Then we have to boycott Hearthstone.
While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle.
Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions.
The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.
If that is indeed the way, then our society and the discourse therein is no longer free, and the CCP has won.
We need to keep these firms in our mind. We need to keep a list of when this happens, and we need to sanction this as best as we can. Similarly, anyone standing up to censorship should have our support.
I can be pro HK, or I can be pro China, and I can voice opinions because doing so either way is an equally valid form of free expression. But it can not be that one side gets pre-emptively censored to appease the CCP, or any actor with the power to DEFINE the bar of what is reasonable expression of opinions.
>Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions.
I think Blizzard has a legitimate "time and place" argument here. They shouldn't regulate competitors speech across the board but I think it's reasonable to mandate that interviews associated with official events focus on Hearthstone and stay away from controversial topics.
Of course Blizzard really stepped into it by citing the "brings you into public disrepute" rule. That makes them look like their taking China's side. And this is a full on Streisand effect. The banning brought way more attention (at least in the West) than the initial interview did. Few of us would have even known it happened without hte banning.
If they had just kicked him out of the tournament, I'd definitely be on that side of things. I don't want a world where all competitions are full of people yelling about hot-button issues. But banning him for a year is so obviously disproportionate, it's hard to see how it could have happened if not for fear of China.
It more than "looks like" Blizzard is taking China's side. They have outright said that they are in their chinese language statement
> We strongly condemn the player and the casters on what happened in the game last weekend ,and we firmly DISAPPROVE people to state their own political POV in any tournament. The player will be banned from the tournament,and the casters will never be granted the chance to cast any official tournament from now on. Besides,we will firmly PROTECT THE PRIDE OF THE COUNTRY just like what we always do.
(translation taken from another comment on HN, google finds lots of sources with similar translations, including news articles from reputable papers)
>https://truth.bahamut.com.tw/s01/201910/acd1e702747963b5e6d6... I'm a heartstone player from Taiwan. Just here to share information from another aspect. The picture above is the comment from the official hearthstone account on China social website. (the V means verified) translation:We strongly condemn the player and the casters on what happened in the game last weekend ,and we firmly DISAPPROVE people to state their own political POV in any tournament.The player will be banned from the tournament,and the casters will never be granted the chance to cast any official tournament from now on. Besides,we will firmly PROTECT THE PRIDE OF THE COUNTRY just like what we always do.
——
Remember Blizzard is also the company that prominently feature Pride during many Overwatch events on western streams - but didn’t show the same content on Eastern streams.
I’m deleting anything I have of Blizzard-Activision not because it’ll hurt their bottom line, but so I can know I’m doing the right thing for this particular situation.
It seems account deletion is mysteriously unavailable at the moment for me due to 'too many attempts' and now my 2nd factor verification had been blocked :|
EDIT: nm, was on the wrong subdomain. Account removal requested & all my blizzard games gone. I hope they'll ask me why.
> In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions.
Who is "our" in this? If you mean USA, then are you sure about your claim? Eg: "Guy chooses to kneel on the field because kids were getting shot, guy gets canned.". How is that significantly different than what is happening in this case?
I suspect that few people who dislike Blizzard's response like the NFL's response. They are similar cases, but the first one was punishing an American, only seen by Americans to applease an American audience. The HK issue is punishing someone, seen globally, to appease a foreign audience.
Honestly, you've changed my mind right here about the NFL issue by putting it into this perspective.
I always thought Kaepernick had the right to kneel, but that the NFL had the right to bench the player as well.
I thought the President, being a US citizen, also had the right to be raucous about the issue as many politicians were, as long as it didn't extend into actual executive action.
The reason people in the US might find this action offensive (the reason I do) is because it supports a communist government and I'm sick of US-based MNCs cow-tailing to China instead of taking a principled stand for Western values, but that should include the NFL supporting Kaepernick's right to free expression as well.
Perhaps the same reasoning can extend to so-called "cancel culture" of people getting fired for expressing their private opinions online.
I think it’s a bit different. In this case you’re economically punishing the responsible party - not trying to raise awareness (make a scene).
