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Comment by saagarjha | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) we seem to normalize violating the rights of minors.

The rights that were violated were those of the publisher, by government censorship. They have the right to free expression, and Chinese officials will imprison them by force if they use it.

Are you saying that companies have a right to distribute their work, for profit, unlimitedly? Regardless of how dangerous, addictive, financially ruinous, or socially destructive it is?

First of all, the publishers were able to release the original game, but what was limited was their audience. If there were “rights” violated, it would be the minors’.

Secondly, restricting minors from certain acts is very common in most countries because they aren’t old enough to know better.

It is very common in western countries to forbid stores to sell alcohol and tobacco to minors. Would you argue that the store owner’s rights were violated?

No, they were required to institute cooldown timers for minors to be allowed to publish it. The same goes for Blizzard. Their original, unmodified game, as published in the rest of the world, is censored in China by media censorship laws.

Selling alcohol and tobacco aren’t expression, authoring and publishing creative works is. Please do not conflate the two.

Why should minors have the same rights as adults?

One argument for this is that these rights are granted to humans, not adults.

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