I’m not well-versed in laws and trade agreements, so I won’t even begin to try and explain why that part is important, but here’s an article detailing why Hong Kong is important to China. It should be enough to explain why threatening the special status is notable.
The last part of the bill summary is fairly important, directly targeting those that violate human rights.
The full text of the bill also says this will also cause sanctions.
The actual or threatened rendition, arbitrary detention, torture, or forced confession of any individual in Hong Kong.
Another important part of the full text
ASSET BLOCKING.—The President shall exercise all of the powers granted to the President under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to the extent necessary to block and prohibit all transactions in property and interests in property of a foreign person identified in the report
The Weibo tweet stating about the glory of China, it’s a standard way to sign off things in China and the tweet was written over there for their audiences. This is a cultural difference that if Blizzard drew attention to directly it would likely just result in more people getting the wrong idea from it. (ie. ‘God bless America’ stated between Americans or in a footnote).
The initial ban was too harsh and likely handed down by someone who knew they had to punish Blitz for breaking the rules but had no specific punishment listed with the rule and thus did so too harshly.
This was then amended by the CEO.
The only communication from Blizzard stated that it was not due to pressure from China or due to the content of his message. People had already had a couple of days to rile up against Blizzard and most immediately dismissed this possibility.
Those same people are now complaining that Bizzard isn’t communicating better, but really if what Blizzard said was true, what do you want from them? You already showed you don’t believe them.
This is the part people are ignoring.
It’s why this “Free Hong Kong” thing is such an issue in China.
Those protesters are essentially asking to secede from the country as HK in fact part of China, as per the 1997 agreement between the UK and China.
https:// en .wikipedia. org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong (Sorry, wiki is fastest for those not wanting a full legal text document).
Note, this territory belonged to China until it was taken and then ultimately returned to where it belonged. It is rather unfortunate that some in HK do not like or fully understand the legal situation they are in, however, what they are doing is asking for secession from the mainland, which, looking at our own history here, causes a response from the government.
“Hong Kong belongs to China, but it has its own currency, political system and cultural identity. Many Hong Kong residents don’t see themselves as Chinese, but rather as Hong Kongers.” (Link below)
This view, of not seeing themselves as Chinese, is similar to that of citizens in Guam, Puerto Rico and American Samoa. While they see themselves as separate, the reality is, they’re just as much America as Hong Kong is China.
As for police v protesters, I find it hilarious that people are so quick to judge the police in other countries but turn a blind eye to the things police do in America, but hey, their life to live I guess.
Just a reminder, this all started because of a murder committed by a HK citizen who fled from justice, which prompted the extradition bill which has been getting all of the attention.
It’s a shame that nobody seems to care about the murdered young woman or her family.
Even though some here play down what Blizzard’s actions have been, the United States government disagrees with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOr9U8WRxYA
Information in that segment actually shows the NBA not being as bad as Blizzard, which I didn’t know was the case. They actually stuck up for American values like freedom of speech. Bellular News 10/21
The NBA issue started with them actually tweeting out in support of Hong Kong.
The Blizzard situation is people reading into their actions so much that they’ve convinced themselves the only reason Blizzard could want a Hearthstone stream to be about Hearthstone is because China.
That isn’t the ‘government’ it’s from a couple of politicians looking to show they support this movement to keep companies supporting American values etc, so they chose Blizzard because according to the media atm that’s not what Blizzard is doing.
Politicians will do whatever they can to garner public favor, especially when something as simple as writing a letter gets them the amount of free good publicity that this one has.
The five members who sent the letter to Blizzard did not do it to stick up for American values. Im sorry but thats just not whats happening here. What we are seeing are five potential presidential candidates looking at this situation and going “Oh, free good PR and free votes” and moving in on it. The absolute LAST thing anyone wants is the government starting to make the calls. All it would take would be four or five bad calls by people who know next to nothing about video games for them to completely upheave the video game industry and probably cause more problems then solutions. If you ever trust a politician you are being fooled. It is really as simple as that. Their job is to get people to vote for them. No matter what
Five, five politicians.
Out of literally hundreds.
It was not signed by the house or ratified at all, people need to learn how congress works.
People seem to have forgotten all about this since a drop in the bucket of politicians sent a letter to corporations under no legal obligation to listen to what the letter actually said.
This, isn’t a new thing at all here in the states.
People will latch onto any crumb of suspicion and run with it.
It’s how people like Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and Donald Trump got so popular. They speak to that irrational paranoia of people.
Hence what I have said… constantly. People are literally using every single God damned thing they can find to try to stick it to Blizzard whether is makes sense or not. Its gotten so damn bad that people are calling others Chinese spies and Blizzard shills for disagreeing that the politicians actually care… THE POLITICIANS… the people who lie every single day in an effort to get votes. At this point I wouldnt be surprised if Blizzard legitimately removed Pres.Xi and people complain saying they did it in a “sleazy” way.
Because China making the calls is so much better. rolls eyes
“Obviously, we made clear that we were being asked to fire him by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business,” Silver said. “We said, 'There’s no chance that’s happening. There’s no chance we’ll even discipline him.”’
This is the kind of thing they do. They then deny it. I remember when the Chinese Govt leaked a video of them hacking a University site, and then after the video was pulled straight up denied their own video. Hilarious.
That moment when I blankly just hit edit and confirm only to realize I actually clicked delete and confirm… my God I am losing more braincells by the day lmao
Oh I saw that. Not gonna lie that was pretty friggin funny. And I meant no gov in video games for anything. I believe Movies, Tv, Games, books, etc should only ever be interfered by the gov if the product is actively lying to its consumer and uses practices (such as loot boxes) to loop people into spending constantly. Especially in games rated T or below. HOWEVER this would come with restrictions to how much the gov can change because lets be honest. The minute politicians see another money slot they will go for it as hard as possible. I may have my disagreements with ya but I would hope we can both agree on this
