about rights and freedom and doing the right thing, yet it avoids being too specific so that Blizzard cannot win because they cannot discern what response the protesters want.
> What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a “good” response? When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want Blizzard to do?
I'll give a solution. They should completely reverse every punishment that they made, against everyone, get rid of any "rules" they had that caused these punishments, and do not enforce this in the future.
And if they received any communications from the Chinese government, then they should publish it all, and they should say that they will never give in to any explicit or implicit pressure from them.
And they get bonus points, if they do stuff like create Mei Li, pro Hong Kong skins for overwatch.
Doing this stuff would absolutely make all the protesters happy.
>get rid of any "rules" they had that caused these punishments, and do not enforce this in the future.
Great, I cannot wait to see all the political speeches while trying to catch some esports or sports. If you're an (e-)athlete, what better time and place to let the world know about your feelings on MAGA, ICE camps other than broadcasts of your gameplay?
Also, people are more than just their gameplay in a specific game. There are storylines, and personal developments, and lots and lots of things related to players that do not have anything to do with who won or lost in a game.
If someone has politics as a big part of their identity, I don't see why it would be wierd to talk about it. Just like any other big part of someone's identity that has nothing to do with the game.
Multinational Corporations like Bayer, IBM, and Mercedes-Benz collaborated with the Nazis. This is nothing new. The real question is: What are we gonna do about it?
>This Google doc is an attention-seeker’s manifesto; it is highly inflammatory and uses emotionally provocative language about rights and freedom and doing the right thing, yet it avoids being too specific so that Blizzard cannot win because they cannot discern what response the protesters want.
This reminds me of the critiques of Occupy Wall Street. "It's not specific enough! We don't know what they want." 9 years later and we sure do now. The goal is not to "win" with Blizzard. The goal is public humiliation and economic punishment for those who enable genocide.
Open protests at Blizzcon will do an immense amount of financial damage to Blizzard-Activision. At an absolute minimum, they will reduce the return from a massive publicity exercise.
Likely outcomes include damaging future sales of anything that gets revealed/promoted at Blizzcon, increasing awareness of the boycott and the reasons for it, and forcing Blizzard to anger both Blizzard fans (from Blizzard's own probably over-reaction to protesters) and the Chinese government (who are going to be unhappy about any level of protest).
Censoring speech should make them lose more money than disobeying China.
Starcraft 1 was the first game I bought. I love their games. I think this will make me boycott there for at least 5 or 10 years even if they correct their course now.
I think there is a difference between obeying Chinese censorship in China (which tech companies do routinely even if Google resisted valiantly at first) and helping China spread its censorship oversea (which is what the Blizz and NBA things are about).
86 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 143 ms ] threadI don't agree with blizzard but this statement really appears contradictory to me. It still advocates censorship and doesn't get at the root of the problem that the censorship was occurring at the behest and pressure of a foreign government. Personally, I think clearly written rules about what is and isn't allowable in a platform, that's enforced equally seems pretty reasonable to me. Enforcing speech selectively, with no clear guidelines will still lead to problems.
Where is this armchair analysis coming from? Are you American? If so, do you understand the 1st amendment and what it protects?
It doesn't protect me saying "I'm going to kill you tonight, in your house, get ready" or "Hey everyone, there is a fire in the room!" when there isn't.
Not all verbal speech is speech. Not all removal of content is censorship, in the context of free speech.
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-re...
Instead, the topic is censorship.
Censorship does not need to have anything to do with the 1st amendment.
Freedom of speech does not include the right:
So at least your last sentence is rubbage.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Just like how you can't post certain types of content on YouTube/Instagram/name your social media.
They can do whatever they want.
And other are free to retaliate against them.
Freedom means that both sides are free to do this. It is a consumer's absolute right to retaliate in this way.
If you want to get mad at other studios as well, then go ahead!
I'm being a bit hyperbolic, but that's the point about the vagueness, it leads to ridiculous interpretations that will end up still being selectively moderated in the end. Clearly stating what is and is acceptable on a platform and following it consistently removes that ambiguity and doesn't leave it up to arbitrary feelings to decide.
http://www.unz.com/gnxp/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-no-r...