I can silently stop playing Hearthstone and the effect would be felt. I’m not wasting other people’s time or breaking a contract.
In regards to the kneeling specifically, my impression was it was free publicity to the players. Honestly, looked like they were taking advantage of the situation, a way to get free press for themselves. I know I wasn’t the only person who felt this. That’s likely part of the reason they were canned.
Ah yes, how dare those black players lift their heads up and 'make a scene'. What grifters they are, taking advantage of their blackness to promote themselves.
I agree with your position but it is at odd with the general de-platforming movement. Where banning people from platforms where they can express their opinion seems to be now an acceptable form of political discourse.
That's not what's happening. People are being de-platformed for carrying out or inciting harassment and violence. The only thing that's changed is that we've decided that it's unacceptable to hide behind passive speech when it's obvious to a reasonable observer what you mean to do. E.g., "I heard there might be a fire in this theater!", "My friend says there's a fire in this theater!", "It'd be great if someone yelled 'Fire!' in this theater," might not get you criminally prosecuted, but it's perfectly reasonable for a theater to ban you after the nth time that you've made an alarmist reference to fire on their premises.
Well, sometimes subjectivity is necessary. Our systems of justice are loaded with reasonability and community standards tests, because the ultimate arbiter of right or wrong in cases of harassment or morality often is, "Did it make someone feel bad?". I guess that sucks for the people who don't care about making others feels bad, but having to consider what your actions (speech is an action) might mean for others down the line is generally considered prudent. All that's happened now is that that notion's been given teeth.
Give me a break. When companies censor speech HN likes, it's all about how we have to boycott companies to preserve our society. When it's speech HN doesn't like, it's all about how censorship is actually good and that companies are just "showing people the door" via their freedom of association.
People around here need to make up their minds. If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle, and that means tolerating speech you don't like too. You don't get to just lean on freedom of speech selectively.
The hypocrisy of supporting corporate censorship against things you like and opposing it against things you don't --- well, it's breathtaking.
> If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle
Why? I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "Blizzard, you should ban people who make racist statements from your tournaments, but you should allow people whose who voice support for pro-democracy protestors to compete. And if you decide not to do that, I won't watch your tourneys or buy your games."
Are you saying that I am a hypocrite for liking the contents of some speech but not others, and acting on that preference? Note that no one is saying the government should use its monopoly on force to ban speech - we are talking about private action.
> Are you saying that I am a hypocrite for liking the contents of some speech but not others
Not OP, but I believe they are talking about objecting to censorship ostensibly because of freedom of speech, and then not objecting to other censorship.
If you don't believe in freedom of speech then there is no issue, if you do, you can object to the content of someone's speech, but not their right to express it. That is, if you care about not being a hypocrite.
If you believe in some kind of censorship, that's great, we probably agree on a lot. You just can't take that position and believe in freedom of speech. If you believe in freedom of speech you object to the content of speech you find objectionable, not the right to say it.
This is an extremely naive view of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not unlimited. Your freedom of speech does not supercede my right to not have to constantly put up with your toxic bullshit on my platform.
Your freedom of speech also does not create in me an obligation to give you a megaphone. My freedom of speech, however, gives me the prerogative and the moral duty to take back my megaphone if I find you to be using it to hurt people.
> This is an extremely naive view of freedom of speech.
It's just a definition, I'm not presenting any opinions. The first definition you can find on Google says:
"the right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint."
If you are "for" any kind of censorship, even of hateful views, then you can't be also for freedom of speech, by definition.
> ..your toxic bullshit on my platform.
I hope you don't feel I've been 'toxic', I thought we were having a friendly discussion.
> Your freedom of speech also does not create in me an obligation to give you a megaphone.
I didn't say that it did. I didn't say a lot of the things you're commenting on. I just said that if you care about being consistent and not hypocritical, you can't claim to be for certain kinds of censorship and also freedom of speech.
"your" above was hypothetical. I had no intention of referring to you in particular, just "you" as the rhetorical character opposite to "me", because I think inventing whole jew characters and giving them names Alice and Bob style is odious.
