That ToS update that ruffled some jimmies a few months ago

Once again, glad I'm on Leviathan. These problems seem to not be a big deal there, at least in my experience. Maybe we just have thicker skins than most?
As to the TOS changes; No, you can't please everyone all the time but being nice to each other can save a lot of hurt feelings.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Someone has been banned off Heartstone tournaments (And confiscated his gain) by Blizzard for expressing political opinions about Hong-Kong.

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Oh wait is this what this thread was about, I was kinda scratching my head. In any event I’m not sure what this thread is doing here since Blizzard’s wrong actions have nothing to do with Final Fantasy XIV or Square Enix...

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Originally Posted by Iscah

If that's what the OP is talking about, it's a long stretch from that incident to (I assume) saying that we should be concerned about the TOS changes or whether we should regret arguing in favour of them.

All the debate on the TOS - or certainly the vast majority of it - was about what might happen if one individual player offends another individual player. The Blizzard incident (whatever you think of how it was handled) was about someone using a company's public platform to express an opinion that may have consequences for that company's revenue and business relationships.

I don't think the two issues are comparable enough.

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They also fired and banned the casters who translated his comments for the stream.

Note that the portion of the ToS they are saying he and they broke is literally "We reserve the right to ban you if you cause offense to a portion of our community". They have 0 language about anything that can or cannot be said in any capacity as an employee, customer, consumer, competitor or in any other position or place.

In fact, their employment contracts have nothing like that (and never have) as well.

I try to live by the golden rule, do unto others as you wish done to you. If I get in trouble for being nice to people, well... I can live with that.

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Originally Posted by FedoraTheExplorer

Sorry to hear you're not allowed to be a douchebag to people without facing repercussion. I'll keep you in my thoughts.

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...you do realize that somebody would be able to report you for this exact statement right? Of course we should all be amicable to each other, but pay attention, as you go about to try & make "d*****bags" know how they crappy they are, be sure to not use literally the same exact kind of language and tone they do. You don't fight rudeness with rudeness, that's not how this works.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Someone has been banned off Heartstone tournaments (And confiscated his gain) by Blizzard for expressing political opinions about Hong-Kong.

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The guy was brave in his support for HK. He knew that he was going to be punished, most likely severely, and that his life could very well be put into danger in some ways...but he did it anyway. I admire that a great deal. Then again, I admire anyone who makes that sort of stand and is in my opinion justified. At the end of the day, he broke the rules. So Blizzard was justified in dishing out some sort of punishment. However, many have come to a consensus that the punishment didn't fit the "crime". It was too heavy handed, and was obviously meant to appease Blizzard's bestest friend ever (China). Unfortunately for Blizzard, this has backfired a great deal. Maybe not financially, but bad press is bad press. And there has been A LOT of bad press. Probably the most they've ever received, actually. Blizzcon will be interesting this year. This current debacle makes Diablo Immortal's controversy at last year's con look like nothing.

Honestly, i dont believe you're equating blizzard banning a guy to appease the chinese so they dont lose out on a pretty significant portion of their income and square's terms of service asking you not to be rude to other people in game.

Blizzard did not ban the guy because of their ToS. They're using that as an excuse. They banned him because they like money and don't wanna risk their games being banned in China.

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Originally Posted by Mavrias

Honestly, i dont believe you're equating blizzard banning a guy to appease the chinese so they dont lose out on a pretty significant portion of their income and square's terms of service asking you not to be rude to other people in game.

Blizzard did not ban the guy because of their ToS. They're using that as an excuse. They banned him because they like money and don't wanna risk their games being banned in China.

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It's a pretty big stretch yeah, at least for the moment. Anything is possible though. As far as FF XIV is concerned, China has their version and we have ours, and the 2 versions are ran very differently, and by what I consider to be 2 completely different countries and entities. So I don't think we have much to worry about since they have a version that they can change and alter as much as they want.

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Originally Posted by Mavrias

Honestly, i dont believe you're equating blizzard banning a guy to appease the chinese so they dont lose out on a pretty significant portion of their income and square's terms of service asking you not to be rude to other people in game.

