Blizzcon: Blizzard Apologizes For Banning Blitzchung, Keeps Him Banned, More Fallout Ensues
from the keep-digging dept
The fallout from Blizzard’s complete bungling of several eSports competitors taking public stances in support of the ongoing protests in Hong Kong has been both brutal and ongoing. As a reminder, professional Hearthstone player Blitzchung made relatively mild statements on a Blizzard stream backing the protests, leading to Blizzard yanking his prize money from an event and then issuing him a 1 year ban from competition. Others joined him in those comments afterwards, resulting in more bans. Soon after that, Blizzard returned Blitzchung’s prize money and reduced his ban to 6 months, apparently believing the outrage that had ensued was over 6 months of the bans, rather than the fact that Blizzard would ban players for this kind of speech at all. Congress started making noise, calling on Blizzard to behave better, while at least one advertiser bailed on Blizzard entirely.
That’s what has occurred basically over the last month or so. This past week, of course, was the start of Blizzcon, the convention that is supposed to be one enormous celebration of Blizzard. Instead, Blizzard President J. Allen Brack was forced to walk onto the stage at Blizzcon’s opening ceremony and issue an apology.
Before Blizzcon’s opening ceremony, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack somberly addressed the crowd with an apology for Blizzard’s harsh punishment of Hearthstone esports pro Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai. “Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together in a tough Hearthstone esports moment about a month ago and we did not,” said Brack.
“We moved too quickly in our decision-making and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you,” said Brack. “We didn’t live up to the high standards that we really set for ourselves.”
Brack went further: “I’m sorry and I accept accountability,” he said.
You might assume that he then immediately announced that Blitzchung’s 6 month ban and the other bans issued for Hong Kong comments had been rescinded. But you would be very, very wrong about that. Blitzchung’s ban remains. And, as far as official Blizzard policy goes, political comments on Blizzard streams and during events are still very much forbidden. In other words, it’s difficult to see what’s actually changed to go along with Brack’s “apology.”
Outside of Blizzcon’s front door, there is a group of people who also don’t seem to be particularly placated.
Protesters, some in cosplay, are holding signs and chanting slogans like “People over profit” and “Free Hong Kong.”
This particular protest has been facilitated by multiple groups, including Los Angeles-based pro-Hong Kong democracy collective Hong Kong Forum, another pro-Hong Kong group called Freedom Hong Kong, an activist organization called Fight For The Future, and the Protest BlizzCon subreddit, the latter two of whom announced their protest intentions well in advance of the convention.
The protest continued into the afternoon, featuring speeches from guests like two of the American University Hearthstone players who held up a “free Hong Kong” sign during a Blizzard-hosted broadcast and ultimately received a punishment similar to Blitzchung’s.
This isn’t the celebration of Blizzard the company hoped would greet convention goers upon entering Blizzcon, you can be sure. It’s worth remembering at this point, again, that Blitzchung’s comments in support of Hong Kong were incredibly mild. Blizzard massively overplayed its hand, when it could have shown some spine, no matter the pretend hurt feelings of Beijing.
Hell, even Hearthstone’s developers are publicly commenting that they don’t support Blizzard’s actions.
During an interview at BlizzCon, Hearthstone game director Ben Lee and creative director Ben Thompson admitted that they wished Blizzard execs had handled the Hong Kong powder keg with more care.
And yet the rage continues, as do the protests, all because Blizzard kept tripping over its own feet in handling all of this.
Filed Under: allen brack, blitzchung, blizzcon, free speech, hong kong
Companies: blizzard
Comments on “Blizzcon: Blizzard Apologizes For Banning Blitzchung, Keeps Him Banned, More Fallout Ensues”
Isn’t it great when businesses are so big that the customer is NEVER right unless he’s invisible, silent, and pays on time?
Re: Re:
More like they’re so big they don’t realize just how seriously some bad choices can affect them until it’s almost too late.
Re: Re: Re:
"More like they’re so big they don’t realize just how seriously some bad choices can affect them until it’s almost too late."
Oh, i think they do. They’re just stuck between a rock and a hard place.
China has a potential market of 1.4 billion people who currently gain broadband access in exponentially increasing numbers as China is refurbishing and updating its infrastructure at a breakneck pace.
Chinese Tencent also holds 5% of Blizzard’s stock so when Blitzchung threatens a protest on Blizzard’s servers he’s actually pissing on one of the owners.
Fiscally it’s suicide to let Blitzchung proceed. Morally it’s suicide not to.
Blizzard simply does what any corporation ultimately beholden to making money for its shareholders would do. In any conflict between profit and morals, profit wins.
Accepting accountability and accepting responsibility are not even remotely the same thing.
Welcome to Part II: Facing the Consequences.
At this point, Blizzard is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Lifting the suspension means Blizzard risks alienating their Chinese investors/the Chinese market, which means risking a hell of a lot of money. Keeping the suspension intact means Blizzard looks like a bunch of two-faced bastards for paying lip service to everyone with an empty apology while not actually doing anything to improve its reputation. I don’t envy that position, and I can’t imagine how any move Blizzard makes doesn’t make the situation worse.
Incidentally: Please re-read Brack’s apology statement there. He never acknowledges what Blizzard did, who Blizzard did it to, why Blizzard did it, and what steps Blizzard will take to not do it again. (He thankfully didn’t try to excuse what Blizzard did.) Brack cares more about being seen “doing something” (i.e., fauxpologizing) and giving off the veneer of having a heart than risking his company’s cash flow to do the right thing.
Saying “I apologize” and not explicating what you actually regret doing is not, in fact, an apology. It requires taking genuine reponsibility for doing something wrong, then taking action to never do it again. An apology without change is manipulation. Blizzard doesn’t want to apologize; it wants to manipulate people until this whole situation goes away.
Re: Re:
It’s a standard nopology. "We’re sorry you’re all in a fuss, snowflakes."
Re: Re: nopology
It’s also known as an UNpology
"I’m sorry if anyone was offended by our offensive behaviour"
Re: Re:
I’m sorry you are all upset about something so minor and temporary, I really feel that we have done our best to distance ourselves from our actions and pretend that we didn’t really do or walk-back what we did.