I contend that the Google definition you quoted is bad, or at least incomplete. Taking away a loaned megaphone is a type of censorship. It is also a type of speech: you are "saying" that you no longer want to amplify that person's ideas. It is necessarily both.
To be a free speech absolutist is to say that the New York Times must publish every nonsense article every 8 year old sends them, because editorial curation is a kind of censorship.
> To be a free speech absolutist is to say that the New York Times must publish every nonsense article every 8 year old sends them, because editorial curation is a kind of censorship.
This is a straw man argument and not what it means at all. I feel like we've found where we diverge though. I'm using the American definition of freedom of speech, it's true that other countries may have similar rights that are defined differently and with restrictions. In my view though, the definition includes the words "all" or "any" and precludes restrictions. You either have the right and are able to express 'any' ideas or you don't have it.
You've created a false dichotomy between an absolute right to free speech and absolute disregard for free speech.
There's a third possibility, which is to believe that freedom of speech is an important right, but not an absolute right that trumps all others.
One version of this belief says that freedom of speech is useful to society because it allows dissenting views to be resolved through debate rather than violent conflict. It would be reasonable to argue that speech that incites or promotes violent conflict doesn't qualify for protection on these grounds.
Another version of this belief says that freedom of speech is just, because society should only intrude on an individual's freedom (e.g. by preventing them from speaking) when the exercise of that freedom threatens another individual's freedom. Again, speech that incites or promotes intruding on other people's freedom, to an extent greater than the intrusion caused by preventing the speech, could reasonably be excluded from protection on these grounds.
It's obvious how either of these beliefs about free speech would be compatible with censoring speech that promotes violence or the overthrow of democracy, while at the same time being compatible with objecting to the censorship of other speech.
But here's where it gets interesting for me. From the point of view of the Chinese Communist Party, the demonstrators in Hong Kong are threatening the stability of a society that within living memory has seen periods of instability that killed millions. From their point of view, the demonstrators are acting violently and putting millions of lives at risk.
I wouldn't personally argue that speaking out in favour of the demonstrators is promoting violence. But the line is less clear than I'd like.
"the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc."
> If you want to object to censorship, great. But if you do, you need to do it as a general principle, and that means tolerating speech you don't like too.
Sorry, but I don't see a world where supporting open, self-proclaimed Nazis is the same as supporting advocacy for democracy.
I can believe that we should drown out the Nazis and amplify the voice of democracy. That doesn't make me a hypocrite. That makes me someone with an ethos.
- 2009 Red Dawn remake originally filmed to use China as the invaders but was edited to use North Korea afterwards [0]
- Apparently the same thing was done for the 2011 game Homefront [0]
This is a tangent, but the "Red Dawn" example is kind of amusing to me because in 2009, a China-is-the-new-Cold-War-Russia film seems patently offensive to Chinese and Chinese-Americans, even without Chinese government political pressure. That the filmmakers belatedly switched the villains to North Korea is kind of offensive to me as an Asian, since it seems to reveal a thought process of "let's just make any Asians the villains".
In 1984, Russia as the villains makes sense since we were several decades into the Cold War at that point. Putting aside the fact that they are hugely valuable trade allies, we have never been at war with China, or (at least in 2009) been involved in any kind of proxy conflict along the scale of Afghanistan and Vietnam. Making China the new Russia is as off-putting as making Mexico the villains of a "Red Dawn" remake.
If the rationale is: "Well, only China makes sense because they're the only rival superpower left". That still leaves unanswered the obvious question of: why do we need this kind of military occupation fantasy at all? Or, if realism truly is a concern, and the filmmaker's artistic passion for the military occupation genre, then why not remake it with the U.S. as the invading superpower, and the hero resistance being, well, just about any other country (doesn't even have to be Middle Eastern)?
The cynical answer to the latter question, of course, is that such a movie would be so denounced by American public figures (political and non-political) that the studio/fillmaker would be effectively blacklisted from mainstream U.S. business. Much like releasing a "China is the Bad Others!" film would be if you wanted mainstream Chinese patronage.
