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OPINION: The Tone Deaf Hypocrisy of Blizzard and 'Keep Politics Out'
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And it's really just Blizzard bashing. Hong Kong and China have been at odds since at least 1972, and the tension really peaked in the early 2000s. I would love to read one word - one word - that the OP ever penned on that issue before this Blizzard incident. Nothing? I figured. So let's be more careful in the use of the word "hypocrisy."
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
You are right politics is everywhere always has been but try providing your opinion on say transgenderism is a mental disorder that truly compassionate people would insist should be provided mental health care to deal with and you you will be shut down banned etc for some sort of imaginary "hate" and "bigotry".
the only real hypocrisy I see is the "faux" defense of free speech because this time you happen to agree with the content of the speech. When its some person saying I don;t want to have to have a homosexual standing next to me on the battle field your tone takes an abrupt 180 and that is the true crime being openly committed against humans rights.
Rights are a pendulum we all deserve rights and to live the life we want and if some person might not want to live their life with "x y z" they deserve that right just as much as "x y z" deserves their rights. Its vile and dangerous to dictate to people what they must like or not like what they must endure or not.
Your emotions end where my rights begin.
Our society is in grave danger from the thought police , the "woke tyrants", the fanatical progressives, the manufactured SJW's and the extremist alphabet people cancel culture mob etc..... I hope this current issue with china dictating speech to people in the USa (same thing just happened with the NBA as well they reprimanded an exec who supported hong kong) will shed light to bring change about to the LARGER PROBLEM which I have identified above which is the fascism and tyranny of the progressive left fanatics.
But sorry, this web site has historically been its own smaller version of china/blizzard fiasco and supported those same principles, how dare you point the finger and call them out for what you and blizzard and half of the dam large companies and organizations in this country have been doing for at least the last decade.
Playing the word game to dodge your own role. Human rights are political matter of fact they are intrinsically inseparable. when people demand chick filet a is banned from college campuses or such similar endless drivel you are doing it under the lies of human rights and politics, because the people who own that company, the people who work there and the people who enjoy the food have those same dam rights, if you don;t like the place YOU don;t go there but to try to invoke government intervention and to invoke and pressure the public is the polar opposite of everything those people are lying about when they suggest its "the reason why".
I would say if your unwillingly to support a company on a decision about this, why buy any product from China knowing they don't have the same safety, environmental, or work rights and pay fair wages. (Then again they are going to price themselves out of the market as China starts to become more environmentally friendly alone.)
Off-topic folks who go around lumping words like "woke tyrants", "fanatical progressives", and "manufactured SJW" together are part of the problem because they're trying to discredit actual issues with extremities.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stop tucking your head under the sheets because its something you don't agree with. You can choose not to participate if you so please but don't try to silence those that do wish to participate in a conversation. smh.. a lot of you cant wait to prove what side of the fence you are on.
I find it funny that you all have no issue talking about the politics and ethics of a game like Star Citizen but the moment you see something you don't agree with, suddenly its "your opening Pandora box" or "Read the forum Rules"
Blizzard is a giant in the gaming world, so for them to do something like this is world news. Every outlet in gaming is going to discuss it. I find it very amusing that the same people who use terms like "SJW" or "Snowflake" as weapons against people who want equality and their own spaces, are also the same people who for YEARS have been trying to turn this place into their own little safe place. The fact that someone in this thread said "Games are the only place I don't see politics" is amazingly hilarious. Even Pacman had political undertones. There isn't a MMORPG or RPG game without politics that mirror the world. It's called art. That's what its supposed to do.
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Good on Blitzchung for using the platform he had to take a stand.
Now I will not however scream, shame on Blizzard for this, for one very simple reason.
Would anyone have raised their voice in protest if they banned some one for screaming "End the occupation of the Gaza strip?", or "Give America back to the native americans?".
Not many that's for sure.
Now what about if they had said "Stop locking kids up on the US border?" Id say a few of you would actually be supportive of them banning the guy then.
This is an issue because the situation in Hong Kong offends our western sensibilities, and believe me I hope the people of Hong Kong get their way.
Should Blizz have banned him and sacked the casters? no of course not, if it was against their rules they could have just took him to one side and issued a warning. The punishment is excessive and it is obvious it is to preserve the market share they want to carve out in China.
However, you can not say that a gaming company needs to take a stance on one political issue, without implying they need to take a stance on them all. If you think that they need to take a stance on them all, where do you fall in the ongoing issues between Israel and Palestinians, where do you fall on the UK and Ireland issues, where do you land on the forced relocation of Amazon tribes? Do they need to take a stance on these, how about the issues in Pakistan and India...
Corporations are not people and simply put they should not be treat as such, for better or worse, they supply a product and thats it.
Now you can call them out for betraying their core values, for excessively punishing some one or for plain and simply being in the wrong, you can tell them they had no right to punish Blitzchung, that is fine. But you can not expect a corporation of any kind to take a stance on political and moral issues, if for no other reason than they do not speak for their employees, who might have differing viewpoints.