By not acknowledging it we are ensuring that no further blizzard communications mention ‘the event that never happened’ or the ’emperor’s new clothes 2020 rule’ as we will hereafter refer to it (which says that the emperor with the least clothes wins, so all our bases are belonging to China now).
Re: Re:
So, it will all come down to the financial impact of that second possibility, which is what they chose. They’re betting that gamers won’t be willing to effect a boycott with an impact larger than the Chinese sales volume. Proving that wrong would be the way to get Blizzard to change their course (because we know China’s threats aren’t empty—they really would stop all transactions with Blizzard).
And yet that’s exactly what every child learns. Parents tell their kids to say they’re sorry. Not to feel or express regret, or even to understand why something was wrong, just to say the words that society expects. If you want more from an apology, you may be the outlier.
Re: Re: Re:
"So, it will all come down to the financial impact of that second possibility, which is what they chose. They’re betting that gamers won’t be willing to effect a boycott with an impact larger than the Chinese sales volume."
And they might be right. Assuming Blizzard loses half their western subscribers, it’ll still be a net gain if they can clinch a hold on the Chinese market.
Even if that wasn’t the case, though, having so much Blizzard stock owned by Tencent certainly puts Blizzard in an awkward position…
“I’m sorry and I accept accountability,”
Okay J. Allen Brack, and how will you be holding yourself accountable? Will you be resigning?
Re: Re:
He means he accepts chinese bank accountability.
No really, keep lying, that's been working great so far...
Saying that you’re sorry for what you’ve done tends to go over a lot better if you show some actual remorse and work to fix what you messed up. That they left the ban in place makes clear that they aren’t actually sorry in the slightest, such that this is yet another case of taking a bad situation and making it worse as the only thing worse than no apology is a clearly dishonest one where it’s obvious that you’re just doubling down and attempting to cover your actions with yet more lies.
Blizzard Boycott?
This should teach gamers to hang together or hang separately. Blizzard hasn’t made a good game since Diablo II. I’m glad their ship is sinking.
Re: Blizzard Boycott?
In our global economy, boycotts are little more than free advertising.
Re: Blizzard Boycott?
Blizzard/Activision just had their most profitable year ever. Wish my ship would sink like that.
Re: Re: Blizzard Boycott?
Kind of early to tell how this is actually going to affect them, don’t you think?
Re: Re: Re: Blizzard Boycott?
Maybe, maybe not. Yeah there were protestors at Blizzcon, but it was still a packed event. Hearthstone remains popular, and Blizzard staying friendly with China means they’ll likely continue their growth in what was already their fastest growing market.
Blizzard could piss off a lot more people, and they’ll still be fine, cause most people don’t actually care enough to stop playing their favorite games.
Re: Re: Blizzard Boycott?
When you combine the two, yes, but Blizzard’s numbers alone do appear to be declining. It’s hard to say with any real certainty because they stopped releasing subscriber numbers in… Cataclysm?, but WoW subs peaked back in Wrath and have been dropping since, and the current lackluster expansion, and a relatively lackluster preview for what is being dubbed Wrath 2.0, it’s hard to see that trend reversing. Overwatch and Hearthstone are generating money from microtransactions, but both are burning out. Heroes of the Storm is already brain-dead and on life support. D3 generates little money, and SC2 barely any more than that.
In short, without D4 and Shadowlands massively overperforming expectations(unlikely), the Blizzard side of things is in trouble.
Yeah, right.
Sorry, yeah sorry that they misread public sentiment… but also knowing that the vast majority of the user base won’t dump them for fear of missing out on newest updated game mega-hype! coming soon! Come and play! Come and play! Forget about the movement.
Hong Kong in general
In other words Blizzard desperately wants to retain access to a potential market of 1.4 billion chinese and now tries to do anything short of actually NOT bending over backwards to accommodate the chinese government and corporations.
I can’t say I expected them to act differently, but at the very least they could have had the moral courage to say that "Yes, we banned Blitschung because our investors REALLY did not like his action and at the end those investors are the owners of our company".
Blitzchung has bigger problems though. He’s still a hong kong resident which means chinese laws apply. Detracting the government carries steep penalties. Ironically Blizzard banning him from carrying out a protest action may have saved him from years in jail as a political dissident.
What i keep finding to disturb me in more ways than one is that every citizen in Hong Kong has known, since the 18th century, that hong kong was going to leave the commonwealth and return to being chinese. There was no doubt about it, nor was there any reasonable chance that China would apply different rules for Hong Kong than it did for the rest of China.
That’s a solid two centuries of having the opportunity to leave in an ordered manner, before the government switched to an oligarchic dictatorship.
I’m no fan of the chinese way of imperial bureaucracy and i can well understand that people who grew up under a somewhat liberal system only to find it rapidly exchanged for a dictatorship will react accordingly…but i find it hard to muster much sympathy for people who have known the precise date of a pending disaster for two centuries – who have known that their homes and the entire city was a loan due to expire – and STILL chose to stay at point zero.
Re: Hong Kong in general
Yep. The citizens of Hong Kong are basically attempting to claim squatters rights.
Re: Re: Hong Kong in general
"Yep. The citizens of Hong Kong are basically attempting to claim squatters rights."
Lamentably so. We can bicker about the human rights situation and the abolition of democracy all we like because once China took over those good things were gone.
But it didn’t come as a surprise. Every last hong kong citizen knew full well, a generation in advance, the exact date at which point they would lose most of their human rights and last vestiges of democracy.
NOW they protest? It’s pretty clear their future either consists of being a professional dissident fed and watered by the state in some working camp, or knuckling down and shutting the f–k up before emperor Xi’s edicts.
If they want change then the sole option they’ve got, barring quietly leaving for more liberal pastures, is to quietly bring the rest of China long in armed uprising. Good luck with that, I say.
Instead they make the glaring mistake of assuming that standing around chanting slogans and waving banners will result in anything other than providing the chinese cops and military with a target-rich environment to practice in.
They don’t live in a democracy anymore. They live in an autocratic dictatorship which for the last 3000 years or so has never allowed any single shred of individual liberty to slap the faces of the powers that be.
