Chinese Overwatch players are reporting getting banned for being baited into typing "Winnie the Pooh"

vinnykappa · Feb 28, 2019

So on China's Overwatch's official forum and social media, Chinese OW players are reporting getting banned for answering a simple question in public chat: Who is the best friend of Tigger? And if you take the bait and type "Winnie" or "Winnie the Pooh", your account will be banned within a few minutes.

Many have since submitted tickets, and there has been no official response from Blizzard or Netease. And the discussion on social media has been purged. The OW forum is still filled with reports.

FantasticMrFoxdie · Feb 28, 2019

i want to laugh

but holy shit

spindashing · Feb 28, 2019

the new meta

EVA UNIT 01 · Feb 28, 2019

The pro strats

Version 3.0 · Feb 28, 2019

They're typing the Chinese words for "Winnie the Pooh"? Is there a double meaning or something?

CO_Andy · Feb 28, 2019

shame Xi can't embrace the meme lifestyle like Reggie

StarStorm · Feb 28, 2019

What, wow? Anything for their President Xi.

KoolAid · Feb 28, 2019

I don't find this funny at all, it's Blizzard bowing down to China.

Deleted member 4532 · Feb 28, 2019

Version 3.0 said:
They're typing the Chinese words for "Winnie the Pooh"? Is there a double meaning or something?

Here ya go
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855

Sai · Feb 28, 2019

Version 3.0 said:
They're typing the Chinese words for "Winnie the Pooh"? Is there a double meaning or something?

It's seen as an insult to the president, so it's banned.

tenderbrew · Feb 28, 2019

Really makes you have pause for these companies entering China and needing to adhere to this kind of stuff.

Pretty shameful.

Brandon · Feb 28, 2019

Version 3.0 said:
They're typing the Chinese words for "Winnie the Pooh"? Is there a double meaning or something?

No, there's a ban in China because people use the character to mock the president or something like that.

Daedardus · Feb 28, 2019

Version 3.0 said:
They're typing the Chinese words for "Winnie the Pooh"? Is there a double meaning or something?

It's used to ridicule their president and he doesn't like that so it's full Chinese crackdown censorship on Winnie the Pooh. It's a form of rebelion against a corrupt authoritarian government and they don't like that.

tyfon · Feb 28, 2019

So blizzard is now doing censoring on behalf of the chinese government?
When .. how.. why??

It seems utterly ridiculous.

I'm tempted to type winnie the pooh in the chat there now to see if they will ban me as well (not living in china), but I'm not buying the game just for that.

Deleted member 24118 · Feb 28, 2019

ragingbegal · Feb 28, 2019

KoolAid said:
I don't find this funny at all, it's Blizzard bowing down to China.

Same. It's only a matter of time before these censorship policies are enforced on non-Chinese players. We've already seen it happen with Devotion.

Samaritan · Feb 28, 2019

Western companies helping China censor their games/platforms is some real stomach-turning shit.

Deleted member 8861 · Feb 28, 2019

The Chinese government deserves to collapse.

tyfon said:
So blizzard is now doing censoring on behalf of the chinese government?
When .. how.. why??

It seems utterly ridiculous.

"Do it or your game's banned". Not an excuse, of course.

Chaos2Frozen · Feb 28, 2019

Ban from Overwatch? Isn't that specifically Blizzard's control?

lazygecko · Feb 28, 2019

It makes me think back to responding to Chinese gold spammers in WoW trying to start conversations with them about unionizing or liberating Tibet.

Deleted member 25606 · Feb 28, 2019

Wow, such interesting times we live in. Kind of dickhead behavior to bait that way, with dear leader and his complex.

Version 3.0 · Feb 28, 2019

MaximumSpider said:
Here ya go
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855

OMG that's funny. The Winnie the Pooh memes, I mean, not the government trying to censor them.

Akai_XIII · Feb 28, 2019

Oh bother.

DJ_Lae · Feb 28, 2019

I still can't get over how sensitive he is to the whole Pooh thing and how it's come to this - baiting people into typing it to get them banned. It's so absurd it's funny.

Z-Brownie · Feb 28, 2019

MaximumSpider said:
Here ya go
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855

this ... is ... wierd to say the least

Holundrian · Feb 28, 2019

Samaritan said:
Western companies helping China censor their games/platforms is some real stomach-turning shit.

welcome to capitalism.

Tarot Deck · Feb 28, 2019

Hahahhah

low-G · Feb 28, 2019

Chaos2Frozen said:
Ban from Overwatch? Isn't that specifically Blizzard's control?

