It’s the Youtube Walkout! The 10th through 13th we’re supposed to avoid watching youtube videos. They’ve dropped some fucking egregious new terms of service, promising to delete any channel they deem commercially unviable. Since the videos disproportionately affected by this are producers of LGBT and progressive content, you know what this is really about.
Honestly, it feels like Blizzard’s ability to glide on by wholesale political and societal condemnation by waving around shiny video game trailers – together with their own virtual monopoly on internet video – has them feeling like they can get away with murder. In this case, the murder is anyone that might offend the censorious authoritarian regime that rules the Chinese market.
I’d link to some good videos on the background of this issue, but NOPE. Fuck that. In solidarity with all oppressed peoples and against these fascist ass-tonguing corporate monoliths, DON’T LOOK AT YOUTUBE until the 14th!
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Thanks. I didn’t know. (Looks guiltily at Youtube window already open.)
BTW. Congrats re your survival from Atheism+ noted in a recent comment. 🙂
I kinda need Bob Ross to fall asleep…
I’d also not heard of this.
(Minor criticism: Lack of non-video links to the calls for, or explanation of, this (seemingly-not-well publicized) boycott. Also, who or what the feck is “Blizzard”?)
I added a link per your suggestion. This was a pretty lazy article even by my standards. Marcus Ranum and Abbey St Brendan both did a better job on their articles about it, especially Abbey.
Blizzard is a maker of famous video games like Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. They banned a competitive player from competition and withheld his winnings for making a statement in favor of the Hong Kong protests. Enough people cared about this that congress in the US released a bipartisan statement condemning them – literally something dems and rethuglicans agreed on. Then Blizzard had their little game convention where they offered a mealy-mouthed non-pology and showed a few trailers for hyped sequels, and the news pretty much evaporated.
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