Their actions right now are comparable to…if the ancient Pompeiians had known the hour and minute at which the volcano would erupt and burn their city down. And had still chosen to stay behind and wave angry banners at the pyroclastic flow barreling down on them rather than run for the hills.
Re: Re: Re: Hong Kong in general
That’s a hell of a lot of victim-blaming, pal.
Re: Re: Re:2 Hong Kong in general
"That’s a hell of a lot of victim-blaming, pal."
Which is why I’m torn over this. On the one hand what China does to its citizenry is as unacceptable as when ANY dictatorship tortures and abuses the population for having an opinion.
On the other hand it’s a bit like watching someone standing around at the foot of a volcano they already know will erupt, and when. You can sympathize with their suffering, but you have to ask yourself, "WHY!?"
Re: Re: Re: Hong Kong in general
Yep. Very True. In 2047 the seperate governance in Hong Kong was supposed to end. China only abandoned the provisions of the Sino-British Joint Declaration 33 years early in 2014. I mean, why would people be upset that the basic system of governance was changed 33 years earlier than expected? /s
Re: Re: Re:2 Hong Kong in general
"Yep. Very True. In 2047 the seperate governance in Hong Kong was supposed to end. China only abandoned the provisions of the Sino-British Joint Declaration 33 years early in 2014."
And the US had signed the Paris Accords and the Iranian nuclear power treaty…your point?
The writing was on the wall when Britain handed over Kowloon and the New Territories in 1997. China had already made it abundantly clear that they were taking back everything they ceded in the Nanking treaty. As soon as possible.
As for the 50 years promise of "One country, Two systems"…no one believed that. Not the british. Certainly not the Chinese. Nor a single political analyst inside or outside of Hong Kong. It was always a worthless paper valid ONLY until China had consolidated their governmental power sufficiently to fully integrate Hong kong completely.
It was, essentially, a face-saving exercise handed to the british so they could sign over Hong Kong rather than having the chinese army simply walk across that border.
Xi Jin Ping is currently offering the same "one country, two systems" deal to Taiwan. Whether Taiwan will cave depends entirely on whether the US is willing to station a fleet in the strait to prevent China from simply walking in.
You only need to look at a few hundred similar situations throughout world history and chinese history specifically to know that when an empire offers special terms to a breakaway all that means is that said empire prefers bloodless conquest and will abandon those special terms the very second they have the ability to completely consume the breakaway. If you can’t trust the "civilized" G20 to hold to signed treaties, why on earth would you place your trust in China to do so?
"I mean, why would people be upset that the basic system of governance was changed 33 years earlier than expected? /s"
I can get "upset". What I can’t get is "surprised". Democracy was going to go away the very second China had enough administrators and military inside Hong Kong to quietly dismantle the previous system.
And the only actor capable of preventing China from doing this – the UK – had been preparing to drop Hong Kong in the crapper since ’82.
When challenging a professional card player, kinda inevitable… even if you are the one who made the cards.
babelfish version 2.1 [inp=corp out=eng]
(nothing)
Nothing will change
and I personally will face no consequences.
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Mike is trying to ban me, right after I disagreed with Stephen about public and private.
A counter would let me see how many Trump voters are voting here.
Re: Re:
Yeah, those Trump voters really helped to prove Shiva Ayyadurai invented email, didn’t they?
Re: It's spelled Bahn Mi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1nh_m%C3%AC
And if Mike is making Vietnamese bread that’s a handy little sideline.
Re: Re:
Prove Mike tried to ban you.
Re: Re:
Mike is trying to ban me, right after I disagreed with Stephen about public and private.
‘Sup Liar. As pointed out multiple times you are making this shit up. GG.
The comments on private vs public weren’t "dissent" they were nonsense – I wouldn’t be so eager to take ownership of them AC.
How about this – create an account and join in with your own voice. See how that works. And see if you get downvoted multi-posts and OT comments like you are now. Or will you just complain that you are being persecuted when clearly you are using the AC status to avoid accountability.
Re: Re:
"Mike is trying to ban me, right after I disagreed with Stephen about public and private."
If Mike was trying to ban you from his own website then you wouldn’t be posting. It’s really a "Do or Do Not" situation.
Re: Re: Re:
Isn’t that what I have been saying? For months. It is either public or it is private.
What is Facebook?
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"What is Facebook?"
Zuckerberg’s guest room.
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
grate non answer
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
"grate non answer"
No, it’s factual truth and the answer to the question you posed. I’m sorry if it doesn’t fit your narrative.
Facebook is Zuckerberg’s private property – or, more appropriately, the private property of Facebook’s shareholders.
So the question on whether it’s public or private is very easy. It’s 100% private.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
Someone finally gets it.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
How has that different in the slightest from the narrative of Stone, TD or myself?
FB does not need to host content it disagrees with.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
keep using them as your isp
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
Forget about it. You, Stone, TD, Hull and asserts facts without evidence guy just keep using FB as your isp. kewl?
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
<Citation Needed>
‘Sup Liar! Put up or shutup.
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Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
Been claimed right here on this site. Now, you shut up.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
You are two minutes too late and two bricks short of a full load.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
Where, specifically?
Re: Re: Re:8 Re:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191004/10073843124/ny-times-opinion-section-gets-cda-230-wrong-again.shtml#c911
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
OK Boomer.
Now that I have proven I am not a liar, how about asking Mike why he is trying to prevent me from posting?
Just because he isn’t successful, doesn’t mean he isn’t trying.
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
So you claim to be the registered user bhull242, who hasn’t been blocked?
Or are you butthurt because Comcast is still an ISP?
You aren’t making any sense, AC.
To "Prove" you are being blocked – you need to be blocked. And you aren’t.
To "Prove" you have made such a super awesome statement that got you in trouble, you may want to actually point to the post in question and explain.
But you can’t, as far as I’ve seen. Just a bunch of disconnected posts going, "It’s so obvious YOU FOOLS" and, "AH! So much proof!"
Amusing. Do you claim to have a registered account here that TD has shut down?
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Spin
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Spin. Rinse. Repeat.
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
Spin. Rinse. Repeat.
LOL, so nothing to say.
Just keep tossing out unfounded accusations. It’s what the rest of us call "Lies."
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
If I showed you a pic of Bruce Jenner with what is clearly balls and a dick, you would say he is a she.
