The rank and file employees who by all accounts had nothing to do with this decision, and don't support it?
I generally agree with the position against censorship on behest of an authoritarian government, but I find the harassment of Blizzard employee's appalling.
The employees by and large who are attending BlizzCon want to do so to celebrate their hardwork and interact with their fanbase. I hardly think they deserve to feel dread.
If you're referring to GP's comment "They should be dreading it" then yes, obviously. They are and absolutely should be dreading this event. I would be. Wouldn't you?
> I generally agree with the position against censorship on behest of an authoritarian government, but I find the harassment of Blizzard employee's appalling.
No one has said anything about harassing Blizzard employees. What on Earth are you talking about?
> The employees by and large who are attending BlizzCon want to do so to celebrate their hardwork and interact with their fanbase. I hardly think they deserve to feel dread.
Too bad. They should be dreading this event. Blizzard have publicly fucked up in a very big way, and now the people that represent Blizzard are going to have to deal with that.
> Too bad. They should be dreading this event. Blizzard have publicly fucked up in a very big way, and now the people that represent Blizzard are going to have to deal with that.
What do you think the Blizzard employees are going to "have to deal with" if not harassment at BlizzCon?
maybe just annoyed at having to do lots of video editing to hide it from the CCP overlords.
If your fans want to ask why you are betraying the values you espouse, then they're gonna ask it. And this is not harassment.
None of this is harassment. You can't just use the word "harassment" any time someone challenges you or says something you don't like.
Certainly, a simple protest is not harassment, nor is asking pointed questions. But all it takes is one unhinged person to make it turn violent.
Likely? Not really. But certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
They will have to deal with negative publicity and people not liking their events, and refusing to buy their games, therefore causes them to be less successful?
Why shouldn't they deserve to receive negative financial impact, as a company, for doing stuff that pisses off customers?
"Employees said they have fielded venomous backlash on social media and in emails and been confronted by passersby while wearing company apparel off Blizzard’s campus."
From the article in question.
Yes, them. Exactly them. They're likely going to be faced with protestors and other types of pushback, and it seems rational to not look forward to that. They're at the event representing their company, and so they must face the conequences of those decisions.
They should not, themselves, be directly blamed, but it's their job to front for the company, and that won't be a comfortable thing to do right now. Now though, if they decide to keep working for the company, they are complicit In it's actions because now they know better. I wouldn't expect them all to quit at once, but if they don't start looking around for other opportunities then they share an increasing part of the blame.
We all face this in our work. Decisions we disagree with, we must decide if it's something we can live with it not. If we decide we can live it then some level of culpability accrues to us. Certainly this can be mitigated by working to change things from within, but it's still a factor.
Every employee tacitly uses their labor to support the actions their company performs. They obviously don't have 100% culpability for everything the corporation does, but it's definitely not 0% either.