CEO of world’s largest e-sports firm ESL warns staff not to discuss Hong Kong protests

[Keyser S]

The CEO is German, and in German schools they actively teach children about their history, not try to hide. China is doing a lot wrong, but on that one thing they are in complete opposition to how Germany handles their history, and are also currently trying to rip Hong Kong's unique cultural identity away from them. I am sure it is hard for some to grasp the complex situation going on in China, but when a country openly operates completely opposite to your own, it should be worth noticing.

 

[Deleted member 8166]

Different issue all together. There is a reason why people have to qualify their statement as "something something this is my personal view and not representative of xyz company". Without the later part of the statement, it seems like ESL is forbidding its employees from engaging political discussion all together which is not true. A large organization employed many people who can have different view points, and matter of fact is, such political statement can and will affect the company economic health, which can affect its employees as well. You can't expect everyone to be okay with their income to be affected just because you have certain belief which they might not share. To me that's just selfish.

Even now regarding Hong Kong protest, I admired the protesters for the effort to go against the Extradition Law but now the situation looks more like rioting to me and I can't agree with targeting police's family members as well as threatening police officers life (there was a slashing incident as well as remote bombs in the last few days apparently).

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but they are the same issues o.o.

"There is a consequence for taking the conversation away from the purpose of the event and disrupting or derailing the broadcast," says Brack.

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https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...layer_but_stands_by_its_initial_reasoning.php

Over the weekend, blitzchung used his segment to make a statement about the situation in Hong Kong—in violation of rules he acknowledged and understood, and this is why we took action.

Every Voice Matters, and we strongly encourage everyone in our community to share their viewpoints in the many places available to express themselves. However, the official broadcast needs to be about the tournament and to be a place where all are welcome. In support of that, we want to keep the official channels focused on the game.

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https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bli...weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

blizzard, officially, punished them for speaking out about a personal view, while on-air at a blizzard event.
at the ESL, a ESL employee might be punished speaking out about a personal view, while in the function as a ESL employee.

so I don't really understand your "different issue all together". Sounds pretty similiar to me, except that blizzard already used this rule now.

 

[Insomnium]

but they are the same issues o.o.
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news...layer_but_stands_by_its_initial_reasoning.php

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bli...weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

blizzard, officially, punished them for speaking out about a personal view, while on-air at a blizzard event.
at the ESL, a ESL employee might be punished speaking out about a personal view, while in the function as a ESL employee.

so I don't really understand your "different issue all together". Sounds pretty similiar to me, except that blizzard already used this rule now.

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Actually thinking about it, yes they are the same issue and I would incline to agree with Blizzard to be honest. Now if Blizzard punished the players/casters for something they said on their personal social media account then that's completely different and I would be against that. I believe NBA/Daryl Morey would be more similar to the latter case I'm talking about and I'm completely agree with NBA supporting Daryl Morey and China is being a big cry baby lashing out at NBA as a whole

 

[Deleted member 40102]

This situation is getting embarrassing

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More like scary

 

[EloKa]

so you also think the 6 month ban for a hearthstone player wo said something political during his work as a hearthstone player was the correct choice, because "it says so in the rules"?
b/c that's the same reasoning blizzard used.

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Blizzard is activly censoring content to appease the chinese government and they are punishing external private persons for violating this censorship. And no, I don't aggree with the length of the ban and especially the original withholding of his prize money. But ESL is reminding their employees to not use the companies official SocialMedia accounts for posting their personal political opinions but to use their personal accounts instead.

There's multiple reasons.
- I quoted the first paragraph - as commonly done - so people go visit the site
- I don't agree at all with this being the "kinda most important part" of the statement
- Of course they would say this, and it does in no way detract from any open or between-the-lines threats said earlier.
- It's, like Sesuadra said, a "but the rules!" argument, which the statement itselfs nullifies by making itself _very_ political in the first place
- No one actually expects any company to explicitely and openly disallow personal statements on personal accounts. Not even Blizzard did this and kept their wording very close to the tournament and its rulings (which doesn't make it any less abhorrent).

I'm sorry, this to me looks like a dragged-in point of discussion nobody really has, so yeah, it's not in the OP. However, it's plainly in the link I gave within the OP. I hope this clears things up.