There is nothing, theoretically, that I could prove to you.
Re: Re: Re:11 Re:
WTF does that have to do with anything?
Re: Re: Re:12 Re:
View in thread mode instead of chronologically.
Re: Re: Re:13 Re:
That’s my default view. I still have no idea what Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner has to do with anything, especially considering the fact that whether Jenner is a he or a she is based on competing definitions of gender rather than being a factual dispute, so it wouldn’t be an indicator of ignoring facts.
Re: Re: Re:14 Re:
How do you prove what gender you are? Just state it as a fact and that is it? If so, why is proof for anything else required?
If it is good enough to get into the ladies bathroom, it is good enough for here.
My IP address is being blocked by this free speech site.
Just because they are not successful, does not mean they are not trying.
Note that all my arguments before came from same icon, now always a different icon due to being forced to use a VPN to get around them trying to suppress my speech.
Also note no claims that my comments were just getting stuck in spam filter or any other kind of denial.
It isn’t the spam filter when the same comment gets through immediately from a different IP address.
Re: Re: Re:15 Re:
Gender is a very complicated and delicate subject that, while under other circumstances I’d be more than willing to explain, is completely irrelevant here for the purpose of this discussion. Suffice to say that reasonable people could and often do disagree on this (and there are a lot of completely different takes on just the definition of “gender” that aren’t completely reconcilable), so it’s not completely obvious or black-and-white like you suggest. And like I said, it’s not so much a disagreement of the factual evidence but largely on definitions and opinions. Presenting evidence of one’s sex wouldn’t change anyone’s mind not because they are stubborn but because it doesn’t address the actual argument.
But, again, this doesn’t really have any relevance.
To be clear, I was not arguing about this. I was only talking about the complete nonsequitur you brought into this. Suffice to say that I find this claim doubtful, and your evidence is insufficient.
Because we get tired of repeating the same thing over and over.
Let’s be clear: it’s quite likely that it’s the spam filter, assuming it’s happening at all. Just because no one said it yet doesn’t mean the explanation is wrong.
Given that we don’t know how the spam filter works, and I’ve sent the same comment from the same IP address and got different results, it’s entirely possible it’s the spam filter.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
"Because we get tired of repeating the same thing over and over."
Who is we? Are you Mike? How do you know what is in spam filter otherwise?
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
“We” would be everyone else who is reading this comment thread. No, I’m not Mike. I live a lot closer to the Atlantic and Canada than he does, for one, and I’m in college.
While I don’t have specific knowledge of whether or not any of your comments are in the spam filter, I have a general idea of how it works, based in part on my own experiences. I also know that many similar accusations have been made in the past, and it’s been explained to them that they were wrong. I have no reason to believe that this time is any different.
Note the wording of what I said (emphasis added):
I was only saying it’s possible, or even likely, that the spam filter was responsible. If I knew that it was the spam filter because I had access to it, do you think I’d be that careful about whether or not the spam filter was responsible or not? I would’ve just said that it was the spam filter, not a deliberate block on you. But the fact is that I don’t know for certain, nor can I. As such, I never said I “know what is in spam filter”. I was very careful to avoid saying or suggesting that. (Also, note how I said that “we don’t know how the spam filter works.” This suggests that the “we” doesn’t include people operating the site, who presumably would know how it works.)
And again, I note you don’t address the actual substance of what I was saying. That bit about the spam filter was honestly just an aside meant to dismiss a point I wasn’t really interested in discussing, as well as pointing out the flaws in that claim and arguments in support of the same. And you aren’t actually even addressing the substance of that. You’re only interested in a single word. What a waste.
Re: Re: Re:16 Re:
Are you Mike or are you just spouting off bullshit you know nothing about?
Re: Re: Re:17 Re:
Read my comment again, as well as my response to the other guy. Where did I ever allege that I had some specific knowledge about the spam filters? All I said was that he hadn’t disproven that it was the spam filters. I have had the occasional comment get stuck in the filters, too, so I do have some knowledge of that.
But, again, that wasn’t really the focus of what I was talking about. I only mentioned it because the other guy brought it up.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
Me: "You, Stone, TD, Hull…"
You: "So you claim to be the registered user bhull242…"
Beam me up Scotty….
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
1) That comment was saying that Facebook is an ISP (internet service provider) in the sense meant by Stephen, myself, and CDA §230, among others. I did not say it was an ISP in the sense that Comcast is an ISP (what you probably meant when you used it). In that same comment, I stated that we often refer to companies like Comcast that provide internet access as IAPs (internet access providers).
2) I did not assert that I use Facebook at all. In fact, I haven’t used Facebook in years.
3) I never said anything along the lines of Facebook being “my ISP”. No user would refer to Facebook as “my ISP”. It’s an ISP they may use, but it’s not theirs. Furthemore, a single person often uses many ISPs, but only one or two IAPs. It’s not “my ISP” in the sense someone would say “my electric company”, “my phone company”, or “my cable company”.
In short, that comment doesn’t support the assertion that any of us use “FB as [our] isp.”
Additionally, I believe Gary was referring specifically to the allegation that you’ve been blocked, hence his reply suggesting that you’re claiming to be me. He wants evidence that you’ve been blocked, not for the assertion that, “You, Stone, TD, Hull and asserts facts without evidence guy just keep using FB as your isp.” I fully understand how you came to a contrary conclusion, but it’s just a misunderstanding.
Re: Re: Re:10 Re:
In fact, here’s another comment I made in the exact same thread explaining that Facebook is not my ISP.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I assume by “Hull” you mean me.
FTR, I rarely use Facebook anymore. However, I do know how it works. It’s privately owned and run but is publicly available.
Re: Womp Womp
Fuck your feelings bro.
Re: Re: Womp Womp
Right back at you sis.
Re: Re:
Wut.
Dude, there is no mechanism within Techdirt for users to be banned.
Techdirt’s policies do not include banning people who submit anything that is not pure spam.
Having a bunch of your posts hidden does not get you banned.
Trump was never mentioned in that debate, and Stephen isn’t exactly a Trump supporter. In fact, as I recall, the point you seemed to be making would actually favor the points Trump has been advocating for.
