The NBA commissioner probably has the power to do that. Note that he, essentially, fired the owner of the Clippers. So, in principle, he probably could do it.
In practice, there is absolutely no way he could do so. He'd destroy the NBA for at least a decade, maybe a generation.
> "We made clear that we were being asked to fire him, by the Chinese government, by the parties we dealt with, government and business," Silver said. "We said there's no chance that's happening. There's no chance we'll even discipline him."
Okay fine, but thus far it’s felt like the overriding concern here is the financial fallout. I don’t know how else to explain LeBron’s behavior recently. Maybe players are acting more independently now, hoping to get their own China deals and that the Player’s association would back them up?
LeBron is not the NBA, though. If he wants to not tarnish his personal brand in China (at the price of tarnishing it here in the USA), that's his choice. Don't blame the whole NBA for it.
As for the NBA, I don't think that Silver had to say this. By saying it, he's shining a spotlight on China's attempt to destroy anyone who says anything bad about them.
He wasn't going to say this and probably didn't want to bring it to light since it's possibly damaging to the NBA relationship with China but it's a calculated risk to try shore up the NBA's reputation in America. That's my take.
The NBA is absolutely huge in China, while it would be a big hit to owners and franchisees, the NBA should announce they are pulling out of everything in China indefinitely.
This strategy would reverse the pressure back onto China, as Chinese citizens will be very upset to not have NBA games and merchandise available. It would shift the focus back onto the Chinese government from its own citizens.
I really don't see how a freaking basketball franchise could make Chinese people angry at their government. Remember Dixie Chicks?
The only thing they did was to say "We're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas," right before Bush invaded Iraq. There wasn't even any government action necessary - radio stations blacklisted them for years. They pretty much sunk into a black hole.
Beijing just has to say that NBA insulted China. They wouldn't even need to ban anything (although I think they probably will) - the angry people will do the job.
Don't underestimate the efficacy of a well-tuned propaganda.
By refusing to discipline Daryl Morey, aren't they more or less doing that? It may be Chinese parties who are keeping NBA games off the air. But off the air is what they are.
Agreed, that's why what Google did by pulling out of China was so courageous back then. They'd probably be by far the most profitable and lucrative company now otherwise.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
I've seen this argument so many times in relation to this and I don't get it - this isn't what happened and you can't presume to know what "many of the same people" would do. It's such a shit argument because you can state that "many of the same people" would do anything you want to frame as bad and it's impossible to disprove.
> I've seen this argument so many times in relation to this and I don't get it - this isn't what happened and you can't presume to know what "many of the same people" would do. It's such a shit argument because you can state that "many of the same people" would do anything you want to frame as bad and it's impossible to disprove.
I'd even suggest the complete opposite would happen. People would be criticizing Blizzard for banning the player. Of course, we can't know what could've happened, but we do know what happens when pro-Trump protestors are in the streets protesting. Nobody is out there saying the government needs to suppress these people and their opinions. No, the people start their own grass-roots protests on the same street. As in, they fight free speech with free speech. The vast majority don't put pressure on the government to stamp out contrary opinions, nor is there an expectation that they should, and there'd be protests against it if they did.
Meanwhile, we know exactly what would happen in China.
The original post I was responding to was pondering what would happen if the NBA pulled out. In order to try to predict this it's important to try to accurately characterize how people would behave in response. In the US we ostensibly value free speech, but especially in modern times this is increasingly often set aside faster than you can blink when it becomes an issue where somebody says something we disagree with. See for instance practically every major social media platform that has been censoring increasingly loosely, largely to stabilize (and ideally increase) their profit by satisfying advertisers. When people dislike the groups censored they not only could not care less, but are often genuinely enthusiastic about it.
Think of the countless times people have, rather enthusiastically, argued that 'free speech doesn't mean you're free from the consequences of your actions'. Yet when it's a group that individuals ideologically align with they rapidly segue from free speech being a technical legal requirement as defined by the first amendment of the US constitution, to a value - an ethos. And we are not speaking in hypotheticals - this is happening, right now.
In modern times people increasingly seem to not like defending the right of groups they disagree with. We could debate the reasons there, but I suspect a large part is because we now live in an era of never-ending social media virtue signaling. That's actually what makes what I wrote above so easy to show. If you are genuinely arguing in good faith and do not believe people are engaging in wide-spread hypocrisy, you could go obsessive-compulsive and digging through people's post histories and find many of the same people upset about corporate censorship today cheering it on not long ago. Because they felt that by cheering on nasty groups getting censored, that they were showing their own virtue in being so adamantly against such things. We are, in effect, living out the "First they came ..." poem. As always, what's new is old.
When the original poster didn't respond the way you wanted them to you then decided to switch tracks and claim they're in the minority.
Have you considered that in the public there are so many people that you can arrange people in to groups that say anything? You've not made a convincing case that 'the same people' 'rapidly segue' - merely that groups of differing opinions exist and are vocal about different things.
I think you make a great point. From my perspective there are some things that cannot be reasonably proven that people may have different views on. For instance I'm sure you'd agree that social media "platforms" (as well as various other "platforms") over the past ~6 or so years have been engaging in increasing censorship. And that censorship has been not only accepted but applauded by some segments of the population. So where we probably diverge is on who are these segments of the population? How big are they? What are their views on this recent censorship?
I've been unable to find any sort of polling or other objective data (for that matter even poll data on Hong Kong is basically nonexistent) so we're left to rely on anecdotal data. When stories of censorship against unpopular topics came out in times past, what was the zeitgeist in your view? In the Hong Kong story as of today, does that vary? I took as an assumption people sharing a roughly similar view on this question. But I think it's a fair point that perhaps this is an invalid assumption. If I've learned anything on the internet it's that we all live in our own little bubbles, try as we might to escape them.
Of course I'm certain I could dig up plenty of examples of people contradicting themselves but that no more proves your [implied] view incorrect anymore than you finding a examples of people remaining consistent would prove my view incorrect.
That crosses into personal attack, which isn't allowed here. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules, no matter how wrong or annoying some other comment is?
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.
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?
Having the US government act on citizen’s behalf would not be the mainstream view. If people felt that Tencent stood remove or reprimand the one executive who was out of line, they would be vocal in the press or with their wallets. I think we saw this with Jeffrey Epstein recently. While the fallout is likely to continue, US citizens have not asked the government to intervene in firing all of L Brands executives.
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?
In practice, there is absolutely no way he could do so. He'd destroy the NBA for at least a decade, maybe a generation.