> The statistics are pretty straightforward, and some are outlined in the article. This is a robust and replicated dynamic in Scandinavia; people of “migrant background” are over-represented in rape statistics. It’s an open secret, in that when push come to shove the authorities tend to make excuses rather than lying about it.
> Migrants themselves can often be quite frank and astute observers of cross-cultural differences:
>> “Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” Mr. Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police.
It is my understanding that people are generally discouraged from offering these personal experiences, for fear of likely public reaction, regardless of how illuminating they may be.
Political speech is protected, but your right to say you're going to go to someone's house and kill their whole family is generally not protected.
It's pretty clear that Blizzard was not following their own guidebook here. I can't imagine them banning a player who said "Free Catalan!". The banning was only because it was anti china. An anti-Spain statement would have just resulted in some scratching of heads, not a 1 year suspension and revoking of prize money.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Shabani
As far as I've read (which is basically nothing but https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=48310 ), the response to blitzchung came from NetEase, Blizzard's legally-required publisher/distributor in China. Unlike Blizzard, NetEase is a Chinese company.
It seems unsurprising that the Chinese distributor for Hearthstone would react like a Chinese company -- that's the point of the requirement. Was Blizzard even consulted on the response?
The Chinese social media statement was from NetEase, and Blizzard may or may not have had any say in that.
I'm quite willing to believe that NetEase made that statement only after discussing the punishment with Blizzard, or hearing an official public statement from Blizzard, or some such. But (and again, I am not informed on the topic) I'd also be willing to believe otherwise.
They didn't just ban him from playing in China. Some of the tournaments he participated in were in other countries, like Singapore.
To suggest that China should be able to cause a US company to ban a player from playing in Singapore... it's silly. Does Blizzard run it's own company or is it run by the Chinese Government?
Because imagination overrides precedent?
Because they sure do that sort of thing for China... Imagination isn't required, you can just look at the world and see that China gets special treatment.
What counts as equal?
>The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
Blizzard could create the rule "No political messages that cause a large country to ban us" and then equally enforce it by banning "Boo China" and allowing "Yay China".
As such, I don't think equal enforcement of the law gets at the root issue of China being willing to entirely ban things that make them look bad.
They then also banned future livestream footage from the entire Collegiate format.
Define foreign. Not american does not mean foreign for huge multinational corporations.
Is that actually the root of the problem? I keep reading this claim about how China supposedly strongarmed Blizzard into doing it but what evidence do we actually have for that?
Because it's not like this is unprecedented: Blizzard has been banning plenty of pro-players over voicing their particular political opinions, even when players did it on their personal streams.
The reality is very likely that Blizzard simply does not want any political speech at all, especially not on their major events. As such Blizzchung could probably also have called out Barcelona or Palestine and the result would very likely have been the same.
But because this is China, there's a whole lot of people heavily, and professionally, invested in spinning the situation as much as possible, very comparable to that whole Ubisoft situation with R6:Siege "censorship".
My direct response to all these recommendations is: Haha hahaha! A bunch of armchair man children "protestors" signing petitions and virtue signaling on Twitter and social media aren't going to accomplish anything.
Stop giving blizzard money. It means you'll have to actually suffer a bit to make your point.
They'll point to some time limited policy. So it won't matter, you won't actually get your money back. But an increase in customer support volume making this same "free market" demand should raise eyebrows on their end.
It reminds them it isn't solely future revenue, but all the goodwill investment over time from the past revenue too.
However, I do applaud people who organize boycotts, because that really is free-market principles at work (even if it usually doesn't work out that well, but sometimes boycotts do work). Hit them in the pocketbook. Boycotts can be good because one person getting disgusted and not buying the company's crap isn't going to change anything, but huge hordes of people following along will.
Blizzard, you want to be allowed to operate inside the United States? You can't ban people for criticizing other countries. You want to continue to ban people for that? Oh well, now you have to pay a fine.
