[rjf72]

Reverse the situation and imagine how you would feel.

Say China was running extensive media in favor of an increasingly China-friendly group within the US equally unpopular with both average US citizens and the US government, but quite popular with Chinese citizens and the Chinese government. And now a Chinese executive in charge of a Chinese product popular in the US, spoke out in favor of this group. Following US pressure with implied economic threats, he not only refused to retract his statements but chose to completely pull his company's product from the US - perhaps iPhones, which we'll pretend could be made nowhere other than China for the sake of the hypothetical.

Are you going to be mad at the US government? Most likely this would just work to further evangelize anti-China and anti-China-friendly group sentiment within the US. And I think this is true without even getting into the cultural differences in terms of things like nationalism. I think in your comment you're probably transplanting the average US citizen worldview onto the average Chinese citizen. In that case your idea would very much work, but that's not the case here.

[klingonopera]

> Are you going to be mad at the US government?

Yes, absolutely. I'd expect the US government to just shrug their shoulders and go about "Whatever", and not interfere in such petty issues.

It's probably a key difference between China and the US/Western hemisphere, concerning government. We don't want to be nannied and would be appalled, if so.

[rjf72]

That's awesome to hear, but I expect you must see you would be a very small minority. Most people now a days seem to base their worldview not on any system of consistent ethics, but instead on who's being benefited and who's being hurt.

For instance on what precipitated this particular issue (the Blizzard stuff), many are framing it as an issue of free speech. But that's incredibly disingenuous because there's no doubt that many of the same people outraged ostensibly about a violation of free speech would have been the first ones lining up to cheer and rejoice had Blizzard chose to ban a player who chose to show up in a MAGA hat and screamed "Build the wall!" in an identical venue. It's safe to assume they also would have taken it further and done all they could to try to get said player banned from any other gaming venue as well, in an effort to kill his livelihood and, by proxy, him. In other words, they couldn't care less about free speech - but only speech that they support, or oppose.

This example here (in our reverso world China) would take this to an even bigger extreme since you would be expressing support not only of a group with next to no national support, but simultaneously expressing support of a deeply unpopular foreign government which could be framed as borderline treasonous. And all of this being done in a highly nationalistic nation? That's a tall order for sure.

[pmart123]

I discern this situation is slightly different. Let's say an incident around ICE caused protests and riots. After the riots continue, a major Tencent executive speaks out that he supported the riots comparing the ICE detention centers to interminant camps. Immediately after this, Trump asks the Tencent CEO to fire this executive for his interview on Chinese TV or the US will pull all Tencent games. In this situation, I believe Americans would be angry at the government and politicians. Some would agree with Trump and some would disagree, but I believe most people in America would not advocate banning a product or company due to one of its executives saying something that did not align with a political view.

[rjf72]

I'm sure you'd agree that there would be a substantial amount of support for these protests, and similarly more for any country or executive that would align itself with the protesters. How much support in mainland China do you think the Hong Kong protests have? How do you think mainland Chinese would respond to the US overtly aligning itself with the protesters?

I fully agree that of course nobody would support censoring a view or political ideology that they agree with. The big question is what happens when the view or ideology is one we not only dislike, but condemn?

[klingonopera]

No, same logic would be if someone funding HN threatens to cut ties if the mods didn't delete his comment.

Or the other way around, if the Chinese government would not take matters into their own hands and simply allow their citizens to boycott the NBA, then that would also be same logic.

Am I guessing correctly, that since you refer to it as "your right of speech", that you don't get to enjoy the benefits of it?