What you can say is that Blizzard has lost any right to claim they care about human rights, no more pride flags, no more supporting anyones rights for publicity they need to stay away from it all now.
So I guess my TLDR is this.
They should not have punished Blitzchung or the casters.
They should not be expected to declare an interest either way as a corporation. However if they choose the route of apathy, they have to apply it consistently, so now they can not fail to shut anyone down for being Anti Conservative, anti Trump, Anti Putin, Anti Johnson or anyone else if they voice an opinion live Blizz has to shut them down.
If they don't then the rational of "Corporate neutrality" is a lie and a fallacy and they should be taken to task for it.
I will finish by quoting Picard
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
To top that all off we have people on the opposite end of the spectrum now taking their personal/HR issues and trying to make them into national movements or piggy backing actual issues. All that's doing is further inciting the ninnies on the other side because they get to lump all of it together under their FOTM words and memes as well.
Bottom line is, we ALL need to stop playing this RED/BLUE, SHIRTS/SKINS game because the game/rivalry of it, is taking away from common sense. People can't even see when someone is doing something blatantly wrong or against OUR rules because of "sides".
We should be asking ourselves simple questions, and giving simple answers and sticking to what we believe in regardless of if someone we like/don't like benefits from our stance.
TL;DR
The big question we all need to ask ourselves is this;
Do you believe an outside country (especially one whose philosophy is opposite of your country) should be able to squash an individuals stance in their own country through corporate leverage/pressure. Is that a precedent you're OK with?
Regardless of your answer, STAND FIRM and don't switch up your stance because it's someone/something you don't like. That's what integrity is.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
However this is not an issue that can be glossed over, this is something that hsould be discussed and demonized. This isn't an issue where any one can go "hurr durr keep your politics out of my games" this is an issue where if you aren't on one side you are supporting a totalitarian regime that makes dissenters disappear and puts relegious non conformers in Concentration camps.
And if you want to look at this from a game perspective. If we don't address this now, 2-3 years from now you can possibly be banned from wow, Fortnite, lol, for saying Taiwan and not chinese taipei. Or saying "No china not number 1" This is one situation where "no politics" is not the hill to die on.
Yet here I am, with a 20 years of ..experience by playing online games, from which very, very rarely I was in a situation to discuss politics/religion/etc. with other players. Arguing that we no longer can stay away from politics in our ENTERTAINMENT category, shows how wrong you are.
We can definitely keep politics out of games, the same way sport ( almost any of them ), keep politics/religion/etc out of their 'fields'. Companies all over the world who respect them self, are having a similar approach with their employees, yet somehow.. we can no longer do that?!
Next time when you break the rules from a contract, for X reasons, be it "freedom of speech", politics, or you don't like Y face within the company, come back here, and tell us how that goes, ok? Wait, you never did that, but you are here telling us how someone breaking the rules IS fine, as long as.."freedom of speech", am I right? You don't have freedom of speech when you are bound to a contract where clearly says "don't sht on our image by calling out (groups of) other people".
You sign the contract, you respect the contract. You want it to "break" it by supporting your case? Is fine, do it. Do I support your cause? Yes ( regarding the Hong Kong guy ) , but support the consequences of your actions. Everything you do in life ( at least this big ) have consequences. Live with them if you want your voice and your cause to be heard.
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
There are some zealots who see everything in terms of politics and want to make everything political. Such people are obnoxious, regardless of which side they are on politically. They will to their best to wreck all that they touch, because politics ruins everything.
I'm not arguing that politics shouldn't be allowed anywhere. There absolutely is a time and a place for politics. But there is a time and a place not to have politics.
It is completely legitimate for an organization to openly allow political statements. It is even legitimate for them to explicitly take sides politically, and make it permissible to express opinions on one side of political spectrum and not the other. If they do that, they really should be willing to admit to being effectively part of their chosen political movement or whatever. Plenty of media sources are in practice an arm of one political party or another, even if they won't admit to it.
But it is also perfectly legitimate for an organization to disallow political statements unequivocally, provided that they enforce that ban evenhandedly. You can't ban statements on one side of an issue under a "no politics" rule, while allowing the other side to say whatever they want. Or perhaps rather, you can, but that makes you effectively an arm of one political movement or another.
In the case of this site, the "no politics" rule was intended to make this a site where people who like MMORPGs can come and read about the latest MMORPGs and discuss them on the forums. It was supposed to be, and has been, a site where people read about MMORPGs and be members of the community regardless of their views on politics, or for that matter, religion.
The site has traditionally allowed some leeway on politics when there is a clear connection to gaming. For example, if there is a proposed law that would regulate or ban loot boxes, the thread is somewhat political, but ultimately about gaming and within the scope of the site. Also importantly, because it does not play into hardened political lines like some of the long-debated issues, it is much less likely to turn into a flame war than many other political topics would.