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I'd say its a pretty big difference if something gets framed as "warns staff not to discuss hong kong protests" or "remember to not use the companies SocialMedia accounts to discuss the hong kong protests but use your private accounts instead". A lot of people have access to all the social media channels within the ESL and reminding your staff to use these accounts only for company related stuff doesn't seem to be such a big deal. The message might seem kinda awful in context of the current Blizzard situation, but on it's own it is just a normal internal guideline without censorship.

 

[Bufbaf]

I'd say its a pretty big difference if something gets framed as "warns staff not to discuss hong kong protests" or "remember to not use the companies SocialMedia accounts to discuss the hong kong protests but use your private accounts instead". A lot of people have access to all the social media channels within the ESL and reminding your staff to use these accounts only for company related stuff doesn't seem to be such a big deal. The message might seem kinda awful in context of the current Blizzard situation, but on it's own it is just a normal internal guideline without censorship.

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Except that's not what's being said at all. Read the article (or your quotes from earlier) again, please: It's two different things:

1. ESL staff is not allowed to discuss these issues whatsoever, regardless of account, regardless of officiality. This is very plainly stated.
2. ESL team members - as in, the players under ESL - are supposedly free to post whatever on their private accounts. We'll see how that turns out.

I don't know where you took the "staff only reminded to not use company accounts, free to use private ones" from, because it's not from the article.

 

[EloKa]

Except that's not what's being said at all. Read the article (or your quotes from earlier) again, please: It's two different things:

1. ESL staff is not allowed to discuss these issues whatsoever, regardless of account, regardless of officiality. This is very plainly stated.
2. ESL team members - as in, the players under ESL - are supposedly free to post whatever on their private accounts. We'll see how that turns out.

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ESL players aren't referred to team members. ESL staff and team members are the same people, the only difference is that "staff" can include additional people like 3rd party contractors (personal at events and such).

I don't know where you took the "staff only reminded to not use company accounts, free to use private ones" from, because it's not from the article.

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"[...] a reminder to ESL employees about the general social media policies that have been in place for many years; that we do not use ESL's brand or platform for personal political statements, and to show respect for colleagues with views different than our own," the spokesperson said via email. "ESL's team members are of course free to harbor personal views on private social media accounts."

It's in the quote that you left out.

 

[Deleted member 15440]

i might think that a situation like this could teach people how capitalism is not only compatible with authoritarianism but actually antithetical to democracy

but gamers are so hyper-reactionary that i think the only lesson everyone will learn is CHINA BAD

 

[Bufbaf]

ESL players aren't referred to team members. ESL staff and team members are the same people, the only difference is that "staff" can include additional people like 3rd party contractors (personal at events and such).


"[...] a reminder to ESL employees about the general social media policies that have been in place for many years; that we do not use ESL's brand or platform for personal political statements, and to show respect for colleagues with views different than our own," the spokesperson said via email. "ESL's team members are of course free to harbor personal views on private social media accounts."

It's in the quote that you left out.

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Again, "ESL employees" is not the same as "ELS's team members". It's pretty clearly worded. Members of teams of the ESL. Employees of ESL.

 

[PlanetSmasher]

eSports were a damn mistake. So was capitalism.

 

[Lunar15]

This is a political statement.

 

[Qudi]

Just pathetic.

 

[EloKa]

Again, "ESL employees" is not the same as "ELS's team members". It's pretty clearly worded. Members of teams of the ESL. Employees of ESL.

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Yeah it is clearly worded. ESL Employees = Employees. ESL Team members = Employees + Staff. Simple as that.

"Members of teams of the ESL" does absolutely NOT refer to players of esport teams. I have no idea how you can get such a take. Nobody on earth refers to esport organisations as "teams of the ESL" within or outside of tournaments. ESL Teams are Production Team, SocialMedia Team, Marketing Team, Event Team, IT Team and so on. Thought that was kinda obvious to be honest.

Your perception would only work if the ESL actually owns all those esport teams but they don't own any. Esport organisations in general don't belong to any esport association, only exception are somewhat the Overwatch League teams.

I still don't get the idea why you left out the most important part of the statement, but I guess there's some kind of misunderstanding. Telling your employees to not use the SocialMedia accounts of the company for private political postings still doesn't seem like a big deal.