They follow the laws of countries they operate in. I don't see any problem with companies refusing to judge what is good or bad and just following the law.
Nobody is making anything up.
The pre-stated rules don't talk about politics but about offending users.
So, ok, let's say that political statements are offensive, which is a weird proposition.
This is not being enforced for other political views and statements, nor for all users, so clearly it's not applying a pre-stated rule.
I feel the backtrack blizzard did can be considered a fair excusation, and people could reasonably forgive them, but let's not lie to ourselves by treating this as "just applying the rules".
That is imposing China's rules. There is nothing illegal or even offensive about naming your gaming account "FreeHK". (Battle.net has plenty of political account names; seems like half the people in my Overwatch games are named Trump2020, and they're probably not talking about the Starcraft/Hearthstone streamer.)
Edit: I did go to actually check, and this account is currently #2 and Asia and North America, and #1 in Europe. Clearly Blizzard is aware of it, though, and has chosen to take no action.
I am not sure why everyone keeps believing this lie.
There was no rule that banned political statements.
Instead the rule was something like "we can ban anyone for doing anything that might make blizzard look bad".
It was absolutely not some specific rule about banning political statements.
Because that's totally going to happen. Countries within themselves barely function without split alliances, different parties and ambitions. Now you want 7 billion people to act as one? I'll faster reach richest guy on the planet before that happens.
Quit pretending that wishful thinking is what you should bank on for better things to happen in the world.
Clearly we have flags => different "laws".
No, get a ladder.
Because the no country, no flag idea makes people blind to finding practical solutions.
No comrade asulnatao. Since this is your first ever post with your account, they're an American company imposing Chinese censorship upon Americans and other nations. That's a hard no go. They follow whatever law they need to in their established foreign entities. But none of that spills out to anywhere else.
Oh my god, that's funny. Especially since I've been posting anti-communist since, well, forever and even today. Good try there homie. Oh, that was funny. I actually laughed out loud.
And also that's fine. Ban me. But remember, when they silence everyone else, there's no one left to speak up for you.
Which is congruous with you being a GRU operative, or even a CCP shill spreading black propaganda by making poor arguments.
> And also that's fine. Ban me. But remember, when they silence everyone else, there's no one left to speak up for you.
Stop being melodramatic. Somebody disagreed with you on HN, you're not getting sent to a death camp. Plus you weren't exactly "speaking up" for me in the first place.