Why are we fine with the US govt forcing companies not to do business with certain entities and countries, but we're not fine with forcing companies to uphold the values the US operates on?
What does this even mean? The law generally can't afford to be that arbitrary. If you want to enforce something you need to have a clear law. Telling companies they can't restrict expression on their own platforms would be a surprising step for the US to take (however much I may disagree with what Blizzard has done).
The "man children" part seems unreasonably ad-hominem. There's nothing petty about caring about political speech. There's nothing wrong with caring just a little, enough to express disgust (better than saying nothing).
I also am not convinced that cosplaying as a protest character isn't a reasonable form of protest. Remember it was merely a tweet from an NBA account that set off outrage in the past.
Not to mention the "advice" he gives is being implemented concurrently with the protests. Lots of people have been deleting their accounts and requesting refunds. Shoot I even sold my Activision shares. Whether this "vote with your wallet" attitude survives the test of time, we'll see.
Plus in many ways, it’s also free advertisement for Docs and Google as a whole. “Our platform is so scalable, we can easily make a single Google Doc support the web traffic of almost the entire internet.”
As such I don't think they have to rely solely on google docs to publish their stuff.
[0] https://www.gamersforfreedom.com/
American CEOs working with the CCP don't want civility. They want subservience to a dictator in the name of their profits.
A boycott would get results, this just gets clicks.
That is what seems so hackneyed about this. This is like doing marketing for “whatever product we decide to sell”. The goal should be defined first.
What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a “good” response? When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want Blizzard to do?
This Google doc is an attention-seeker’s manifesto; it is highly inflammatory and uses emotionally provocative language about rights and freedom and doing the right thing, yet it avoids being too specific so that Blizzard cannot win because they cannot discern what response the protesters want.
> What would be too little from Blizzard? What would be a “good” response? When would it be too late? What exactly do these people actually want Blizzard to do?
I'll give a solution. They should completely reverse every punishment that they made, against everyone, get rid of any "rules" they had that caused these punishments, and do not enforce this in the future.
And if they received any communications from the Chinese government, then they should publish it all, and they should say that they will never give in to any explicit or implicit pressure from them.
And they get bonus points, if they do stuff like create Mei Li, pro Hong Kong skins for overwatch.
Doing this stuff would absolutely make all the protesters happy.
Great, I cannot wait to see all the political speeches while trying to catch some esports or sports. If you're an (e-)athlete, what better time and place to let the world know about your feelings on MAGA, ICE camps other than broadcasts of your gameplay?
I love knowing more specific details and storylines, related to an individual person.
This is true for real sports. People have lots of details about them that aren't directly related to the game.
And I am glad that you are also as excited as I am to see these personal storylines play out!
Also, people are more than just their gameplay in a specific game. There are storylines, and personal developments, and lots and lots of things related to players that do not have anything to do with who won or lost in a game.
If someone has politics as a big part of their identity, I don't see why it would be wierd to talk about it. Just like any other big part of someone's identity that has nothing to do with the game.
>This Google doc is an attention-seeker’s manifesto; it is highly inflammatory and uses emotionally provocative language about rights and freedom and doing the right thing, yet it avoids being too specific so that Blizzard cannot win because they cannot discern what response the protesters want.
This reminds me of the critiques of Occupy Wall Street. "It's not specific enough! We don't know what they want." 9 years later and we sure do now. The goal is not to "win" with Blizzard. The goal is public humiliation and economic punishment for those who enable genocide.
Likely outcomes include damaging future sales of anything that gets revealed/promoted at Blizzcon, increasing awareness of the boycott and the reasons for it, and forcing Blizzard to anger both Blizzard fans (from Blizzard's own probably over-reaction to protesters) and the Chinese government (who are going to be unhappy about any level of protest).
Censoring speech should make them lose more money than disobeying China.
Starcraft 1 was the first game I bought. I love their games. I think this will make me boycott there for at least 5 or 10 years even if they correct their course now.