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Blizzard Suspends Hearthstone Player For Hong Kong Support, Pulls Prize Money


SimpleG

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It's a crock, but I am glad they decided to hand out the prize money. They still really should not have punished the casters, and unless he's allowed back into Grandmasters (still not clear to me if that's the case), it's still far too much punishment.

 

 

I just imagine if someone had put on a MAGA hat and shouted "Make America Great Again" on the official stream, they'd have cut away, the casters would have laughed, twich chat would have had a field day, and there'd probably have been a message from Blizzard telling people not to engage in political speech on official streams. I doubt anyone would have been banned and it's really hard to imagine the casters getting suspended.

 

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Blizzard is banning people in its Hearthstone Twitch chat for pro-Hong Kong statements (The Verge)

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In February, Blizzard announced a new Hearthstone e-sports program, called the Masters Tour, to pit the game’s best players against each other for a chance to win the acclaim of the internet (and potentially a lot of money). A European leg of the tour is currently happening in Bucharest, and you can catch the action over on Twitch.

 

But there’s a catch: anybody who posts anything pro-Hong Kong seems to be earning an automatic 24-hour chat ban, as reported by Dot Esports. (On Twitch, a chat ban means that you can’t post anything in a channel’s chat for a certain amount of time; offenses and ban lengths are both specified by moderators.)

 

 

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21 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

Blizzard is banning people in its Hearthstone Twitch chat for pro-Hong Kong statements (The Verge)

Well, TBF, it is probably being spammed. Spam of any kind usually gets shut down if it gets bad enough. Like, you think Dr. Disrespect let people spam about him cheating on his wife? 

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2 minutes ago, Bacon said:

Well, TBF, it is probably being spammed. Spam of any kind usually gets shut down if it gets bad enough. Like, you think Dr. Disrespect let people spam about him cheating on his wife? 

When I was watching streams recently the entire chat was nothing but Hong Kong spam, I was actually surprised they didn't start banning people immediately. Maybe they thought it would only last a day or so.

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2 hours ago, TwinIon said:

When I was watching streams recently the entire chat was nothing but Hong Kong spam, I was actually surprised they didn't start banning people immediately. Maybe they thought it would only last a day or so.

 

Heck check out that tweet by Nintendo that ended up with all the responses about Hong Kong. :p

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's the text for anyone who doesn't want to watch.

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We moved too quickly in our decision, and then, to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk with all of you. We didn’t live up to the high standards we set for ourselves. We failed in our purpose.

I am sorry and I accept accountability. What exactly is our purpose? BlizzCon is demonstrating it as we speak. We aspire to bring the world together in epic entertainment. I truly believe in the positive power of video games.

When we get it right, we create a common ground where the community comes together to compete, connect, and play, irrespective of the things that divide us. BlizzCon has people from 59 countries all around the world at the show today. That is amazing. That is the positive power of video games — to transcend divisions around us. We will do better going forward. But our actions are going to matter more than any of these words. As you walk around this weekend, I hope it’s clear how committed we are to people expressing themselves.

We’ve seen many of you expressing yourselves this morning.

Today you’re going to see a lot of the hard work of the Blizzard team. I am personally so proud of what we are building and I hope you love it too. Thank you for joining us.

 

 

6 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Empty apology -- they didn't recind the ban.

It does seem like a slightly odd thing to make a big deal about this by opening up Blizzcon with an apology and not actually do anything about it. It's great that they've promised to do better, but they could do better now by changing the bans. Rehire the casters, keep Blitzchung in GM, make a clear policy about what people can say on official broadcasts and what the punishments are instead leaving it under the vague blanket policy. 

 

It's not like they haven't had time to figure this out.

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So Blizzard's perspective is that, of course you want players to express themselves, except for when it's taking place through official channels?

That's right.

Is it fair to say that if Blitzchung had said any political message, it would have incurred the same punishment? It wasn't that he was specifically calling for Hong Kong's freedom, it was that he was saying anything political?

That's correct. The content was not the problem. It was the fact that it was not about the game in question, it was something very specifically different. I think, and I don't want to speculate around if he had said this, that, or the other, and how would it have gone—I think that's a difficult thing to think about, but it's not about the content of his message. There are many people that are supportive of him and his message.

 

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  • 1 month later...

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