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Comment by calcifer | Hacker News Reader

> Blizzard should not pick a side.

Not picking a side is siding with the status quo, which is Chinese oppression in Hong Kong.

Not picking a side is not allowing political discussion, no matter who you (or they) perceive to be right. Coincidentally, this is also the choice that makes most sense to a corporation which stands to lose a lot from picking a side. Players will likely respond to sensationalist reporting of this case, but forget about it soon after, while the Chinese government is not gonna go easy on Blizzard picking the other side.

But nearly every large company in America engages in political discussion when they talk about diversity, feminism, and inclusion. I think that's a good thing, but it's clearly not the case that these companies shy away from making progressive statements.

All they are doing is saying things which a certain audience wants to hear. Nobody really cares about inclusion or diversity. They just claim to do so, because in this day and age, they will benefit from doing so.

That player has forced blizzard to appear as though they endorsed the protesters.

Being protesters for freedom, they ironically did not respect another (unrelated) entity's freedom to choose.

The freedom to oppress is no freedom at all

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments/flamebait to Hacker News?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It doesn't cost large companies any money to make feel-good progressive political statements on social media.

However when it conflicts with their pocketbook, they stay quiet or internally oppose them (example: Zuckerberg trashing Warren for antitrust and privacy issues).

There shouldn't be room for such cowardice to exist in this world.

In other words they do pick a side - they side with Chinese government, because the communist party has a leverage on them.

But we have a leverage too!

If we manage to damage their brand and profit, they may decide that censorship is not to their benefit.

We need to be loud and clear - communism will not be tolerated. Otherwise, it will start to creep trough Blizzard and many other companies, and limit our freedoms too.

Which is exactly how sports leagues operate, be they FIFA, the Olympic Committee, the NFL, the NBA...

If you expect them to be the high water mark of social justice, you're going to be deeply disappointed.

(Meanwhile, various tech firms have been criticized for picking a side, or allegedly picking a side in social conflicts over the past few years... Damned if you do, damned if you don't, apparently.)

Blizzard is much more directly supported by money from its customers, it's very easy to boycott online games provider.

Didn't the NFL had an issue with kneeling a while ago? Did they fire the players?

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