Just wanted to start a topic where we can look at these issues as adults.
Lets start with the main issue, Blizzard’s decision on Blitzchung.
First of all, Blizzard is a gaming company, not a political party. Their goal is to make games and profit. It is in any multinational company’s interest to NOT be involved in politics, because they risk appeasing one and alienating the other.
For those that say Blizzard is pro China, that is not correct. Blizzard banned Blitzchung because he used them as a forum to promote and publish his personal political opinion. Which is against their company rules and detrimental to their company image. They made it very clear, it is an unbiased decision.
It is not wrong for Blizzard to protect themselves. I have no doubt if it was a Chinese player that said something like “I detest all the HK protesters”, Blizzard would bann him in the blink of an eye.
For those that say its about freedom of speech, it’s not. Many people think freedom of speech means you should be allowed publish whatever opinion you want, that is a misconception. The first amendment only covers the government. All private companies have the right to enforce whatever opinion they sees fit. Read this up if you don’t believe me.
However this is increasingly becoming blurred as the government is trying to tighten its grip on big social media companies over the so called misinformation campaigns.
If you look at facebook, twitter, youtube etc, they are now actively deleting accounts, comments, posts that are not in line with the government’s bipartisan agendas. This is well documented and lawful for them to do so. You can easily try this by posting some comments against democracy on say, newyorktimes, and see if it gets published. You have no freedom of speech under private company rules and that is the law.
However, Blizzard being a company that is not influential in changing public opinion, doesn’t really need to follow those rules. Blizzard, being a gaming company, just wants to remain impartial. And there is nothing wrong with that.
Now, lets move on to the Hong Kong protests, a majority of people i spoke to just don’t know enough about it. They think it’s a pro democracy movement and so it should be supported, they don’t know what caused it, what happened in between or what happened afterwards.
So let me explain.
The protest originated from an extradition bill, which was introduced (according to HK government) to bring a HK citizen who murdered his girlfriend in Taiwan to justice, and to do that, he needs to be extradited to Taiwan for trial.
Now, this is a true case, but whether the bill is introduced because of this case, is of debate. All we know now unfortunately, is this criminal will be released soon to roam free in HK because he can’t be extradited.
The problem with the case was that HK does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan. The bill was allegedly proposed to fill that loophole. However, Taiwan is not recognised as a country, it is still officially regarded as a part of China by the majority of the world, it would be unconstitutional to have a treaty with just Taiwan. The only way was to include Taiwan as part of China in the bill.
However, a major issue is this would allow people to be extradited to China as well. Which large numbers of Hong Kong residents sees as a flood gate opened for China to prosecute anyone they want and extradite them to China for unfair political prosecution.
*** Opinion***I personally agree with those concerns, given that possibility is real and overall this is a very crudely proposed bill which did not take Hong Kong residents’ public opinions into mind. *** Opinion end***
The following week, a large protest occurred, reportedly involving (300k according to police, 2mil according to organiser) people taking to the streets to voice their opposition. This is initially relatively peaceful, with some protesters blocking the road, throwing stones and other none lethal objects at police, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullet rounds.
This is where things went down hill. The HK government initially refused to back down, they suspended the bill but refused to withdraw it completely. Many protests followed in the later weeks with an escalation of violence on both sides.
One incident occurred where triad thugs dressed in white with weapons attacked people dressed in black (protester’s preferred colour) indiscriminately at a train station. The police took over 40 minutes to respond and arrive at the scene, by the time the thugs have already fled. This incident was massively publicised by protesters and pro protest media as a collusion between the police and triads to intimidate the protesters.
Police’s response is that there were multiple large protests at different areas in Hong Kong that night, they were simply short of staff, while there were 2 officers on site, but they deemed it unsafe to intervene given the large number of triad members and instead they called for back up.
