That ToS update that ruffled some jimmies a few months ago

[YojimboM]

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.

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.

[Vahlnir]

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.

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.