Except When It's About China

Last week we got an amazing example of how fake corporate companies are with their messaging when it comes to social and political issues. They are there for the money, they place rainbow flags on their logos and all their social media platforms, because it's about making customers feel like they care, anything to improve that bottom line. The truth is, it all just bull shit, it's what the advertising agency along with marketing company tell them to do, it makes them look good, so they can sell more products.

The aftermath of Blizzard taking action against the Hearthstone winner saw employees walking out, and the hashtag #BoycottBlizzard trending for most of late last week and the weekend. The company released a statement saying they will reduce the winners suspension to 6 months and give back his prize money he was suppose to receive. Their reasoning is that he still broke the rules about making a political statement about a sensitive issue, and not keeping it about the game. Also apparently China had nothing to do with their decision.

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion." - Henry Steele Commager

I find this really hard to believe, just because of what happened to to NBA as well as South Park a few days before, and if you didn't catch what happened. Some coach from a NBA team said something similar about supporting the Hong Kong protesters, the official NBA came out and apologized, then so did some players, and eventually the coach as well. Then there was videos of people being told to not wear pro Hong Kong t-shits at a NBA game, also news come out today that the team in question had all their merchandise removed by Nike from stores in China. South Park dedicated an entire episode to this censorship by China and got permanently banned from China. But Blizzard wants us to believe this has nothing to do with China, seriously do they think the people are that dumb, well apparently.

"Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence." - Charles Bukowski