This seems completely bass-ackwards. If we want to get Iranians to "come to the light" that is US policy, one of the best ways to do that is to actually have them interacting positively with people in the United States.
Furthermore, while I can (sort of) understand not having US money filter into Iran, I can't understand why there is any problem with Iranian money filtering into the US. Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.
There are days I get really tired of the letter of the law being the only possible interpretation. When I sympathize with my Iranian brethren trying to get into a raid because their gear is sucky blue crap, it becomes one of those days.
Trying to legally define what is and is not a valid financial transaction coming in and out of Iran is a fool's errand. There's these things called commodity markets, and most everything is a commodity (more or less liquid) that can be bought and sold. Including WoW accounts, WoW gold, etc. If you wanted to launder, say, oil revenues into completely respectable US financial holdings....
And just think: due to these new restrictions, many Iranian players could get into a whole new world of encryption, non-Iranian VPNs, non-Iranian bank accounts, etc., etc. Which could have very positive political ramifications for the US down the line.
Say what you will about America or Germany or whomever in the western world, but I can still write here "Obama is an idiot" or "Merkel is a crook" or "The American Government should be destroyed, the Constitution should be abolished, and the ancient Corinthian Oligarchy should be enacted in its stead" or whatever and still sleep like a babe without any fear of repercussions.
It's far from a perfect freedom, but it's better than the alternative.
Over 24 hours and haven't been arrested yet. Muhahaha. No one ever expects the Corinthians.
The UK tweet thing was a crazy overreaction, yes.
In all honesty though... wouldn't you be kinda surprised if law enforcement wasn't monitoring social media? Not looking for the super secret terrorist cell mind you, who probably would refrain from tweeting before their grand operation. But looking for the bat-shit loon who decides to use whatever hater theory is au courant as pretext for their batshit loontastic ideas. E.g., shoebombers.
What citizens/journalists should be vigorously investigating is not whether the social media monitoring is happening (cause it is), but whether those Personally Identifiable Information rules are reasonable, whether they are being followed, and just how many people are on the terrorist/drug (i.e., the "perpetual wars" (/eyeroll) we are fighting) lists, how reasonable are the names on those lists, etc., etc.
Moxie Marlinspike & Jake Appelbaum used to get the 'special treatment' at airports that often involves detainment and interviews with more than just TSA officers. As far as I can discern, their crime was writing software and knowing a bit about cryptography.
Obviously Law Enforcement always monitors things to enforce the law. However, the volume of information that is kept and retained is what the worry is. I can't think of a historical example of a country with very extensive domestic surveillance that has not trampled on peoples rights. If you can, I'd like to know.
> If we want to get Iranians to "come to the light" that is US policy
The Iranian's don't need WoW to realize that they are under tyranny. They know well what freedoms they are missing, and who is responsible for it. No one will be blaming the US government for taking away WoW, as these days all anger is redirected at the Iranian government internally. All due to recent tightening of US sanctions (last 2 years) and the massive economic pressures it has caused inside Iran.
> Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.
It is naive to think that every dollar in Iran is spent on the regime's "ideological war". Specially people's hard earned money. If you want to trace back the money you're looking for, look at China for continuing to purchase oil from Iran.
It's a plausible theory that cultural engagement with Iran might work better than sanctions. However, you can't have some people doing one and some doing the other. For better or worse, after trying various other things without success, the Administration has decided on sanctions. For sanctions to be effective, they have to hurt enough to force the other side to compromise. Weakening sanctions for any reason just draws out the conflict longer.
Sanctions have not done anything to change Cuba or North Korea. However openness has.
Just look at what happened when Nixon opened doors to China. Now, China is no perfect country, but they have become a business partner and opened up a lot more than they would have otherwise.
Sanctions actually help the Iranian regime to further hide the population from democratic ideas. The regime in Iran was weakest when Obama gave his speech in Cairo and Iranian had access to internet and other means of communications. You need the population to have access to computers, smart phones etc. and sanctions do the exact opposite.
There's probably something buried in the terms of use that they'll claim allows for this very sort of scenario. If these players lived in North America, they might be able to find a legal remedy, but they're in Iran.
1) This isn't a result of US law changing. This is a result of Blizzard responding to an already-existing law which probably wasn't intended to have this particular effect.
2) Blizzard could potentially do some real good for the world (and get some good PR in the process.) I hope they have some sort of maneuver up their sleeve other than just cutting off Iranian players.
Furthermore, while I can (sort of) understand not having US money filter into Iran, I can't understand why there is any problem with Iranian money filtering into the US. Every dollar out of Iran is a dollar less the regime has to "fight" its idealogical war.
There are days I get really tired of the letter of the law being the only possible interpretation. When I sympathize with my Iranian brethren trying to get into a raid because their gear is sucky blue crap, it becomes one of those days.