So basically, absolutely no part of your comment is even remotely true. You also provide no support for your claim.
Re: Re:
He’s not, as you very well know. But I certainly wish he had, as he’s perfectly entitled to, this being his website.
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Re: Re: Re:
Now you’ve gotten lipstick on Mikes’ asshole
How come Hong Kong is the one remaining vestige of Western Imperialism that people are still clinging to so fiercely? It was taken from China at gun-point to protect the British opium industry, but people talk about it reverting to Chinese control like China took it back by force.
Hong Kong was always China’s, it never should have had democracy to begin with. I’m amazed anyone believed they were going to allow it to stay separate after the century of British occupation was over.
Re: Re:
Yes you are correct – it is most proper for the people of Hong Kong to be murdered, tortured and beaten by their government. Thanks for reminding us that is always wrong to protest against your government.
Re: Re: Re:
Nice straw-man. Did it come with the hat?
If the people stopped protesting for something they never had a right to, and that they’re never going to get back anyway, maybe China wouldn’t feel like they need to murder, torture, or beat the citizens.
But hey, sorry to interrupt your circle-jerk of soft prejudices.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
How exactly do you think people get the right to democracy?
Re: Re: Re:2 Re:
How exactly do you think people get the right to democracy?
Clearly the red AC feels that Hong Kong shouldn’t have democracy, independence or freedom.
His is arguing from the point of mainland China and hold that the state has the right to do whatever the hell it wants. Therefore any murder, torture and retaliation is not just justified, but a necessary consequence of disobedience.
And point out that is wrong to "Murder, torture and oppress" is a feeble distraction form the point he is trying to make.
Did I get that right, "Red AC"?
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Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
Not even close. You make so many assumptions rather than paying attention, "Gary".
Governments don’t have rights, they have the power of legalized violence and the authority that extends from it. In the sense that nobody will or can stop China, then sure you can say they have the "right" to do whatever they want to with their own citizens.
If you’d ever lived in China, or spent any time studying its extremely violent history of populist uprisings and civil war, you would understand that China believes it is behaving as it has to. Their priorities are simply different, and democracy has no place in their perceived societal destiny.
Go study the Opium Wars and gain some appreciation for the historical context of this struggle, it will tell you everything you need to know to understand China’s position on Hong Kong.
We only believe everyone should have democracy, independence, and freedom because we were taught to value those things. We believe those things are good. China doesn’t, they believe freedom is a small price to pay for stability and social order. They have no history of democracy, and their exposure to it has been limited to a city that was stolen from them by a Western power and then occupied under threat of force for over a century.
If you haven’t noticed, China really, really doesn’t like it when Western powers try to tell it what it should do or how the Chinese people should behave. China existed long before most of our countries were even founded, and they expect to be around long after we’ve collapsed under our own self-indulgence.
China can’t be bullied into changing. They can’t be shamed, or coerced, or extorted. It’s time we wake up and start talking to them as equals rather than acting so smug all of the time.
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And what about Hong Kong residents?
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Hong Kong’s citizens are caught in the middle. It’s an unfortunate reality, but they’re Chinese citizens, in China. They were never going to get to keep democracy. Even if China honored the terms of the treaty, democracy would be gone in a few decades and this struggle would be happening then instead of now.
China is unified and stronger than ever right now, while the US and Britain, and the other G7 countries are distracted by their own internal politics. The West has set the stage for this show, and now all we can do is watch.
The time when NATO would come charging in to "defend democracy" has long since passed. Who would help the residents of Hong Kong if China just decided to level the whole place tomorrow? Can you think of any country that would intervene? I can’t.
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"Hong Kong’s citizens are caught in the middle. It’s an unfortunate reality, but they’re Chinese citizens, in China. They were never going to get to keep democracy."
Correct. This was shouted from the rooftops in 1997 but what people apparently chose to believe was NOT the words of the political analysts and skeptics but that of the UK and China, neither of whom had ANY credibility in the matter.
"Even if China honored the terms of the treaty, democracy would be gone in a few decades and this struggle would be happening then instead of now."
And it was understood by everyone who chose to check that China would honor that treaty only until China had sufficient administration and enforcement in place to completely consume Hong Kong.
"China is unified and stronger than ever right now, while the US and Britain, and the other G7 countries are distracted by their own internal politics. The West has set the stage for this show, and now all we can do is watch."
And the sad part is that even if Hong Kong produces Tiananmen Square 2.0 the west will at most issue a few strongly worded protests and then forget about it. China is just too important to western business interests and the global economy. Tibet seceded in 1913, was reconquered in 1951 and has produced a steady stream of political martyrs under heavy chinese oppression…and the wests response is still restricted to mouthing platitudes, almost 70 years later.
China will assimilate Hong Kong and if need be incarcerate everyone who even mouths an objection, and later on will do the same to Taiwan, the very second it can be assured that the west won’t send actual military to intervene.
Which brings us to why Xi jin Ping has brought up the stern "One China" rhetoric visavi Taiwan right after Trump decided to restrict US meddling abroad. They’re being given the same ultimatum as hong Kong, basically.
China has whittled Taiwan’s political allies down for thirty years and is continually testing the waters on just how committed the US currently is to fulfilling its defense treaty with taiwan. The very second it thinks the US will refuse to move troops into harms way on behalf of Taiwan, Taiwan will fall.
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I still don’t see how putting the blame on protestors for getting beaten…
And I’ll present the quote again, so that it’s explicitly clear that’s what magenta-AC is doing:
… I still don’t see how that putting the blame on the people getting murdered, tortured, and beaten is in any way appropriate.
Sure, they might have done a stupid thing by sticking around (although I’d bet that leaving HK en masse isn’t as simple a proposition as what you’re presenting, especially if one was determined to not leave any loved ones behind). But putting that decision on an equivalent ground to the consequences being inflicted upon them because of that decision is a nauseating display of defending the morally indefensible.
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To paraphase a great movie: "Deserve’s got nothing to do with it."
It’s not about blame. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is that the protestors are being beaten. They are protesting in China, so they are being beaten. Cause and effect.
No, they don’t deserve to be beaten, or murdered, or tortured. But that’s exactly what everyone expects China to do in response to exactly this kind of situation, because that’s what they have ALWAYS done and what they think they HAVE to do to maintain social order.