Blizzard did not ban the guy because of their ToS. They're using that as an excuse. They banned him because they like money and don't wanna risk their games being banned in China.

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This is what he is referring too -- put SE in place of blizzard in that statement and that is what its about

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Originally Posted by Nomuno

This is what he is referring too -- put SE in place of blizzard in that statement and that is what its about

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If you cant understand the difference between a company making an example out of a guy so that they dont lose out on an entire market, and a ToS saying "hey guys maybe dont use slurs" idk what to tell you.

OPs post is about company's banning you for offending someone uses the not at all similar example of Blitzchung as a comparison. Its a political statement, they didnt ban him because he said someone was garbage at hearthstone.

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Originally Posted by TheForce

...you do realize that somebody would be able to report you for this exact statement right? Of course we should all be amicable to each other, but pay attention, as you go about to try & make "d*****bags" know how they crappy they are, be sure to not use literally the same exact kind of language and tone they do. You don't fight rudeness with rudeness, that's not how this works.

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Okay, thank you for your completely useless opinion. Really made me think.

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Originally Posted by Mavrias

If you cant understand the difference between a company making an example out of a guy so that they dont lose out on an entire market, and a ToS saying "hey guys maybe dont use slurs" idk what to tell you.

OPs post is about company's banning you for offending someone uses the not at all similar example of Blitzchung as a comparison. Its a political statement, they didnt ban him because he said someone was garbage at hearthstone.

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Yep. And the question here is. If what the guy did was not against Blizzard's ToS, would that have prevented Blizzard from banning him?

But I feel the bit people miss is the part that's come with the ToS: the Account Penalty Policy. What happens depends entirely on the severity of your offense and if you keep repeating it. So if you're being an a-hole about a person's rotation and they report you, the GM might be like "please don't, this is how you could handle the situation better". If you keep being an a-hole about people's rotations and lots of people have reported you for it, GM might be like "sorry mate, you have to learn, you're getting a lot of complaints, here's a temp ban", this ties in with their policy on "escalation".

The lowest level is "caution", which is them telling you what you can do to improve your behaviour. That's...nothing, really. And this is for stuff that's when what you've done is relatively minor and the person reported you.

The ToS gives an extensive list of examples, but some of those examples are pretty minor, but then they are still going to list stuff that's pretty minor, when they will caution in minor cases.

However, this is literally how moderating works in online communities...this really is nothing new, nothing special, nothing totalitarian.

But if SE wanted to abuse their power in a given situation, as long as their legal agreement covers their butt, arguably they can do what they like.

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Originally Posted by Saefinn

Yep. And the question here is. If what the guy did was not against Blizzard's ToS, would that have prevented Blizzard from banning him?

But I feel the bit people miss is the part that's come with the ToS: the Account Penalty Policy. What happens depends entirely on the severity of your offense and if you keep repeating it. So if you're being an a-hole about a person's rotation and they report you, the GM might be like "please don't, this is how you could handle the situation better". If you keep being an a-hole about people's rotations and lots of people have reported you for it, GM might be like "sorry mate, you have to learn, you're getting a lot of complaints, here's a temp ban", this ties in with their policy on "escalation".

The lowest level is "caution", which is them telling you what you can do to improve your behaviour. That's...nothing, really. And this is for stuff that's when what you've done is relatively minor and the person reported you.

The ToS gives an extensive list of examples, but some of those examples are pretty minor, but then they are still going to list stuff that's pretty minor, when they will caution in minor cases.

However, this is literally how moderating works in online communities...this really is nothing new, nothing special, nothing totalitarian.

But if SE wanted to abuse their power in a given situation, as long as their legal agreement covers their butt, arguably they can do what they like.

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Square Enix could already 86 your account at their discretion.

The following is an excerpt from the FFXIV User Agreenent, last updated in 2013.