The reason that so many sites have a "no politics" rule is that not having it wrecks the site, or at least the forum or comment section. If every thread turns into a flame war over abortion, guns, or who should be allowed to use which bathroom, then you would no longer have a site about MMORPGs, but only a rather bad site about politics. Sometimes it results in a site where one political side dominates and nearly everyone on the other side leaves. At that point, you wouldn't have a site for people who like MMORPGs, but only one for the subset of people who like MMORPGs and also share some particular political views. That's a rather narrower audience, regardless of which political views dominate.
I can understand allowing semi-political discussions that are related to gaming to continue for as long as everyone remains civil. But once it turns into a flame war, the key thing is to lock the topic and move on. Don't ban the people you disagree with, while allowing those you agree with a free pass, as is likely to happen if you try to only sanction those who you think went too far. That's how to make a site into a fairly explicitly political one and wreck most of what has ever been good about the site.
So long as there is a "no politics" rule, there is a principled line to draw: whoever introduced politics into the thread without a gaming link is the culprit. But without that, your options are to either let political flame wars rage or else in practice enforce conformity to one political ideology over another even if you don't intend to.
Poorna, the reason we can't keep politics out of anything is that people like yourself are so keen to put it in everything. I don't know you personally but I do know that nearly everyone who partakes in some form of journalism feels the peer pressure to comment on political issues. To a lesser extent everyone on social media does as well, twisting our arms to comment on everything.
You, a staff member have decided to speak out about this issue regardless of the sites own rules because you know you are right. You speak to us from a moral high ground that you think allows you to make up the rules as you go along. Because nothing is more important than the cause, the campaign, the issue. As you might have guessed I dispute you are on the moral high ground. I think you have fallen for the fallacy that so many fall for today, that any behaviour is permissible as long as a cause is involved.
As to the specific issue, even if I thought Blizzard were totally in the wrong I would still see your piece as inappropriate for this site, this is a gaming site, we discuss games not the latest political drama on Twitter or Reddit. I have done posts myself because I hoped to give some perspective to threads which should have been shunted to off topic under your own rules or more aptly been deleted.
There is only one way Blizzard could be in the wrong here and that is if they do not normally uphold the policy of no politics on their channel. It seems they do as I keep asking for examples of them not doing so and see no evidence put forward. Therefore they have nothing to answer for.
There is nothing wrong with your passion and the forthright statement of your position, but surely Twitter and so on are enough for you? Must every venue for discussion, every meeting place be the soap box for our political opinions? It is the current generation that decided they must vomit every thought, every emotion they have over everyone else. Do not be surprised that some of use don't want to hear it. Aside from this your articles have been very welcome, keep them coming.
P.S I note from another post, that having had the guidelines on politics pointed out to them they are now thinking of changing the guidelines. I assume the staff will then have to decided on what is "permissible" politics on here and what is not. Good luck with that!
Let's start with the games you have played for 20 years, you are telling everyone here that those games had 0 politics baked into it, about real-world counterparts? Doubt it.
I have no idea why you believe sports are keeping "Politics" out of that field. I'm not sure how much "Sports" you watch but I'm a lifetime NFL/NBA fan. What you are saying here, It's just not true. Owners of the teams may want to avoid it, but in American Sports where 80% of the teams are African American, politics are baked into the sport. Not because of the owners, but the players. The players are people with ideas. They aren't just "Entertainment" as you put it. Mix that with Social Media allowing them to express themselves and you get what's happening now. Hell, even that isn't new, go back to the civil rights era, Athletes were using their platforms to spread their ideas about what was going on at the time. Today, Everything is okay until the owners start trying to silence the politics they don't agree with. IE: NFL/Kapernick. Only then is it "Stick to sports". Lebron James has a whole brand called "Bigger than Basketball" all because a news reporter told him to stick to dribbling. That's one example.
Companies all over the world are doing the opposite of what you are saying here. They are becoming more inclusive of different types of people from all religions, cultures, sexual orientations, etc. The world is changing and it's changing fast. I have no idea why you think the gaming industry who is usually at the forefront of technology would not also embrace this idea.
The only people in the modern world that seems to want things to be "how they used to be" are the boomers who frequent this website.
Blizzard did something many find morally wrong. It should be discussed.
"The Society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools."
Currently: Games Audio Engineer, you didn't hear what I heard, you heard what I wanted you to hear.
Because Blizzard has ignored it in the past and at most just gave infractions or warnings! Since it didn't hurt their bottom line.
They could have done the same thing now and give him a warning or infraction!
But instead, this guy received an instant Ban, because they are afraid of the Chinese Government locking them out of the Chinese Market as "petty" retaliation! Like how they threatened the NBA to take away broadcasting rights last week with that scandal!
Blizzard, just like any other corporation, doesn't give a flying hoot about Politics! As long as it doesn't threaten their bottom line!
Like the poster said above! I completely agree! This isn't even Politics, this is a Human Rights issue! These protesters fight for their freedom and fear the Chinese Government taking control of Hong Kong and take all their hard fought rights away and enslave them into the Chinese Regime!