As GGG is owned by TenCent..

"

xMustard wrote:

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

A little study of history will reveal what a delightful anomoly true free speech has been. What a powerful tool of oppression the censorship of free speech can be. How easily social progress can be halted by limiting the free flow of ideas and opinions.

New Zealand was one of the first places on the planet to allow women to study or hold political office. They have been leaders in environmental protection laws and other areas of 'social progress' for over a century: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1809/S00279/new-zealand-places-10th-in-the-world-in-social-progress.htm

I can't imagine these advances for humanity were won with the 'their game, their rules' mentality, even though it is understandable.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

here is the point - nobody is saying you can't talk or hold an opinion about this subject matter. you just can't do it here.
and my question is, why would you want to do it here anyway? who would you be preaching to? lol

guess what? if you come to my house, you damn sure couldn't say anything you wanted to either. right now you're in GGGs house. this is not a hard concept to grasp. it has nothing to do with free speech, it has to do with manners and consideration.

imagine if there was no off-topic at all. everyone just had to stay on topic on this forum which is the game. i'd actually enjoy that, cause then we'd blow away any discussions like this.

If I came to your house of course I could say whatever I wanted to. There might be consequences for said speech, but I can do it as long as want until you do some action to force me to quit. Now, as you said, there are manners and decorum to take into consideration. If I want to stay hanging out your house, or come back in the future, I might choose to suppress my speech. However in those cases I am making the choice. They are not forced upon me.

When it comes to politics things are out of control these days because everyone seems to think the American “attack politics” is the norm. In reality they are just too ignorant to understand that style was adopted because it is the easiest way to confuse and brainwash the uneducated/unintelligent. When they see politicians AND the media stack and attack and attack those they don’t like, they copy those mannerisms.

When it comes to forums I agree with the no politics rule in general. I say that because there is no educational requirement to post on forums. While this is a generalization, past data has shown that most forum goers would fall closer to the ignorant than the informed. Thus political discussions will assume the attack route instead of the discussion route. With the anonymity of the internet you will get people that join in just to be disruptive as well. That leads to an eventual devolvement of the topics and emotions to rile for little gain. It is better to just not go down that rabbit hole to begin with.

"

fomori2 wrote:

If I came to your house of course I could say whatever I wanted to. There might be consequences for said speech, but I can do it as long as want until you do some action to force me to quit. Now, as you said, there are manners and decorum to take into consideration. If I want to stay hanging out your house, or come back in the future, I might choose to suppress my speech. However in those cases I am making the choice. They are not forced upon me.

yes you're correct.
it stands true here too. the rule is no political talk anymore (changed well before this fiasco as well), so don't be surprised or scream oppression when you talk political and get warned or banned or thread removed etc.
people use that as an excuse to say "wah censorship" when in reality you're just breaking the rules.

so when you bring this topic up and it gets snuffed out, it isn't like it has anything to do with GGG being owned by tencent or that "mah chinese overlords" or anything - all it has to do with is the forum rules were broken, agree with them or not. (but by posting here you've already agreed to them)

"

xMustard wrote:

im talking about restraint. even if you have free speech it doesn't mean you should freely speak anything you want.

Under the assumption that we have free speech(which we don't have) that is exactly what it means.

As for your other argument, why do we talk about anime or literature in off-topic? Clearly because a few members of the community are interested in it and started a thread about it.

Why would a sub-section of the off-topic community want to talk about politics? Because a thread was made about it that others replied to under no obligation to do so similar to all the other threads going on in there.

We have the ability to not talk about anime is that a logical argument to not do it?
If you don't see my point when i push your argument to the extreme then i can't do much.
You make a distinction between politics and anime because one doesn't bother you specifically and the other does.
To me there would be no difference if GGG decided to ban anime tomorrow.

There is a reason why i argue off-topic should be closed. If it no longer has the function to discuss topics unrelated to PoE with community members it has lost its purpose.

Anyway have a good night we can agree to disagree, i don't think people need to justify their topics to you,me or anybody in off-topic if they don't violate any laws or basic conduct principles(as outlined in the ToS before the latest rule was added)
but clearly GGG has a different opinion.

Peace,

-Boem-

I'm with xMustard on this.
But I do applaud people who will not stand idly witnessing injustice.
And appreciate the sacrifices they made for their cause.
But they have to face the consequence of doing it in Blizzard's house rules.

Face it gracefully and fight the good cause.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

As with all good arguments, we have ended up on points of semantics.

Different definitions of things like:
Rules, Politics, Censorship, Laws, Ownership, Public, Private, Freedom, Choice

The original thread was talking about censorship of chat and accounts being banned. This is not inherently political, though of course you are free to make that asssumption.