”We’re strongly dissatisfied and oppose Adam Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right to freedom of expression,” CCTV said in a statement. “We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech.”
Chinese state television clearly stating that the organization (and government that manages it) does not hold to the principles China agreed to when they voted in favor of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which reads:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."
There's also South Park being banned in China because of an episode that depicted the way everyone tries to please the Chinese government. Oh the irony.
According to random people online that speak Mandarin, the statement the NBA released on Chinese social media was DRASTICALLY different from their English statement. Paraphrasing slightly, the English statement was along the lines of "we're sorry if he hurt your feelings". The Mandarin one was more like "we're sorry that these wrong and despicable statements were made".
Would "having links to the chinese government" make the cut for this list? because if so, you can add Tencent, and by extension Epic games, Reddit and Riot games.
Seems kind of nuts that a country with such a drastically different governance and economic model is allowed to exert (effectively direct) control over so many companies. Seems like a glaring weakness.
> Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle.
Boycott the Hearthstone pro players/streamers.
Blizzard won't notice the money from a couple hundred people going away. The streamers/pros on the other hand will most certainly notice even a couple of people going away and will leave Hearthstone to rot.
Once the pros leave Hearthstone for another game, Hearthstone will die. THAT will get Blizzard's attention.
There are non-Blizzard alternatives to most (if not all) of Blizzard's offerings. Magic: The Gathering Online instead of Hearthstone. League of Legends or other MOBAs instead of Overwatch. SW:TOR, Shroud of the Avatar, or even Destiny to scratch the MMO itch.
The first thing I did when hearing this news is look into how I could delete my Hearthsone account. This sets such a dangerous precedent if Blizzard gets away with no consequences.
1. Chinese government didn't involve this. It's pure Blizzard's behavior.
2. As you said, you can boycott Hearthstone or Blizzard as the consequence of their actions
3. Meanwhile, Chinese players can also boycott them as well as the consequence of Blizzard's ignorance
4. So at the end, it's Blizzard's decision based on their interest
The idea of "cancel culture" is generally surrounding boycotting people for opinions unrelated to what they are doing. Blizzard suspending the Hearthstone player could be considered "cancel culture," although I don't really think it fits super well, but boycotting Blizzard is protesting a specific action that happened recently, not an irrelevant opinion or statement they have apologized for. It is standing up for the ideals of free speech, not shutting them down.
>tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.
No, very simply they are protesting censorship, which is the opposite of what you're implying.
You are saying that boycotting is itself censorship- no, it is a tool, that can be used by many people, with many POVs, and like most tools it can be used as a weapon either in defense of liberty or against it.
> "a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion"
Umm... yeah... but... oh boy... okay look, I AGREE with your ultimate conclusion here. But I think you might need a new rubric which with to argue it. Because as-written, this calls to mind half of all social interaction within United States culture today.
To differentiate these things, you have to tap dance around the "non-insulting opinions" qualifier. Which is kind of a mess, because we've largely coalesced around the idea that insult should be determined by the insulted.
I do think there's a great (and obvious) point here. I'd love to see it phrased differently, because that might be helpful more broadly.
> we've largely coalesced around the idea that insult should be defined by the insulted.
I know that is not an opinion I share. I suspect it is not one many people share at all. I think it's just the one of a vocal minority on the far left.
Ideas have a place in the open. If they're going to die somewhere, it needs to be in public discourse.
> I think it's just the one of a vocal minority on the far left.
I think you might be allowing your bias to zero in on one particular group here. Outrage politics is everyone's tool these days, not just one "side" (if you insist on picking sides).
I don't consider myself to be on either side, but a counterpoint for you to consider: "if you're not with us, you're against us", or "pry my guns from my cold dead hands"..
These are examples of using ideological offence to an idea or concept as a way to shut down discourse.