I’m not saying the protestors deserve to suffer. I’m saying that they will suffer regardless if they continue to protest for a cause that has no hope of succeeding. I am saying they should save themselves the suffering they are experiencing and accept that they live in an autocratic dictatorship that doesn’t give two shits what the residents of Hong Kong want.
You need to understand that the Chinese people genuinely think that democracy and protest are evil things that will break down their society if they aren’t stamped out. China has a 5,000 year history full of civil warfare and massive populist uprisings that lead to millions of deaths before they were put down. The current version of China is itself the result of a peoples revolution.
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I understand that, sort of. Except that China likes to pretend it’s a democracy, but let’s move past that.
What does that have to do with us speaking in support of people who are from and live in China who want democracy and freedom of speech and use protests to advocate those positions?
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"What does that have to do with us speaking in support of people who are from and live in China who want democracy and freedom of speech and use protests to advocate those positions?"
It makes for great hypocrisy.
China will change ONLY if it is invaded, occupied, and forced to change over the course of a thousand years while their national identity is gradually eradicated and replaced with the greco-roman philosophical paradigm we hold to in the west.
Unless we are in fact willing to back the dissidents with force of arms all we do is provide, at best, the illusion that protests and political advocacy will change how China operates.
If China decides that the only way it can assimilate Hong Kong is to evict or incarcerate EVERY current citizen there, then that’s what they will do, and then repopulate the place with wealthy citizenry from Beijing eager to acquire the prime real estate.
This was clear back in 1997 so every citizen in Hong Kong has had, until now, over 20 years to plan for emigration.
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If everybody everywhere back in time had done what you suggest, the world would still be ruled by aristocrats, and the US would still be a colony.
Basically peaceful protest movements are what minimize the violence and lead to political changes, like in the fall of the Soviet Union and its puppet states, the liberation of India, and the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Violent revolution usually exchanges one authoritarian regime for another one, as in the rise of Napoleon, the Soviet Union, the Communist party in China etc.
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"If everybody everywhere back in time had done what you suggest, the world would still be ruled by aristocrats, and the US would still be a colony."
If Europe had been China then the US would never have been colonized in the first place. China doesn’t establish colonies – it never has. It simply demands absolute authority on the territory originally unified under emperor Qin.
And to obtain that authority and retain it China goes to any lengths necessary. If Hong kong was western territory then at some point the government would cave under civilian protests.
Since Hong Kong is Chinese then…if Beijing decides that the only way to assimilate hong kong is to ship every last Hong Kong resident to labor camps then that’s what they’ll do.
And then simply auction off the real estate to wealthy chinese entrepreneurs in good standing with the state.
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"Sure, they might have done a stupid thing by sticking around (although I’d bet that leaving HK en masse isn’t as simple a proposition as what you’re presenting, especially if one was determined to not leave any loved ones behind)."
Which is why I’m torn over the issue. It’s like choosing to sit around in an upper-class neighborhood when you know full well that all law enforcement will cease operating at a specific time at which point every criminal will invade and loot the suburbia you live in.
It doesn’t give the criminals moral authority. It doesn’t justify what will happen to the ones who choose to stay.
But it does mean that anyone staying has deliberately chosen a path which holds loss without any hope or gain to be had.
The Hong Kong protestors are, like the Tiananmen square protestors – deluding themselves into believing that they can get Beijing to back down or blink. All they actually accomplish is to establish a permanent record of becoming an untrusted second-class citizen and potential dissident in New Imperial China.
When you stand in front of a hungry lion you don’t read it your bill of rights. You try your best to escape being lunch or end up eaten.
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I would just like to point out that I ("How exactly do you think…") am the red (#E0182A) AC.
"They never had a right to not be beaten" is the magenta (#F04184) AC.
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"How exactly do you think people get the right to democracy?"
From the barrel of a gun, usually.
I am aware of very few examples throughout history where an autocratic tyranny was overthrown by anything short of armed insurrection. What few examples do exist are more the result of a decrepit and ineffective government collapsing on it’s own.
China is anything BUT decrepit and ineffective today, so the only thing those protestors accomplish are getting themselves on target lists for "suitable examples to be made".
China would rather put all of Hong Kong’s citizenry in labor camps and replace them with well-adjusted chinese citizens looking for prime real estate than cave on this issue.
If the protestors are truly serious then arming themselves and sparking a revolution is the only way they have. Not a realistic one, mind, but that’s the gist of it if they want to remain on mainland China.
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Congratulations!
Your social credit score has been increased by 100 points.
You may now:
Ride the bus.
Ride the train.
Kiss Xi’s ring.
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Oh look, it’s that tired old social credit score reply that unoriginal people post in response to anyone that doesn’t feel impotent outrage about whatever China did this week.
If you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger huh? Let me know if you ever formulate an original idea.
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Eh. I don’t know about impotent outrage, but just because I’m not feverishly smashing my keyboard like a triggered straw feminist doesn’t mean China is suddenly kosher.
China and North Korea are, respectively, the kind of relatives you see only at family gatherings – and they make the experience thoroughly miserable. China’s the uncle who tells offensive jokes that few dare to tell off because he’s rich, and North Korea is his brat of a kid who gets his way by threatening to break all the shit lying around.
You might treat them with respect – the rest of us might, but that’s really mostly because it’s begrudgingly done and cleaning up after them would suck, a lot. Trump tried to be equals with North Korea – it’s one of his major gloating points – and look at the fuck all it accomplished. (Then again, him trying to piss off China makes no sense in the NK strategy…)
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Do you think America is respected for its actions, or for its power? I’m betting it’s more the power part, and China has power too, so they deserve respect in the same way that any powerful country does.
To borrow from your own analogy, China is also the uncle that doesn’t care what anyone else thinks anymore, because he doesn’t have to. His siblings bullied and took advantage of him while he was small and weak, and they still make fun of him and treat him as their lesser. But now he’s bigger, and much stronger. In fact he’s so strong that everyone else actually depends on him, and he knows it.
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You’re comparing between two asshole relatives. Do I really have to pick between the one that shoots my dog and pisses in my oatmeal, or the one that wrecks my plumbing and shits on my burger?
