Uh . . . yes? These are Blizzard’s forums. Their property, their rules.
Edit:
Incidentally, free speech is not the same thing as free market.
Come to think of it, they’re only tangentially related, and that at the mechanical/logistical side.
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Every “I left game thread” excuse I have seen here have been removed because:
-
A lot of insulting and swearing, by passing the mature filter that the forums tell you the exact word you added in the topic as “not allowed”
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Political by nature.
Edit: 3. Also forgot this one but also the player was discussing disciplinary action (mostly for a recent one) in the thread for a certain account.
Which both are against the Code of Conduct.
Also free speech argument again, nice, PSA, Free Speech only works against the government, not a Private Domain.
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Blizz: Here sign this that if you’ll go political you’ll get banned with no money
Player: Sure
latter
Player: insert political quote (totally worth it -they thought)
A loud group of ppl with fake compassion and no idea who to attack and how exactly: bLiZz Is SuPpOrTiNg CoMmUnIsm…
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I don’t believe politics belong in gaming – this is why people game, to get away from politics for a little while.
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man enough that we had politics crap in general chat… kids talking about things they have no clue about they most likely google things and bring it up to general chat ingame and now they bring it in the forums. to hell with you…
Can you just leave and leave us alone, no one care about your crybaby threads
So you’re mad at them for using this forum as a social platform? How’d you get that many posts if not for participating in every meaningless topic? Unbelievable.
Yeah, they deleted mine in 1 min 15 seconds. Fortunately they can afford moderators paying yuan wages. Twice the censorship, half the price!
if a person breaks into your house and starts spray-painting all over the walls, that’s not protected speech.
If a person shouts hostile and threatening things in a crowded place, that’s not protected speech.
if a person protests actively on business grounds without express consent, that’s not protected speech.
"free speech’ is a concept that particular context of where it does, or does not apply, at there are other entities that have “right” beyond superfluous grasps of the concept at hand.
Ignorance of the law isn’t protection of the law: what you can say isn’t not necessarily the case.
If you don’t know how a thing works, why its protected, or what the actual context of the law set forth would be, then asserting ‘value’ of what others hold is disingenuous at best.
The capacity to toss out charged words does not indicate that you know what they actually indicate, or what offense is to be had, if any. Should you be so concerned about ‘ethical behavior’ you should probably delve a bit further into what that actually entails and be of such yourself.
You have the freedom to actually be knowledgeable in this regard, I suggest you go exercise that and put effort into understanding context better than irate gratification would allow 
This is also a forum intended for general discussion regarding the game. The HOTS crew nixed their official tournaments, but most of us are Blizzard fans. We play many Blizzard games. Naturally, events that are big enough to make international news concerning the company are going to be discussed. It’s big news, particularly with the Diablo: Immortal debacle fresh in our memories and BlizzCon coming soon.
While you’re technically correct that government and private entities are subject to different rules, we are used to wide latitude in this country with regard to free speech. It is a cultural norm and a basic expectation that criticism be allowed, so yes, you’re going to hear angry feedback when censorship occurs.
Blizzard isn’t just censoring this forum either. They’re censoring all of their forums hosted on blizzard.com. They’ve censored their Reddit page. They’ve deleted nearly 6,000 posts from their FB page. They’re censoring anyone with any negative feedback over their recent actions, and that sends up a lot of red flags for people. They stripped a man of his tournament win, then banned him for a year, and for what? For having the audacity to say 2 sentences in support of freedom. They even went farther than that and banned the two commentators who happened to be holding the mic when he said it too. There’s nothing right or even remotely justifiable about that action. People are going to comment when something so extreme happens. This mass censorship and failure to produce any sort of explanation or apology has only poured gasoline on the fire.
From a PR perspective, they’ve completely messed this up. They’ve ignored their customer base. When their customers criticized them, they ignored it and tried to cover it up. Their official silence on the matter only exacerbates the problem by reinforcing the original decision which has angered their customers so loudly. Blizzard has a long track record of bullheadedly supporting stupid decisions only to quietly admit they were wrong months down the line, long after any possibility of recovery has passed.
