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Comment by coralreef | Hacker News Reader

Propose that a suspended player is a US citizen. This feels unconstitutional / illegal, as Blizzard has taken away the player's ability to earn a living based in their political views. The guise of suspension under the violation of "disparagement" feels weak.

I'd be interested in seeing how a lawsuit plays out.

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Nope, they can do whatever they want. The contract allows them to.

But it's not a matter of whether or not this was a legal move or not, it's the intent and what it has shed light onto that is the actual real problem.

China is controlling our media and it is becoming harder and harder to ignore. Companies have to watch their step when saying anything because if China, for god knows what reason, decides that something that comes from you does not fall in line with their ideology, be it a line of dialogue in your movie, or a flag in a videogame, or a winning player's speech in this case... Well, good luck without that chinese market.

It could mean death for some companies, so everyone does their best to try to avoid the issue altogether. Now it's fairly easy to do so, but what about the future? Is this not alarming?

Sure, keep politics out of games. Let's keep it out of movies as well. And books. Let's not talk about politics altogheter, not even on social media, or China might decide that the company you're working for does not get to work with them until they fire you.

It might sound exaggerated and reeks of slippery-slope fallacy. Is it? Personally, I think not.

This has to stop.

Unconstitutional? Like, did you try to read first amendment? Here it is:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So, did Congress of the USA have to do anything about it? No, "free speech" does not mean you can say anything you want without facing consequences from people who hired you or your friends. Blizzard hired player to play in tournament, and they can fire him if they want. There is nothing illegal in Blizzard's actions.

Morally, though...

> No, "free speech" does not mean you can say anything you want without facing consequences from people who hired you or your friends. Blizzard hired player to play in tournament, and they can fire him if they want. There is nothing illegal in Blizzard's actions.

The only ones that hold these sorts of views are the ones with nothing interesting to say.

>> Morally, though

>The only ones that hold these sorts of views are the ones with nothing interesting to say.

I'm confused by your response; what is it you are trying to say?

They were making a legal description of why the 1st amendment doesn't prevent a private entity from censoring; not a moral one.

From a legal perspective, they are right. The constitution prevents the government (and only the government) from restricting speech.

If this guy was going to jail or being fined by the US Government because he said FreeHK, then that would be a rights violation.

He isn't going to jail; so, now it is up to the terms of his contract with Blizzard/EA as to whether there is a Civil or Criminal legal violation (and any applicable labor laws in whatever jurisdiction can be applied); and even if there is a legal violation, that would be a contract law issue and not a rights law issue (or a local labor law issue).

The biggest clue that you're involved in a strawman is your quoting a part of the other poster that I didn't quote and applying it to my response.

Fine, I'll be more specific about my problem with your statement:

To me, it sounded like you were judging the previous poster as if he was making a moral defense of Blizzard/EAs actions.

While skipping the section of his email where he alluded to their actions being immoral -- thus doing the same thing to them that you are claiming I did to you.

The comment I quoted mirrors a very common sentiment a segment of the population uses to defend their shitty behavior, and I was pointing out that this sentiment only truly makes sense to those who have nothing inoffensive to say.

Whether that applies to the poster in question or not, I couldn't tell you.

thanks. that's the kind of clarification i was requesting.

It is illegal for a company to punish an employee for political demonstrations.

He's not an employee though. And in general, if you do your protest on company time using company resources and damaging the company (by i.e. saying from their Twitter account that $largeCustomer is evil and stupid), would you still be protected?

That varies on a state-by-state basis. Even in states like California where it's illegal to discriminate based on political beliefs or activities, there's still some wiggle room for a company to fire someone if their activities make the company look bad or make someone's coworkers feel uncomfortable.

There is no law or constitutional provision in the US that says you can’t refuse to work with someone for their political views.

It's kind of unfortunate. It's like there's free speech, but the reality is almost everyone needs to work to live, and by way of working, their freedom of speech is effectively revoked.

EEOC makes it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin; why can't political views and speech said outside of the workplace be a part of that?

Very slippery slope, friend. Practically anything can be construed as political views and/or speech. You're asking for a police state.

Free speech protects you from the government, not your peers.

In this case was there a contract between the player and Blizzard? Did this violate that contract?

The part of the contract they say was violated was that you cannot do anything Blizzard deems to have offended someone or bring you into public disrepute.

So, yeah, I'm pretty sure he violated that. And Blizzard's response has too. It's really just a catch-all trivial to violate provision.

A lawsuit doesn't depend on the law or constitution.

As a separate note, the player and hosts would likely be considered to be contractors, not employees.

A successful or even interesting lawsuit does in fact depend on the law.

If you try to sue someone for violating a law that doesn't exist, they will make a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, and the judge will throw out the lawsuit.

idk man it sounds like discrimination to me.

Discrimination is not illegal except when it is discrimination against particular protected classes -- federally, this includes race/nationality/citizenship, religion, sex, age, disability, or veteran status. A private company is free to discriminate on the basis of political belief.

That's not to say it is right or acceptable, but it isn't illegal.

It's legal to discriminate as long as it's not a protected class.

There are some states, like CA, where discrimination based on political views is illegal, but it’s practically-speaking not too hard for an employer to find a more traditional performance reason that may be related to political views. Caveat: IANAL

Source: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...

Even then, that refers to employees specifically, and the person in question is probably not a Blizzard employees.

Not all types of discrimination are illegal - in particular, the GP is stating that refusing to do business with people of a certain political leaning is not illegal.

US law protects against discrimination for protected groups (race, religion, age, etc.). Political views are not a protected group.

> Propose that a suspended player is a US citizen.

Like Colin Kaepernick? That just happened like 3 years ago, has everyone already forgotten?

If I recall correctly, Colin was never suspended or prevented from playing.

He suspects he was blacklisted by owners/NFL by not being signed in free agency, but that may be difficult to prove.

The President publicly and privately leaned on the NFL to punish him and anyone else who took a knee. https://outline.com/Z3fhtB I think what we already know about that is more worrying than the NFL hypothetically deciding on their own to blacklist him.

Players were, and still are, prevented from kneeling during the Anthem.

EDIT: It seems like official NFL policy has varied drastically over the past few years. But even if its not necessarily by official policy, you can bet that players are intimidated by the calls of the sitting US President to fire them if they kneel out of line.

Which players have been prevented from kneeling? Kaepernick famously did it until he left the 49ers. His former teammate Eric Reid is still doing it— I saw him kneel three days ago before a game.

Its not as big of a deal in 2019. But here's an article from 2018.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/405497-no-nfl-p...

A quick google search suggests that in the US only California, New York, and D.C. protect against discrimination based on political views[1]. But can act if that view affects performance (at least in California)[2].

1: https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/political-aff... 2: https://californiaemploymentlaw.foxrothschild.com/2018/10/ar...

Oh damn, that'd be interesting. And since Blizzard is a California company (well, based here?) that might work....

(since such laws are a state thing, not a US thing)

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