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I had to go and your burger was right there. I left your dog alive get over it.
Go America
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Can’t pick your family, unfortunately. We’re stuck with what we’ve got, a giant family full of people that can’t seem to stop being assholes to each other.
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Or we could just let both idiots run themselves ragged with trade wars, tell themselves they’re not allowed in the house anymore, and play a better game elsewhere? How is that not an option? Why are we stuck with "keep enabling both sides’ increasingly fucked up behavior or all eternity" as the only damn option?
Seriously, if your rationale for okaying whatever China does is "But but but the US started it!" that’s a shit argument. That’s saying "eh, sure, the US can start its own social credit score system too, worked for China right?"
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“Nice straw-man. Did it come with the hat?”
No but it did come with a fishing line baited with a red herring. Bro, if you don’t like the answers people give to your rhetorical questions. Stop asking them. Or use a higher quality bait.
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I’m quite enjoying the answers I’m getting, and the questions weren’t rhetorical. I am genuinely curious about the opinions of others. Asking contrary questions in a forum that is usually an echo chamber is a pretty effective way to challenge your own ideas.
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On what grounds do you consider this an echo chamber?
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
If you want evidence, see the comments section of any post on the site. The most frequent commenters here are very uncomfortable with people that don’t think like they do. Any registered user with an opinion that doesn’t fit the narrative that is trying to be established is regularly shouted down, belittled, and harassed regardless of whether their comments have merit.
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
[Citation very much needed].
This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it.
Re: Re: Re:6 Re:
^ Thank you for identifying yourself, Exhibit A. Saves anyone else the trouble.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
So admit your citation is Otto Maiaß. Got it.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
So you’ve got nothing, just an empty accusation bereft of evidence. You could have just admitted that, saved yourself the typing.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
A person asking for a citation for your claim isn’t prima facie evidence for your claim.
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Here’s an example of a thoughtful and useful comment being hidden by the readers. Presumably because they just didn’t like its content, though of course nobody can tell for sure why. It certainly isn’t "spam, abuse or trolling".
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190924/09291343052/phew-eu-court-justice-says-right-to-be-forgotten-is-not-global-censorship-tool-just-eu-one.shtml#c673
Most hidden comments really are trollish, but now and then there is a hive mind effect on TechDirt.
Re: Re: Re:7 Re:
I suspect that the name and the fact that it started out with what could be taken as an insult was the cause of that one being flagged, even as you’re correct in that it didn’t deserve to be treated as such.
‘Okay, so they’re commenting under a name that carries negative/dishonest connotations and they’re opening with an insult… flag it is.’
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Makes me wonder how much digging had to be done to find that "incorrectly flagged" comment. Are we going to get nurglers complaining that some people suffer flag injuries and thus all moderation should be banned?
Re: Re: Re:9 Re:
Read the comment inserts!
Re: Re: Re:5 Re:
I have not seen that myself. Please provide specific evidence of this.
In particular, I haven’t seen any harassment, and the “shouting down” has always been counterarguments.
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If you were genuinely curious about the opinions of others, perhaps you should let said answers stand on their own. And not denigrate the writers , and their answers to your shitty questions that you obviously already have the answers too.
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Respect and curiosity are not the same thing at all. If something can be refuted, it should be. Everything else is just gravy.
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"Yes you are correct – it is most proper for the people of Hong Kong to be murdered, tortured and beaten by their government."
Hardly correct. I’m guessing you’re responding to a troll there.
China is duly on record for being an oppressive autocratic dictatorship. For good and valid reason.
But it has to be said that the people of hong kong have known for a generation the exact date and hour at which point their human rights and democracy would be abolished. They should have known that protests would in the future result in beatings, incarceration, torture and possibly murder.
I sort of have to question the sanity of those who chose to stay on land leased for a defined amount of time in the belief that once the lease expired their landlord would treat them any other way than he treated his other tenants.
Rough as it sounds Hong Kong is not their home. It never was, really. It’s a slice of China which the opium cartels of the 18th century forcibly rented Godfather-style. It was always going back to China, and the chinese government will go to VINDICTIVE lengths to ensure full closure on what the chinese call the "Century of Humiliation".
If I knew that in thirty years the place I live would become part of North korea under kim Jong Un I’d ensure to be elsewhere. I wouldn’t buy a new house here, take out big loans, build my career locally, sink down roots, or god forbid raise children here.
The people of hong Kong did all of that. And now they protest, in what ought to be the full knowledge that China will cheerfully ship every last one of them to a dissident work camp to never be heard from again.
Abuse and oppression are never proper. At the same time, however, I have a very hard time mustering much sympathy for the self-destructively stupid.
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Abuse and oppression are never proper. At the same time, however, I have a very hard time mustering much sympathy for the self-destructively stupid.
So… They got was was comin’ to them?
And so it’s wrong for anyone outside of China to express their support for them? Because they are stupid for wanting a better deal.
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"So… They got was was comin’ to them?"
Harsh as it may sound? Yes.
If I know for a fact that the land I’m sitting on will be marched over by a horde of heartless bureaucrats to whom life and liberty are curse words and that my choices are to live in oppression, resist and die…or leave, then i opt for the last choice unless I’m willing to be a martyr or believe I have a decent shot at sparking an effective revolution.
And in that hypothetical revolution…if this story was "Braveheart" it would be one where William Wallace had to revolt against King Edward on his lonesome with all the other scots still being on the King’s side.
This is not a military coup. It’s not a foreign invasion. It’s not ISIS storming across the border in a sudden unexplicable surge nor a famine-based tribal migration.
It’s the expiry of the lease on property which was originally forcibly established at the point of a cannon by the western drug cartels of the 18th century during the Opium wars.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei only works in a nation based on democratic values. In a dictatorship all it means is some labor camp in northern china gets more manpower. Standing up in a protest on the streets of Hong Kong doesn’t mean you are a brave person willing to suffer some tear gas and beatings in order to bring your rights to the table. It just means you provide the government with the identity of anyone unwilling to submit so an example can be made.
"And so it’s wrong for anyone outside of China to express their support for them? Because they are stupid for wanting a better deal."