And this isn’t occurring in a bubble. It’s occurring within the context of dozens of other high profile companies, particularly in tech also engaging in censorship, overtly or covertly. It’s a major social issue and a topic of widespread debate. It’s not going to go away.
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Blizzard is not watching this forum they are watching my stream. Why would they watch the forum if you are all just being a bunch of little pu*** bit****… Toy soldiers in tin plate, babies that cry for free speech standing as one piece of sh**.
I deleted your posts and if you keep talking I will delete your face from your mirror.
LOL
“I am keeping MY account”
L O L u r so young, little boy. You own nothing. And you are nothing.
You cannot delete “your” account.
You are not allowed to leave.
You will never get rid of the soulbound link that you have with the BotNETWORK.
You are all minions.
And you will all perish, first in-game.
Then your bodies will burn in flames.
IN-LIFE
H A
H A
H A
H A
H A
ok. Thanks from all of us 
why would anyone pay for a free game?
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No, we’re not. If I walk down main street shouting obscenities, I expect to get put in jail for disorderly conduct. If I walk into a restaurant and start shouting at other guests or my server, I expect to get kicked out of the restaurant. If I’m expected to give an oral report on the history of Ottoman Empire for a college course, and instead use the time to read my erotic Carebears fan-fiction, I expect to not only fail the class, but get dropped from it entirely and possibly be heavily requested to attend some therapy sessions.
We aren’t used to latitude at all. What we are used to is the restrictions in place that allow various institutions to function at all. We’re so used to them that we don’t notice them unless we think about them.
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I think it should be noted that these forums had a long-running thread immediately after the news of the ban in Hearthstone hit… It was there, and I largely suspect that it was being allowed to continue as long as the conversation didn’t get overly hostile or directly political.
The thread is gone, but I am more than confident that it really did reach ugly dumpster fire level and needed to be deleted because it had genuinely decayed into a non-productive discussion or something entirely unrelated to Heroes of the Storm.
EDIT: I didn’t search hard enough, the thread is still present on the forums. It’s still going strong, but I think my notifications have been turned off for it. I’ve said my two bits, and I’m not wading through 100+ posts to re-engage in the discussion… But it’s still there to read.
Overall, I think there’s a huge thing being forgotten. These forums are here to discuss Heroes of the Storm, that’s all. They aren’t censoring you if they delete your in-depth analysis of the new patch in CS:GO and the impact it will have on the ranked meta in that game… They’re keeping the forums on topic.
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This is the Heroes of the Storm forum. If it isn’t about Heroes of the Storm, they have the right to delete your post.
If you don’t want to read, here:
The Heroes of the Storm forums are for discussion of topics directly related to Heroes of the Storm.
- The forums here are specifically to discuss the games and related topics. Any topics not related to Heroes of the Storm, Battle.net, or Blizzard Entertainment are subject to deletion.
Do not post about locked or deleted threads.
Posts that are moderated have a reason behind the moderation. It’s up to you to read the forum Code of Conduct and these guidelines to determine what you did wrong, learn from your mistake, and attempt to post again without breaking any rules.
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I for one wont be quiting blizzard games because YES I don’t agree with their decision of past events with this situation BUT I am not gonna deny them money by quiting their games because that will just cause people in their company who also don’t agree with that decision to be fired/layed off. also it is obvious that most people don’t agree with that decision even in their own staff. ex that walkout that was done by Blizz employees. it was a decision made by the top, not by the whole company. keep that in mind when you are like “omg I don’t like what they did im quiting”
Well, only politics I disagree with don’t belong.
“Every voice matters” That’s what blizzard claims. But their actions continuously prove this to be a lie.
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This is true, they can delete any post or thread for being off topic, in other words not related to HOTS. We all know though there are threads and posts up that are off topic and have been for a very long time, they aren’t removed.
I too don’t like politics being brought into the forums, but before they deleted the main thread, at least it wasn’t being spammed in other non related threads, you could avoid it.
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