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YOU ACQUIRE NO OWNERSHIP OR PROPERTY RIGHTS IN ANY CHARACTER OR OTHER IN-GAME VIRTUAL GOOD, AND ARE ONLY LICENSED TO USE SUCH CHARACTERS AND ASSETS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNT SUBJECT TO THE CONDITIONS SET FORTH IN THE AGREEMENTS. YOU AGREE THAT YOUR FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNT AND ANY VIRTUAL GOODS AND CHARACTERS DO NOT HAVE ANY MONETARY VALUE. SQUARE ENIX MAY SUSPEND, TERMINATE, MODIFY, OR DELETE FFXIV SERVICE ACCOUNTS, CHARACTERS, VIRTUAL GOODS, OR THE SERVICE ALTOGETHER, AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON OR FOR NO REASON, WITH OR WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY TO YOU.

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The new ToS updates just give lists of possible reasons your account might be actioned upon. I'm sure blizzard's saays something similar.

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Originally Posted by FedoraTheExplorer

Okay, thank you for your completely useless opinion. Really made me think.

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...this as well, lol. Aren't you supposed to be the guy who's against this type of stuff?

As an aside, I'm hoping that we can see a bit more regulation that is consumer friendly in regards to how businesses that operate online choose to run things. It's more than a little dodgy that people can invest a lot of time, effort and money into a game but have it all taken away from them for any reason whatsoever. It puts a bit too much power into the hands of individuals who may very well be prone to bias and from what I have heard, there isn't really a proper appeal system in place if and when things go awry. At this point, there's usually a counter in regards to how everybody agreed to the terms of service. That's absolutely true, though thankfully some courts - in Europe, at least - do not consider ever changing terms of service to be the be all and end all that many businesses would no doubt like them to be viewed as.

Obviously if people do something utterly reprehensible then they should be punished, though I think there's a lot of room for more nuance than there is at present.

The ToS is a difficult topic because if you have a system where humans are the one doing the punishment then there could always be cases were someone innocent is punished but imo these cases are probably in the minority. I doubt most of us would just be banned for nothing because we still bring in money. The situation with Blizzard was a bit different because that player used this event to make a political statement that could outright hurt the company financially. Of course they are in a way in the right to punish the player. I still believe that their punishment was way too hard and its great that the player did not care for his income and fights for human rights but its also in the right of the company to say no to that. Also what would the reaction of the people be if he had been for china? Would blizzard be attacked if they had taken him out? Would people be angry if they had not done much to him? Because if you say that someone is allowed to freely speak about political issues at a gaming event then you should also allow those views that are against the majority too.

In the end here on the forum most people that had been hit with a ban hammer deserve it. Honestly I am kinda surprised that some are still allowed to post at all. And right now I dont know about any person (at least on the forum) that was just banned for having another opinion which was posted in a nice and good way.

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

Some people didn't get the memo that "being a jerk" isn't something universally objective and it's completely subjective

"You disagree with me?!? You're a jerk!"

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I am just curious, but can you give me an example for a person being punished because they disagreed about an opinion and were nice about it? Because I remember a lot of discussion were people disagreed with each other and sometimes it got a bit more heated but none of those were punished for it. There might be some GMs that see certain behavior sooner as being a jerk then others but honestly I doubt that if you are perfectly nice in your post and just argue against the arguments itself (and not the person) that you can be punished for it.

Blizzard in pr disaster mode also claimed blitzchung the player banned, was in the wrong because of a political statement that they should only have focused on the game itself no unrelated topics, trying to pass themselves as politically neutral. However many who play or have played overwatch knows how blizzard has used it to seem morally right by making characters gay suddenly to get brownie points. So if blizzard do it, it's suddenly okay, but a player does it suddenly it's a huge offense worth taking back the prize money and a 12 month ban? Sure...

And before anyone jumps down my throat, no I'm not against gay characters as long as it's developed naturally. I'm just using a case that blizzards know to do against them.

Post by CEO if anyone wants to read through the pr nightmare.
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bliz...ers-tournament

Link will take you to blizzard site.

Will everyone reason to listen? Nope I know this well, I'm sure I'll get a few people trying argue because they just want to I guess. But US players held a sign supporting Hong kong and guess what? Weren't punished at all because ofc, china wasn't watching.

Can't edit on mobile (I don't think) purpose shouldn't be there.