I’m sorry, by "express support" do you mean "Threaten China with a war of aggression spearheaded with enough armed forces to actually win" or do you mean "Nod our heads in sympathy and mouth a few empty words" which is tantamount do doing nothing?
Unless we’re willing to actually invade China and stick around for a thousand years until it has adopted western social values then the best we CAN do to offer support would be to tell the protestors "We’ve got room in the west, and we can always use more people who believe in democracy and freedom".
I don’t think it’s wrong to "express support". I just think it’s hypocrisy of the highest order since the only thing our "support" will accomplish is what it’s done for Tibet over the last 70 years – not a damn thing. At best we get to pin a label to our lapels saying "We Care" which lets us to conveniently put our conscience right back to sleep.
Those protesters currently waving their arms on the streets of hong Kong "lost" something they never really had and never could expect to retain. Right now there are two options where they recover those rights. One is which where they go some other place than China. The other one is where we threaten to start world war 3 on their behalf.
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An argument could be made that it is in fact wrong to express support if doing so encourages people to continue doing futile things you know will lead to them being harmed or killed.
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"An argument could be made that it is in fact wrong to express support if doing so encourages people to continue doing futile things you know will lead to them being harmed or killed."
It’s a very valid argument.
In western uprisings – the french revolution, the US seceding from Great Britain, etc – it’s usually the case that the revolutionaries are fighting a country which is unable to project force. By being a major ocean away, for instance, or by being too decrepit or corrupt to react in time.
When the country you are protesting is strong, unified, under active leadership and all around you then all you can accomplish is killing yourself and any others standing with you, off.
When you tell a citizen of Hong Kong you stand with him in his protests and that turns out to be what propels him onto the barricades then the only thing you’ve done is to help talk a person into suicide or martyrdom in a cause which was doomed to begin with, since the oppressor can and will go to any length to retain authority.
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How come Hong Kong is the one remaining vestige of Western Imperialism that people are still clinging to so fiercely? It was taken from China at gun-point to protect the British opium industry, but people talk about it reverting to Chinese control like China took it back by force.
Hong Kong was always China’s, it never should have had democracy to begin with. I’m amazed anyone believed they were going to allow it to stay separate after the century of British occupation was over.
All of this is irrelevant – it’s the people who live in Hong Kong who are clamoring for democracy and who are protesting the authoritarian actions of the Chinese people.
China’s actions run contrary to the choice of the people living in Hong Kong. Feel free to tell the people of Hong Kong why they are wrong to choose what they are choosing and why they should have always been under China’s boot heel.
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"All of this is irrelevant – it’s the people who live in Hong Kong who are clamoring for democracy and who are protesting the authoritarian actions of the Chinese people."
And the people who live in the Chinese province of Hong Kong will either quietly submit to Chinese rule or, should they persist, get quietly shipped off to some labor camp in northern China from which they’ll only emerge if they can demonstrate a sufficient level of brainwashed belief in the values of the People’s Republic.
That is not irrelevant – it’s factual reality.
Protestor: "They can’t kill or incarcerate all of us!"
China: "Sure we can."
"China’s actions run contrary to the choice of the people living in Hong Kong."
And China has the power to beat the resistance out of the Hong Kong citizenry – or, if need be, turn Hong Kong into Tibet 2.0. Worse still, China has the political will to go to ANY length necessary to reabsorb Hong Kong. We can say that this is wrong. That won’t change things until or unless we realistically threaten Beijing with annihilation.
"Feel free to tell the people of Hong Kong why they are wrong to choose what they are choosing and why they should have always been under China’s boot heel."
From our western perspective their choice is not wrong. But if they choose to stay then they WILL be under Chinas boot heel. Or dead.
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"Feel free to tell the people of Hong Kong why they are wrong to choose what they are choosing and why they should have always been under China’s boot heel."
Basically that’s what I do tell them. Hong kong was non-chinese for about a century. It was always going to go right back to being an imperial province. They chose to build a society which was going to be dismantled two generations down the road.
If by "wrong" you mean the moral dimension then I’d make the claim that turning yourself into a martyr and making your family and other dependants targets of chinese internal security is indeed wrong. The protestors are right now in the position of being well educated young people…whose future now has a cap on it where none of them will ever be allowed to gain fiscal or political power of any kind. Whatever ambitions they had are dead, unless they leave for other shores to pursue them.
The right option was to plan your exit as soon as it became clear that China WAS retrieving Hong Kong, in 1997.
There is some justification for the somewhat naíve outlook of Hong Kong’s early permanent settlers – the UK did not, from the start, intend to give back Hong Kong, thinking that the lease was THEIR face-saving exercise offered the chinese empire. They couldn’t envision that the China they beat so soundly with a few ships of the line would emerge as a world power in a century’s time.
Normally when you rent property you are expected to leave at the expiry of the lease. Even if you’re allowed to remain you shouldn’t expect to have a say in how the property will be run or under what rules.
If the Hong Kong protestors want to change anything at all then the one and only option is to overthrow the chinese government by force of arms. Up until they do, anything else they do is arguably only harmful to themselves.
Where do you get that Blizzard is sorry for banning Blitzchung? That has never been their position and it’s very clear/explicit that they are sorry for reacting quickly and as harsh, which is why Blitzchung’s ban time was reduced and they didn’t confiscate his winnings.
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Problematically, they have not stated what they are sorry for in clear terms.
Ergo, I can only interpret their statement to mean they are sorry for nothing significant.
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Brack literally state’s what he’s sorry for in the very quote on this article. How can you not see that? I get if you don’t like it or feel it’s not enough, but it’s literally, in the most literal definition possible, right in front of your face. I’ll even re-quote it here:
"We moved too quickly in our decision-making and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you,"
That’s not even nebulous, if still structured in corporate safe language. If you think otherwise it’s because you’re looking for more, instead of them not giving something, or imagining something that doesn’t exist.
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Yes but all that really means if you parse it is "we’re sorry you reacted so badly to our decision", or at best "we’re sorry we misjudged the public reaction". Not "we were wrong to do that" because if they believed that, they would reverse their decision.
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Ergo, I can only interpret their statement to mean they are sorry for nothing significant.
They are sorry they got caught! 🙂
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