demagogue on 10/10/2019 at 06:50
I don't know how much this adds to the debate, but as I understood it, for a company to operate in China they have to submit by law to China's online monitoring system. So, if that applies to Blizzard (and I don't know 100% that it does, but I thought I read that it applies to all online intermediaries) then they already agreed to route all online communications to CCP servers via Upstream Collection (devices installed on fiber optic cables designed to just mirror all data passing through and route it to another server). So I mean if you're a company that's already sending personal data and communications of your users (possibly only the ones going through Chinese servers) to a CCP owned server, then this Hong Kong business is, granted still troubling, but kind of peanuts by comparison. You're already heavily compromised; what's a little more on the side so it's not all just a sunk cost? I'm sympathetic to Pyrian's point just to the extent that the only real winning move here is not to play in China.
Gryzemuis on 10/10/2019 at 14:26
I have no respect for Blizzard as a company. I think Bobby Kotick is the devil himself. I bet he would sell his grandmother if it would make him a profit. He's the type of businessman that would happily help gassing jews, while talking about stockholder-value.
Something remarkable happened this week in the NBA (American Basketball Association).
There are 30 teams in the NBA.
Each team is run by its owner, the General Manager (GM) and the coach.
Last Friday, the GM of the Houston Rockets (a nobody called Daryl Morey) tweeted: "Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong."
A few days later, the news in China picked it up.
The Chinese complained that Hong Kong is internal business and foreigners should shut up about it.
The GM removed his tweet. The owner of the Rockets apologized. The GM apologized.
Not enough for China.
They wanted the NBA to officially state that Hong Kong is part of China.
And that the protesters are rioters, China is great, etc, etc.
This year, or last year, the NBA has signed a contract with China and Chinese companies to
bring the NBA to china. That contract is worth $1.5 billion over 3 years.
So the boss of the NBA (commissioner Adam Silver) apologized too.
He made some ambivalent statements, trying to keep everybody happy.
China removed all mentioning of the Houston Rockets from the country.
And I mean:
all mentioning of the Houston Rockets.
The team was removed from the Chinese NBA website. According to China, the NBA now has 29 teams.
Tencent is the company that has the rights to the NBA for China. They removed all mentioning of the Rockets.
Private websites and blogs were all filtered to remove anything regarding the Rockets. Fora too.
The son of the founder of Tencent is owner of another NBA team, the Brooklyn Nets.
He published an open letter explaining how Hong Kong is chinese, blah blah blah.
All chinese media, companies, government are issuing the same statements, using the same words, etc.
This week it is obvious that all Chinese people, all Chinese companies, all Chinese organizations do exactly what the Chinese Communist Party wants them to do or say.
The Party controls. It did so in the past. But this week it is obvious that that is still the case.
The Chinese want us to ignore Hong Kong. And if we don't, they'll use their economic power to force us (the west) to do so.
Now the remarkable thing.
There was lots of critizing of Adam Silver's weak response. Even lots of politicians weighted in.
And then the next day, Silver's talk became more firm.
I guess they realized that whatever they did, China would not be happy unless the NBA would 100% follow China's stance on things.
I guess it took Silver a few days to get agreement from all NBA owners.
But then he was very firm: "we regret it if China is unhappy, but we stand behind the right of our employees to express their freedom of speech. If it means that our stance has financial consequences, then so be it".
Pretty amazing.
The NBA is accepting to lose a $1.5B contract, just to stand by their principals.
On the other hand, I think they have no other choice. I think that even if they wanted to please China, they couldn't do it. They can't control everybody associated with the NBA. It's a big clusterfuck for them anyway. This is probably the best thing they can do to handle the situation.
South Park also had a run-in with the Chinese this week.
The Chinese got pissed off because of something that was said in a new South Park episode.
Supposedly South Park is now banned from the Chinese Internet.
Parker and Stone have issued a statement:
Quote:
"Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn't look like Winnie the Pooh at all. Tune into our 300th episode this Wednesday at 10! Long live the great Communist Party of China. May the autumn's sorghum harvest be bountiful. We good now China?"
Of course Blizzard doesn't give a fuck. They'll do anything to make a few dollars.
Pyrian on 10/10/2019 at 17:50
It's not the ownership, it's the market. Blizzard does a lot of business in China, like, a looooot of business. (Although it remains to be seen how Epic will do with a serious test thereof?)
Twist on 10/10/2019 at 18:06
As I understand it, both Fortnite and the Epic Games Store operate in China... but maybe they just don't do enough business yet to be consequential to Tencent?