*** Opinion*** There are many different opinions on this incident, almost all the protesters believe there is collusion between police and triads. However the locals living at the attack scene says the triads are just angry because the protests are affecting their businesses, which mainly thrives off main land Chinese tourists, who are deterred by the protests. There are also official reports of 3 large protests that night at various locations in HK, where the majority of police force has been deployed to deal with. Though 40 minutes is a horrendously long time to respond, it is not out of the ordinary, given we’ve seen worse police response times in western country when nothing major is happening. What I also don’t understand is, why would the police collude with triads that attacks people indiscriminately and then be filmed by hundreds of people? to turn the public opinion against themselves? There is absolutely no gain for the government or the police to do so. So saying police are colluding with triads makes no sense to me. *** Opinion end***
The protester’s view of the police hit a historical low after that incident, with a majority of them completely losing trust and respect for the police and became increasing violent in later protests.
The situation severely escalated when the protesters took over HK airport and shut it down for 2 days, due to a combined factor of refusal by government to withdraw the bill and an incident where a protester was shot in the eye by a rubber bullet whom could lose her sight.
Protesters blocked all traffic to and from airport, stranding tourists, beaten a Chinese reporter unconscious and chained a Chinese main lander whom they believed is an undercover cop to a trolley and beat him.
From here onward, the protest continued weekly but with both side being increasingly violent in their approach, many videos surfaced of protesters gang up to beat police with hammers, metal poles, throwing molotov cocktails, defacing government buildings, damaging public transport systems, building blockades to set on fire, and digging up roads for bricks to throw.
Videos also surfaced of police beating protesters, not wearing badges, firing tear gas, rubber bullets at incorrect angles which can potentially cause serious injury, and being overly violent in arresting protesters.
The unrest eventually caused the HK government to withdraw the extradition bill. However, the protesters believe this is “too little, too late”. their demands have grown to five:
- Withdraw the extradition bill
- Independent inquiry on police brutality
- The release of arrested protesters,
- Retraction of the official characterisation of the protests as “riots”
- Universal suffrage
*** Opinion***This is where I’d like to insert some of my personal opinion. The demand on police inquiry is what i believe to be completely justified, there has been documented incidents where police have been overly brutal, though in comparison with other countries such as the french yellow vests incident or US police, they are relatively mild offences, but they are offences nonetheless, and police breaking the law should be seriously brought to justice.
The third and fourth demands are in my opinion unreasonable. There are many protesters arrested because they are extremely violent and committed many criminal acts, there will be no rule of law in HK if the police started releasing criminals, who would ever follow the rules again if they know they can just get away with it?
As for classification of “riot”. That is unfortunately exactly what it is, the violent acts by protesters are well beyond mere protests. Those acts are actually what defined the word “Riot”, you can look this up in the dictionary, the government is not wrong on the characterisation.
Universal suffrage, while i agree with the ideal wholeheartedly, but that is what it is, an ideal. The britons ruled HK as a colony without providing universal suffrage or genuine democracy, what makes you believe China will? In 2047, it is almost certain Hong Kong will be integrated into China, so what is the point in demanding universal suffrage now?*** Opinion***
The HK government made it clear that it won’t entertain the other 4 demands. The protests became increasingly violent, with more petrol bombs thrown, protester move to destroy as much public structures as possible, moving on to destroying shops that they believe has links to China, bashing and seriously injuring other citizens with a different opinion, while the fight with police continued.
Until another incident happened, where a mob of protesters are chasing a lone cop, pushed him onto the ground and bashed him furiously with hammers and metal poles, police back up arrived, the protester refused to back down, and in this chaotic situation, a police officer fired his gun and hit a masked protester in the chest.
The protester was an 18 year old student, he survived. But you can imagine the furore that followed. Police says he is saving his colleagues life, protesters says this is murder.
The fight continues, with protesters burning banks, burning train stations, even though the protester numbers are significantly less, but they are becoming increasingly radical. More and more innocent people are getting injured.
This is the situation of HK, for those of you that still think it’s a peaceful protest for democracy, this is the sad reality for you. We are living in a war zone that might not end anytime soon.
###Please keep your reply civilised and CONSTRUCTIVE. love to see different opinions on this topic.
###for clarification, I am an American/Australian citizen living in HK, i am of Korean/HK/German heritage, so no i am not a Chinese bot.