> I don't consider myself to be on either side, but a counterpoint for you to consider: "if you're not with us, you're against us", or "pry my guns from my cold dead hands"
You’re mixing up two different things. There’s a difference between shutting down discourse, and expressing an unwillingness to compromise. The two examples you give are the latter. There is nothing wrong with being unwilling to compromise, and expressing that in an emotional way (e.g. the Resist movement).
Is it a bias? I definitely intended to zero in. My bubble is a bunch of podcasts and NYMag articles in which I'm told that the people wanting to shut down speech are doing so to protect ourselves from hateful speech at the expense of expression, discussion, and dissent.
If that is everyone's tool then can we agree that my calling out of one group was bad, but that the sentiment against the idea is correct?
I think you mean "side" as political party or ideology in a way that I don't hold, unless you actually mean siding with "insults should be defined by the insulted" versus "not necessarily."
Can you elaborate on your examples and how they counter something that I claimed? I read both as examples of rhetoric that are best countered by continued discourse and not the false dichotomy presented:
1) you are either permanently an opponent or will accept my idea
2) you are required to engage in violence with me to resolve our difference
I can't find the original comment so some of the context is missing (I can find my comment, though).
It happened during an event sponsored by Blizzard. Player may have their opinions but they are paid (through prizes) and broadcast by Blizzard. It means that Blizzard gets to set the rules about what can be said. And in case it wasn't obvious, it is explicitly stated in the competition rules.
There is a difference between tolerating Blitzchung's opinions and letting him hijack an interview to make a political statement that has nothing to do with Hearthstone. I mean, he appeared wearing goggles and a gas mask, and the first (an only) thing he said was "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" in a post-game interview.
I disagree but don't think you should be downvoted.
I wouldn't say it is explicitly stated in the rules – the rule they cite prohibits "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."
Which is basically a catch-all for, if we decide we don't like it, we can prohibit it.
Doubt that would be justiciable in most countries, other wise you could sack a Premier league player because they supported a particular political party.
Gaming companies cant set up pro leagues and treat players as if it was still football in the 1950's
UK, 2018: Pep Guardiola has been fined £20,000 by the Football Association (FA) [..] after wearing a yellow ribbon supporting political prisoners in his native Catalonia.
The NFL suspended Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem. That's mild compared hijacking a speech with a gasmask and calling for revolution.
Kaepernick was not suspended by the NFL at any point during the anthem protests. Neither was he fined. There is nothing in the NFL rulebook about what you should do during the anthem.
Kaepernick suspects that his activism is the reason no team has signed him since he became a free agent. And he may be right. But he was not fired, suspended, or in any way punished officially for what he did.
Fair enough. I don't really follow football. I still think that he would have been suspended if he put on a black panther beret and called for a revolution.
> There is a difference between tolerating Blitzchung's opinions and letting him hijack an interview to make a political statement that has nothing to do with Hearthstone. I mean, he appeared wearing goggles and a gas mask, and the first (an only) thing he said was "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times" in a post-game interview.
Wow, that is really offensive. I can see why they would ban him for a year for saying such horrible things.
Look I understand that we need to have free expression and free speech. Absolutely. But a business wants to protect itself from negative political reputation. If the gamer was talking about say LGBT rights, and his opinions were considered against the current acceptable position on the matter, and then he was banned, I am sure everyone would have applauded blizzard.
Let us not put burden of being politically correct on free market corporations.
> Let us not put burden of being politically correct on free market corporations.
Isn't that what blizz just did? They were worried about political correctness so they banned someone?
> his opinions were considered against the current acceptable position on the matter, and then he was banned, I am sure everyone would have applauded blizzard.
Supporting HK protests is very different from falsely claiming that the hiring bar was lowered for women (it said this in the doc, I know enough people at Google who participate in hiring committee to know that it was a false statement).
Fair enough. I could have used a different example. Though might be worth a thought experiment might be worth considering if people would in fact confirm they treated women differently in hiring process.
Yeah, it's a tricky situation. This could be dismissed with the phrase "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences" that gets bandied about when certain people get deplatformed.
By going after Blizzard for suspending this guy for his speech, you're saying that you care more about the targets than the action. That certain actions are ok as long as we're hurting the right people.