Subsequent responses have hit upon an ongoing discussion in many country's as to what exactly is a public forum, and what exactly is censorship.
Recent rulings in the U.S. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-ongoing-challenge-to-define-free-speech/public-forum-social-media/
seem to suggest, for our U.S. posters, that while you are free to define this forum as private, it is more likely to fall under the public domain, since GGG has used it to make public announcements and has encouraged public discourse here. In New Zealand, where it matters in this instance, the same is even more likely to hold true: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_New_Zealand#Freedom_of_speech

So there is a valid argument that GGG is allowed to discriminate against viewpoints that do not break any laws (such as slander and hatespeech). Likewise, one could argue that they are not allowed to do such things, either pointing to New Zealand law, or toward the various moral/ethical arguments that would precede laws if they did not currently exist.

In either interpretation, the option to choose is a separate issue to GGG actually choosing to, or a discussion about the reasons they choose to.

This is a separate issue again as to whether the POE forums are an appropriate place for members of the public to want to talk about GGG, Tencent, or politics in general.

I empathise with GGG who are under pressure to 'do something' about cyberbullying, who have pressures from all sides: players, investors, regulators, industry body's, staff, market forces, and resource restrictions.

While I don't think these are all realistic wants, I nevertheless want a world where, having found a forum full of posters I find intelligent and thoughtful, I can have chats about wide and varied topics without censorship. I want a world where the understandable fear of things like cyberbullying does not rule decisions about expressing viewpoints. I want a world where videogames offer the chance to learn about other aspects of life. Where people's viewpoints are respectfully challenged, and this considered a wonderful thing. Where the 'appropriate place' to discuss viewpoints and opinions is ... everywhere. Even XMustard's house :). I would prefer, if GGG were being pressured into censoring the forums illegally/unethically, their management would choose to resist, even if the cost is high.

"

element274 wrote:

I'm with xMustard on this.
But I do applaud people who will not stand idly witnessing injustice.
And appreciate the sacrifices they made for their cause.
But they have to face the consequence of doing it in Blizzard's house rules.

Face it gracefully and fight the good cause.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

Lol, except for he's not a good man, and made no sacrifices. It was a publicity stunt abusing a random subject he knew lots of people felt strongly about.

I can guarantee if that stuff weren't going down, he would have tried going on about whatever other trendy thing to discuss was happening.

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

A little study of history will reveal what a delightful anomoly true free speech has been. What a powerful tool of oppression the censorship of free speech can be. How easily social progress can be halted by limiting the free flow of ideas and opinions.

New Zealand was one of the first places on the planet to allow women to study or hold political office. They have been leaders in environmental protection laws and other areas of 'social progress' for over a century: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1809/S00279/new-zealand-places-10th-in-the-world-in-social-progress.htm

I can't imagine these advances for humanity were won with the 'their game, their rules' mentality, even though it is understandable.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Hitler had free speech and look what he did with it.

Sometimes censorship is a good thing.

(because some people are braindead, i'm implying that censoring Hitler would have been a good thing, not the censorship he imposed).

funny thing is, some people think applying a facebook filter or doing whatever on twitter is a way of "fighting injustice" and the like.

"

xMustard wrote:

"

HelicanV wrote:

Can we expect our chats to be censored and accounts banned ala Blizzard for wrongspeak?

what would you like to say?


you know what i think is funny. when all these conservatives and people scream about censorship. "wah wah i even got banned from my BANK for what i post on TWITTER! oh noooooes"

is that bad? yeah ok sure. but why do people like this feel the need to scream their politics and opinions at other groups of people over twitter, or general chat in a fucking video game, or even on these forums?
and if you do really feel the need to do it, then why are you surprised if other people don't like it and take it down?

stop feeling the need to express every single one of your opinions and political views on medias like this and you won't have a problem.
stop posting all your words and views on twitter and facebook cause of "mah free speech". if you do it just because you can, you're the dick.

Jesus. It's actually scary to read this knowing you're not using sarcasm.

"

Asmosis wrote:

"

grimlock9999 wrote:

A little study of history will reveal what a delightful anomoly true free speech has been. What a powerful tool of oppression the censorship of free speech can be. How easily social progress can be halted by limiting the free flow of ideas and opinions.

New Zealand was one of the first places on the planet to allow women to study or hold political office. They have been leaders in environmental protection laws and other areas of 'social progress' for over a century: http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1809/S00279/new-zealand-places-10th-in-the-world-in-social-progress.htm

I can't imagine these advances for humanity were won with the 'their game, their rules' mentality, even though it is understandable.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Hitler had free speech and look what he did with it.

Sometimes censorship is a good thing.

(because some people are braindead, i'm implying that censoring Hitler would have been a good thing, not the censorship he imposed).

Holy hell. Yea Hitler drank water as well, which of course means if you drink water you're on the same path. What the actual fuck is that logic.