Blizzard removes player from Grandmasters and banned him

[devurandom]

Blizzard has removed Blitzchung from Grandmasters and banned him from competing in Hearthstone following his on-stream Hong Kong protest.
https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/92 ... ng-protest

[Ribby]

I think a response would go something angry to the point that the context may violate the board rules. Now, I would complain about the mistreatment in a emotive sense, but it won't sell as a paralegal jargon as expected from the rules. I will try to speak from a paralegal sense then.

Blizzard banned this dude for the sake of saving their reputation on the line. They are not really a government agency tied to national(-ism) interests. It's like they treat their events like the world Olympics, all athletes are to act accordingly. Non-participating nations usually are in some crisis that influences the world.

[devurandom]

I don't blame this kid for pushing his commercial into the contest. People need to ask themselves why HK protesters are so determined?

Complaints have been lodged with the U.N. Human Rights Council, that China is engaged in the practice
of Forced Organ Harvesting of minorities and dissidents. Once people understand that, it makes sense why
HK people are fighting the extradition to China Law.

People fail to see this as the real reason, because it isn't being covered much by the news around the world.

Blizzard was caught up in the aftermath in an online protest by hoards of people canceling their accounts, after they banned the kid from GrandMasters and took his prize money. But to their credit they have since relented, and given back the prize money.

[Ribby]

I read from new sources that it's something like the Red Purge instances, like police led persecution, like politicide if you say. In history, De-Stalinization led to a Hundred Flowers Campaign, which was pretty much a stage of a whole Red Purge campaign instance.

Back to the games, the dude mentioned the protest after the game so it's not really much of a publicity stunt. Glad that he got his earnings. It's hard to get into those contests with big payoffs.

[devurandom]

Situation there seems different from a Red-Purge. China has Re-education camps to hold 1-2 million people.

According to a report, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang China region.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... SKBN1KV1SU

In other reports some people were tortured, die, and others go missing from those internment camps.
https://supchina.com/2018/08/22/xinjian ... n-muslims/

[Ribby]

2 million sounds a bit risky. One mess up, and the water breaks out the dam.

Anywhom, let's not get too off-subject (blame the rules, not me).

I was just mentioning the historical background of the protest, referring from one generation to the next. There might be refugees from possible persecution in a earlier period, where the following anti-Rightist campaign took place. That campaign is one of the many examples following the original Red/Great Purge. Reason and justification may include the need to quell secessions or civil wars, stop Nazi uprisings, or crack down on usurpations/coups. However, these post WW2 governments established leftist principles as their own version of Allies coalition. Sometimes dissent might be considered too Axis or dangerous for the political entities to endure. It's technically like as if WW2 has not really ended completely, even though there are plenty of WW2 trials.

---

Yes, the fact that the game company temporarily banned him sucks. I think it's an understandable move. It's like protecting from further incidents like the more infamous 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Now that, is more public and open than the Hundred Flowers Campaign. I certainly hope that there are no 1989 demonstrators currently residing in Hong Kong. If that's the case as well (I haven't read anything about that yet! It's probably top-secret/classified/confidential), that's a doozy. Then it's definitely time to check for insurance.

[devurandom]

They don't keep all those people locked up in the same place. I've watched several documentaries now about it.
Saw one on youtube that aired on HBO from Vice, that used secret camera's.

I never thought I'd see a post WWII government with re-education camps, after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Hong Kong is an autonomous region of China, meaning they're not supposed to be under communist rule until 2050, in an agreement, when England gave back control of the region to China.

The western Xinjiang China region, is supposed to also be an autonomous region, but now is completely under
communist rule.

Beijing has a lot of influence over the HK government, but as long as people can still protest in HK, to prevent authoritarian communist rule, why wouldn't they do that. I don't blame that kid for getting himself in trouble with Blizzard. Maybe Blizzard, and other western companies aren't aware of the situation in China, because its not being widely reported on.