So that's what they actually have to defend. They can't hide behind "free speech" now that it's speech they support. They have to make the case as to why this speech should get a pass while other speech should not.
FWIW worth, I have limited knowledge of gaming communities. Most of my concern have been with behavior of twitter when it comes to policing content, specially anti-Islam content which violates blasphemy laws in certain countries like Pakistan. For long time I was of the opinion that twitter is wrong in the way it bans people or removes content which violates these laws. And that twitter should stop operating in those countries instead. Since then I have changed my views about this. I think twitter as a company has every right to operate where ever it pleases and if it means adhering to local laws, so be it.
There rule specifies that offensive speech is something that is not allowed. I assumed that same rule will apply to all kinds of offensive speech, including the hong kong related comment. I, for one, dont want people to use platform likes those to spew say homophobic comments. If that means they have deal with all such comments which may be deemed offensive have to be banned, so be it.
I have made similar set of argument, but against a religion. That an archaic religious dogma is winning over 21st century progressive principles. I got shut and banned for displaying something-phobia.
Not sure if you're talking about here or somewhere Blizzardy, but as far as here goes: you're right—religious flamewar isn't allowed, you've posted such comments before, and we ban accounts that do that. Comments like these, which users correctly flagged, would probably have gotten you banned here if we had seen them:
I hope that what people see is that we've been in a cultural war with China for 20+ years. Now that the Chinese market is big enough, Western companies are dropping any standards they have to keep access to the market.
Individual companies are not going to fight this war.
I don't like Trump as much as anyone, but when Trump adds some tariff on Chinese goods everyone goes batshit insane in the US. The Chinese government almost every day shuts some company or product off from access to the Chinese market for not doing something they say. But until the Hong Kong protests, it seems like no one cared. I hope now that it's LITERALLY, blantantly, and obviously about freedoms and human rights -- it's enough to get people to care. China should lose access to the WTO if it forces any company anywhere (including in China) to censor anything in order to gain or keep access to its market. End of discussion.
Boycotts usually don't achieve anything (historically most boycotts have had no effect whatsoever), so it's hardly going to be a good solution in the short term. Legal action (if possible, but I doubt so since a private corporation can basically do what they want according to their rules) would be better. The best would be to simply throw a continuous torrent of tweets, videos and articles to ridicule Blizzard and Hearthstone and its parent company as long as possible. Public shaming tends to bring more valid results.
You not giving them money wont hit their bottomline. However, you blaming them online and amplifying other people doing so is more likely to make them feel bad about it.
i wish people would stop trotting out this cynical nonsense: it's the same tired argument that people use about why they don't vote (because "it doesn't matter").
it does matter. it might not matter very much, but it does matter. it changes the amount of money the company receives. that cannot be argued against.
more importantly, it also empowers others who may be open to the idea to do the same. it can spread the idea that "hey, yeah, i don't need to patronize this company". if enough people do this, change can be enacted. see loot boxes, or consuming less junk, or .....
if however this cynicism causes people to stay home on election day, or do nothing in their lives bc everything is inevitably status quo, or keep patronizing companies like this, then nothing will ever change.
so please keep this factual inaccuracy out of discussions like these: it's not productive and demonstrably false, and arguably harmful to contributing to "wokeness" generally.
This one cuts across partisan lines- and in fact conservatives/libertarians are more likely to be affected by corporate censorship nowadays, and more than happy to push back on obvious over-reach/kowtowing like this.
Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions.
The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting opinions, and it tries to make it a new normal that all actors should censor any undesirable or potentially undesirable opinion.
If that is indeed the way, then our society and the discourse therein is no longer free, and the CCP has won.
We need to keep these firms in our mind. We need to keep a list of when this happens, and we need to sanction this as best as we can. Similarly, anyone standing up to censorship should have our support.
I can be pro HK, or I can be pro China, and I can voice opinions because doing so either way is an equally valid form of free expression. But it can not be that one side gets pre-emptively censored to appease the CCP, or any actor with the power to DEFINE the bar of what is reasonable expression of opinions.