Ugh, purpose shouldn't be in my initial post. If it randomly autocorrects to gibrish I'm gonna chuck my phone in the nearest river

You can edit on phone, but you will have to open the desktop version of the site in your browser wich would be crap to navigate on a phone

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Originally Posted by NealSnow

Blizzard in pr disaster mode also claimed blitzchung the player banned, was in the wrong because of a political statement that they should only have focused on the game itself no unrelated topics, trying to pass themselves as politically neutral. However many who play or have played overwatch knows how blizzard has used it to seem morally right by making characters gay suddenly to get brownie points. So if blizzard do it, it's suddenly okay, but a player does it suddenly it's a huge offense worth taking back the prize money and a 12 month ban? Sure...

And before anyone jumps down my throat, no I'm not against gay characters as long as it's developed naturally. I'm just using a case that blizzards know to do against them.

Post by CEO if anyone wants to read through the pr nightmare.
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bliz...ers-tournament

Link will take you to blizzard site.

Will everyone reason to listen? Nope I know this well, I'm sure I'll get a few people trying argue because they just want to I guess. But US players held a sign supporting Hong kong and guess what? Weren't punished at all because ofc, china wasn't watching.

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Yeah, this ended up going far beyond a single player being banned. People saw it as an attempt by Blizzard to silence anyone with opposing views which China doesn't like (which mean anything at all). We have seen at least one other company/business do the same recently. Thankfully, people got creative and turned one of Blizzard's Overwatch characters, Mei, against them by making them a symbol of resistance. Blizzard won't ban their own product and people know that. Good on them. The pressure needs to be kept on them, even though they walked back on their previous punishment a bit. That isn't the point anymore. It is good that they did that but the damage has already been done. Not to mention their PR statement on the matter was weak at best. Blizzard didn't really accomplish anything by releasing it other than showing how hypocritical they are.

Wow did a bunch of posts vanish?

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Originally Posted by NealSnow

Can't edit on mobile (I don't think) purpose shouldn't be there.

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Yeah it’s a pain I’ve had to switch into desktop mode to do edit some embarrassing typos and switch back

I think they have to keep behavior guidelines broad so that the rules are enforceable and you don't get people creatively skirting around the terminology with their trolling. It still comes down to moderator discretion on a case by case basis and so far at least I'm not aware of bans being abused in the game. The Blizzard thing was quite a unique scenario of using a competition stream as a platform to push a political view.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Unfortunately that isn't at all how it works. There's almost always a subversive element to strict rules and regulations as sinister individuals and groups figure out how best to exploit it for their own gain/silence people they do not like. Sometimes you can even see certain posters deliberately following posters across threads in an effort to rile them up. They never technically break the rules, though they will make an effort to frustrate and irritate their target. Over time, it may very well lead to their target to slip up and get hit with a ban hammer for a post made in the heat of the moment or, worse yet, taken out of context.

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Not even. You've seen what I have been banned for. :rolleyes: Lets leave it at that.

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Originally Posted by TheForce

...this as well, lol. Aren't you supposed to be the guy who's against this type of stuff?

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Who are you again?

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Originally Posted by FedoraTheExplorer

Who are you again?

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Honestly was about to ask you the same question...but eh, I don't care enough.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

At the end of the day, he broke the rules.

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Problem is, how are the rules written ? If they explicitely say "You should not express public opinions during Professional livestreams", ok he broke it.
But if it's "You shouldn't say something that might offend someone somewhere", you could literally ban anyone for any word you want, because you'll always find someone offended by it.

Worst case scenario "Have a nice day !" could be offensive for someone that just had a rough day, because it would clearly seem that you just mocked his day. Even saying "his day" could be offensive because you'd just assume that he should identify as a male...and so on.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Problem is, how are the rules written ? If they explicitely say "You should not express public opinions during Professional livestreams", ok he broke it.
But if it's "You shouldn't say something that might offend someone somewhere", you could literally ban anyone for any word you want, because you'll always find someone offended by it.