The company that removed skeletons from WoW wouldn't ban people for 'attacking' the president?

HStallion · Feb 28, 2019

CO_Andy said:
shame Xi can't embrace the meme lifestyle like Reggie

Its getting to the point that he's basically going to be associated with Winnie the Pooh because of how hard they're cracking down on anything even related to the character. I expect future textbooks to have a pictures or mentions of Winnie the Pooh when mentioning Xi Ping.

Chaos2Frozen · Feb 28, 2019

No but why though, why is Blizzard doing this at all?

Futabaisthebest<3 · Feb 28, 2019

Why can't they use WTP as an acronym? That'd save their troubles.

Tarot Deck · Feb 28, 2019

Holundrian said:
welcome to capitalism.

You misspelled fascism

Edit :typo

Pata Hikari · Feb 28, 2019

Somebody needs to tell President Hunny about the Streisand Effect.

Gavin Stevens · Feb 28, 2019

This is both hilarious and stupid at the same the same time. The guy looks nothing like Pooh Bear.

Now Piglets arse crack, THAT I can see.

Samaritan · Feb 28, 2019

low-G said:
The company that removed skeletons from WoW wouldn't ban people for 'attacking' the president?

These are not not even close to being equivalent. Depictions of the dead is about Chinese cultural sensitivity, not protecting a ruthless political leader's fragile ego.

Alucrid · Feb 28, 2019

Chaos2Frozen said:
No but why though, why is Blizzard doing this at all?

because you have to bend the knee to gain access to the chinese market

Majiebeast · Feb 28, 2019

Im sorry but this is funny, i feel bad for the banned players but that is some high level trolling.

jay · Feb 28, 2019

Chaos2Frozen said:
No but why though, why is Blizzard doing this at all?

Why companies do anything.

Chaos2Frozen · Feb 28, 2019

Futabaisthebest<3 said:
Why can't they use WTP as an acronym? That'd save their troubles.

They have a long list of words even remotely associated. I remember an article where the Chinese internet users have to go through some codeword shit to bypass

tyfon · Feb 28, 2019

Funyarinpa said:
"Do it or your game's banned". Not an excuse, of course.

No it's absolutely no excuse but I guess money trumps all.
Makes you wonder the concessions other companies like apple has made to be able to sell their wares in china.
I bet they don't like encrypted phones there.

ShinMaruku · Feb 28, 2019

Pooh will get his due.

low-G · Feb 28, 2019

Samaritan said:
These are not even remotely the same thing. Depictions of the dead is about Chinese cultural sensitivity, not protecting a ruthless political leader's fragile ego.

Chinese players don't care about that 'sensitivity' by and large. They did it because the Chinese government has vague standards on the matter. I've done research on it, and either China tells companies what to do behind closed doors or companies get the jist of what is needed to prevent being banned.

Pata Hikari · Feb 28, 2019

Honestly I'm hoping that the increasingly nonsensical demands China is putting on media companies leads to them finally deciding to abandon this mess as not worth the effort.

Chaos2Frozen · Feb 28, 2019

Samaritan said:
These are not even remotely the same thing. Depictions of the dead is about Chinese cultural sensitivity, not protecting a ruthless political leader's fragile ego.

You say that but we don't really have a rule about it. We have zombies and vampires and lots and lots of dead corpses in our entertainment (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore etc) for years, this is clearly a Chinese government thingy.

Thorn · Feb 28, 2019

Pathetic. China really needs a revolution.

ASaiyan · Feb 28, 2019

Baiting people into getting censored and banned is a pretty bizarre new form of trolling...

Holundrian · Feb 28, 2019

Tarot Deck said:
You misspelled fascism

Edit :typo

Not really because it is the profit motive of capitalism that is overwriting any moral principle. Blizzard could also choose to say fuck you to china if they were ok losing that market.

Bhonar · Feb 28, 2019

Tarot Deck said:
You misspelled fascism

isn't China officially communist??

OwOtacon · Feb 28, 2019

I laughed, but I felt super guilty about it. Like these people might lose social credit points.

Fuck the Chinese government and fuck the companies enabling their censorship.

Pata Hikari · Feb 28, 2019

Bhonar said:
isn't China officially communist??

China hasn't been communist for decades now.

Chinese Overwatch players are reporting getting banned for being baited into typing "Winnie the Pooh"

"This guy are sick"

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