Maybe it really is just about the amount of money, but it still seems odd that Epic can do what neither Blizzard nor the NBA can do, despite having a well-known Chinese company with strong ties to the Chinese government owning nearly half their business.
Gryzemuis on 10/10/2019 at 18:40
Epic is majority-owned by Tim Sweeney. He's one of the original founders. And owns 50%+ of the shares. I got a suspicion that Sweeney has all the money that he wants. He doesn't need more. So that makes him financially independent. He might have to worry a bit about the income of Epic, as that would impact his employees. But in the end, if he doesn't want to do something, he can just say "fuck you" to anyone in the world.
When you are in that situation, it's a lot easier to make decisions.
Most companies are ran by executives who just work at the company. And maybe have a fraction of a percentage of the stock. Even if some of the original founds are still around, they often have small amounts of stock left. So the company is owned by a large set of shareholders. Individuals and investment companies, etc. In that case it will be much harder to make decisions, because a) you don't know what all the owners want, and b) it'll often be impossible to get all of them on the same page. So large companies will act the way that the executives *think* large companies would behave. And often they think "large companies need to maximize share-holder value, no matter what". So the larger a company gets, the more predictable it will become. But also harder to actually move off the beaten track. That's why I dislike large companies and large organizations. If everything was at a smaller scale, things would more controllable, and less looking like an oil tanker on a crash course.
Pyrian on 10/10/2019 at 19:52
I mean, I whole-heartedly support Sweeney's position on this, but it's an untested position AFAIK. Call me back when his business has a similar high-profile incident.
That being said, from my perspective, the value involved isn't really a distinguishing semantic factor; China could fine them a penny and it'd still be a government violating the principles of free speech.
TTK12G3 on 10/10/2019 at 23:44
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
He made some ambivalent statements, trying to keep everybody happy.
I sometimes wonder what is in the mind of a person who believes that the wolf won't bite them.
Tony_Tarantula on 14/10/2019 at 02:49
Not sure how this is a right/left topic.
But yeah. Seems like for once we all agree on something. I kind of had the scary realization this week that this Hong Kong incidents that we're now in a situation where economic pressure allows a foreign government to dictate the content of American entertainment. Not that it's entirely a new thing (because lord knows both the USA and Israel do that a lot) but I haven't seen anything this brazen that I can recall.
Meanwhile it looks like Armstrong's forecast for 2020 to be the most violent election in American history is on track to be correct: (
https://twitter.com/MattFinnFNC/status/1182481964508557313)
That's mild compared to other footage where they're mobbing people and beating the shit out of them if they catch them away from the group and screaming "GET THAT FUCKING NAZI!" while chasing people in mobs.
I came across another story and I'm sharing it hoping to disabuse the boomer mentality that "the military would just sweep in and end a conflict in a matter of days"
Well...no: (
https://www.thedailybeast.com/if-trumps-rage-brings-civil-war-where-will-the-military-stand)
Quote:
Recent polling shows that among military veterans, approval ratings for Trump are higher than among the civilian population. In my experience,
the support for Donald Trump among a large segment of the U.S. military is downright cult-like.None of this makes sense. Trump is everything the U.S. military should despise: a draft dodger, adulterer, flabby, lazy, unread, a tabloid joke for decades, and TV reality show star. During the 2016 campaign, Trump sought to brandish his non-existent national security chops by insulting Barack Obama’s generals. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. The generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country.” He hinted that as president, he would fire them. “They’d probably be different generals,” he said at NBC’s pre-election Commander-in-Chief Forum.
The man with a decades-long public record of immoral and unethical behavior, who had never served in uniform or undertook any public service to his country, tweeted juvenile insults about retired four-star generals like Colin Powell, John Allen, Stanley McChrystal, Michael Hayden and Martin Dempsey. Several of these decorated, battle-hardened generals, were life-long Republicans who had devoted their lives to serving their country. Yet they believed so strongly that Trump was a national security danger they took the extraordinary step of breaking with military tradition to criticize him publicly.
In normal times, this would have dealt a severe blow to any campaign and made a serious dent in support among the military. But the attacks by the generals, and Trump’s willingness to return fire, only endeared him to the rank and file more. The author is a former planner at the Pentagon, House Intelligence Committee member, and special assistant at the That is important because it isn't me as some crazy guy. It's leading government officials saying this.So yeah. The military might waltz in and end the conflict in a few days. Only problem is they'd be on the side of the grassroots right wing movement.