Worst case scenario "Have a nice day !" could be offensive for someone that just had a rough day, because it would clearly seem that you just mocked his day. Even saying "his day" could be offensive because you'd just assume that he should identify as a male...and so on.

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According to Blizzard:

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Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image...

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Regardless of what you think about a political statement (or Blizzard's response), it really does not belong in a broadcast regarding a game tournament and is in no way comparable to wishing someone a nice day, and certainly Blizzard would not, in its sole discretion, fault someone for the latter.

In both this and FFXIV's rule change earlier this year, it is not enough that someone can be offended, but that the company (SE or Blizzard) has to agree that it's something offensive. So worst case scenarios are merely strawman.

That said, I do think people do get offended too easily these days and are generally allowed to do so by the media/public, but on the other hand, there are still appropriate venues to express certain sentiments in public.

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

Problem is, how are the rules written ? If they explicitely say "You should not express public opinions during Professional livestreams", ok he broke it.
But if it's "You shouldn't say something that might offend someone somewhere", you could literally ban anyone for any word you want, because you'll always find someone offended by it.

Worst case scenario "Have a nice day !" could be offensive for someone that just had a rough day, because it would clearly seem that you just mocked his day. Even saying "his day" could be offensive because you'd just assume that he should identify as a male...and so on.

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I don't really think that the rules themselves, however vague, are the issue. It was the heavy handedness of the punishment that people had an issue with, along with their response on the matter. They continue to dig themselves deeper as well. As far as the public view of their company is concerned they know that it can't get much worse so I think they're just letting things ride atm.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Not even. You've seen what I have been banned for. :rolleyes: Lets leave it at that.

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Who be banning the Churro? I'll fight em.

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Originally Posted by Barraind

They also fired and banned the casters who translated his comments for the stream.

Note that the portion of the ToS they are saying he and they broke is literally "We reserve the right to ban you if you cause offense to a portion of our community". They have 0 language about anything that can or cannot be said in any capacity as an employee, customer, consumer, competitor or in any other position or place.

In fact, their employment contracts have nothing like that (and never have) as well.

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That's the same as the "company reserves the right to terminate the account/access of anyone under any circumstances we deem fit" clause that every single MMO has in their TOS. Except in the Blizzard incident, the guy was trying to use non-political for-profit platform to spread a political message. He even admitted he knew what he did would lead to him getting banned before he did it. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. They're a video game publisher for Christ's sake, what are they gonna do about the Chinese government?

They don't have to specify what language is "okay" in their TOS. They could ban someone for literally anything they wanted to because they own the event. It's a privately-ran event and company. They are ultimately a business and must remain politically neutral, so by allowing what he did to slide, it would basically be them taking a side. So, like any successful business, they took the route that kept them neutral by banning him.

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Originally Posted by YojimboM

That's the same as the "company reserves the right to terminate the account/access of anyone under any circumstances we deem fit" clause that every single MMO has in their TOS. Except in the Blizzard incident, the guy was trying to use non-political for-profit platform to spread a political message. He even admitted he knew what he did would lead to him getting banned before he did it. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. They're a video game publisher for Christ's sake, what are they gonna do about the Chinese government?

They don't have to specify what language is "okay" in their TOS. They could ban someone for literally anything they wanted to because they own the event. It's a privately-ran event and company. They are ultimately a business and must remain politically neutral, so by allowing what he did to slide, it would basically be them taking a side. So, like any successful business, they took the route that kept them neutral by banning him.

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An AU team did something similar and they were initially let off the hook, and they ended up quitting anyway because they felt it was the moral thing to do despite being offered their next match, and yes, they were offered another match instead of banned outright. And Blizzard even announced as much officially. However, despite all of that, Blizzard decided to ban them 8 days later because reasons. If they had done it when it happened I don't think many people would have batted an eye. It would have been totally fair. However, 8 days compared to a couple hours for the player's ban who started all of this? That just makes them look worse, and indecisive to boot. They either need to abide by their own terms impartially, or admit that they only do so when it causes a potential conflict with a specific market. And that goes for any company, really. They (Blizzard) are clearly not handling the PR pressure well. What goes around comes around though, and it has been a long time coming.