If you go to someone else’s house and start yelling out profanities or racial/homophobic slurs and get kicked out, is that a violation of your 1A rights? No, not at all. These forums and this game is Blizzards house. Play by their rules and there’s no problems. Don’t and get kicked. Same would apply to someone at my house. I have every right to kick you out. You can go somewhere else and spew your garbage, I can’t stop you. But I can stop you from doing it in my home.
3 Likes
Because they’re a private company and can make the rules they want about what’s said on their forums. They do it because of the reason any company does anything, to protect their bottom line. Letting their platform be a hotbed of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc, etc. would hurt their brand and their profits. They know there’s more people against that sort of garbage than for it. So it makes no sense financially to alienate them.
1 Like
Like I said much earlier in this thread, I don’t think that would be a bad thing in the case of this game. I tend to be of the mind that these forums have since their inception, done more harm than good.
I still remember how in the Beta Forums the ‘banished one’ (you guys know who I mean) used to attack players with his MVPs. Sometimes you’d see wall to wall Green Text with the same King Mosh animated Avatars, and all of them were using language that I would not repeat. Ever.
Because of that, I often have wondered how many more players and how much more successful WoW would of been if we were spared the inherent rotten and petty behaviors that are often on full display on these forums.
The Forums were especially horrific in Classic. The way that some of the posters treated Eyonix, Batta, and in particular Tseric is something I will never be alright with. All of them deserved a whole lot better. All of them deserved basic human respect and it was not given.
Food for thought. Be excellent to eachother. 
Couldn’t make it through the title without cringing. You have no clue what free speech is in the US, let alone what the first amendment stands for.
Because people say crazy stuff that causes people to feel unsafe. Ask how Kanye is doing.
It doesn’t guarantee freedom of platform or freedom from consequences.
No, that isn’t the problem because they are private entities and taking away the agency for people to choose what they want on them is a HUGE issue. You don’t get the right to walk around saying hateful things and not face repercussions. On the internet, you are subject to the TOS you agree to. Whether the company should or shouldn’t be able to starts infringing on the companies rights too, and sadly those matter more than individuals.
Let alone when it comes to hate speech, or hateful things. You do not have a right to say that stuff, and you will get banned from almost everything but twitter these days for that, as it should be. Again…you have the right to say that sure, but you have no right to say it without repercussions. That isn’t what freedom of speech is.
1 Like
I agree with everything you said. But I’d like to pose this ethics question to you as a hypothetical: If on the other hand: If The Hateful people were the paying majority would Blizzard then cater to there vitriol because Blizzard did not want to financially alienate them.?
I see you’ve read The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism.
Cater to? No.
It might land closer to tacit approval.
Mostly.
And a blizzard has a right to refuse to host whatever speech they want on these forums or in game.
My guess is that Blizzard does not want to financially alienate any paying customer. But due to financial necessity Blizz might just take sides as they did during the Hong Kong incident.
Probably. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, in the end the primary function of Blizzard is to make a profit. If the powers that be at the company saw more profit potential catering to, I dunno, evangelical white nationalist homophobic gun nuts it wouldn’t make sense financially for them not to.
Some might think they wouldn’t on ethical grounds, but ethics have zero place in corporate capitalism. They’ll do anything for another dime. It’s only laws and a government willing to enforce the laws that can keep them in check. Don’t have to look too far back in history to see what unfettered capitalism is like.
And besides, ActiBlizz has Call of Duty for that part of the market.
1 Like
You don’t get arrested for yelling and calling someone a mean name, that’s just being sensitive
1 Like
As an American I couldn’t care less about what someone thinks about me. Don’t like it? I don’t care mindset
1 Like
There is nothing wrong with free speech, you’re just sensitive to the point of wanting to be sensitive
1 Like
You know this is an opinion, right? I’m not really looking to argue its validity, but there is heaps of evidence for and against the notion. As it turns out, stupid people can be pretty dangerous with an idea, and just as stubborn as an intelligent person.
Free speech doesnt exist on the Internet.
I think the profanity filter is fine, but they shouldn’t punish players for using profanity.
Same goes for every other words or turn of phrase, imo.
How do you know a person is good if they never have a chance to be anything but good?
1 Like
They enforce the rules only when it severs them. But we already knew that didn’t we.
1 Like
The only solution for Blizzard would be to put a disclaimer in the forums. I have seen this disclaimer used on many medias. Specially Tv talkshows, Interviews, Movies, Documentaries, etc.
Disclaimer Would read something like this:
“The opinions presented in this forum, do not necessarily represent those of Blizzard or any of it’s associates or employees.”
I think that would do it legally.
1 Like
Tell me you have exactly zero understanding of the First Amendment without telling me you have zero understanding of the First Amendment.
1 Like
You did not quote my full statement. So here it is:
"Blizzard has imposed rules against using certain types of language. We take that for granted. Most players are aware of this. Blizzard also punishes violations to it’s rules.
But why? Take into account that most players are late teens and adults. Parents can set up profanity filters and so can individuals. One player can mute another player so they don’t read what that player types. So If parents can protect their kids who play Wow. And the rest are adults. Why the censorship. Specially in the forums? Who does Blizzard think they are protecting?
Why not let people say whatever they want to say. Let people express themselves. If other people don’t like what is said. Just don’t continue reading that post.
The United States constitution guarantees freedom of speech. It guarantees freedom from censorship by government agencies. Unfortunately it does not cover private entities. Here lies a fundamental problem. Since This impacts Social media/forums.
So any private company can censor speech. But is that a mistake? In essence, what has happened is private companies think that they can act as censors effectively negating the constitution. I would think that the constitution’s freedom of speech would supersede Blizzard policies at least in spirit if not by direct law.
In other words If the Ideal is that the Government should not restrict free speech. Then wouldn’t that be the Ideal for all sectors of society?
But to be Honest, I don’t know what the solution to this conundrum is? So I will turn to you the forum visitor and ask for your opinion.
Having said that. What do you think as a forum visitor about Censorship of the forum?
Do you think the forum should not be censored at all?
Do you think it should be censored more strictly?
Do you think it should be moderately censored?
Do you think the forum moderators can be fair about the decisions they make?
I’m asking you for an honest opinion.
Thank you."
So I did make mention of the basics. Then went on to ask several questions.