China’s reach in the US is growing
Some are selling out
While others stand up
Welcome to China Uncensored,
I’m your host Chris Chappell.
After all the scandal with the NBA selling out to China,
I’ve decided to start a new segment looking
at who’s standing up or backing down
when faced with the Communist Party’s demands.
I’m calling it Sellout or No Sellout.
League of Legends is the most popular PC game in the world.
It was developed by the US company, Riot Games,
but in 2015 it was bought by the Chinese company Tencent.
Users on Reddit discovered the game,
“appeared to forbid users from changing their status message
to certain words, including ‘Uyghur.’”
Uighurs are the mostly Muslims ethinc minority in Western China.
The Chinese Communist Party has been putting them
in concentration camps.
Riot Games responded to the controversy
by saying they fixed the error.
But “words such as ‘genocide’
and ‘Tiananmen’ in simplified Chinese,
and ‘great firewall,’
which refers to China’s blocking of foreign websites,
still seem to get weeded out.
League of Legends: what a sellout.
Next up...Blizzard.
Blizzard got into hot water recently
for banning a Hong Kong player for supporting the protests
during a competition of the Blizzard game Hearthstone.
After a global call for a Blizzard boycott,
the company decided the best way to do damage control
was to ban more players for supporting the Hong Kong protests.
You can see here in the lower corner the players
holding a sign saying “Free Hong Kong, boycott Blizz”
Surely that will be the end of the call to boycott Blizzard,
which remains a huge sellout.
Next up Apple CEO Tim Cook!
Apple and Time Cook have been so widely criticized
for selling out to China,
that even AOC and Ted Cruz are in agreement on it.
Which proves climate change is real,
because hell just froze over.
“[Apple] faced a wave of criticism earlier this month
when it removed a crowdsourced map of Hong Kong police presence
from the App Store that was used by pro-democracy protestors.”
But just to show where Tim Cook’s interests really lie,
he will join the advisory board
of one of China’s most prestigious universities.
Tim Cook: proving that Apple is great at selling...out.
Next up, Quentin Tarantino.
His latest film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
was banned in China.
That’s a big deal because the China market
means hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales.
But Tarantion says he won’t censor his movie to get into China.
Tarantino is no sellout.
Moving on to Magic the Gathering.
Like the video games Blizzard produces,
Magic the Gathering has professional tournaments.
And like the Blizzard Hearthstone games,
one of the players used the platform
to talk about the Hong Kong protests.
And he wasn’t banned.
Amazing!
Not banning a player for having independent thoughts.
Honestly, finding a US company
that won’t sell out to China these days
is about as easy as finding a Black Lotus card.
I’m just kidding.
I have no idea what that means.
I’ve never played Magic.
But I do know that Magic is not for sellouts.
And finally, basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal.
He had this to say about the NBA controversy.
“As Americans, we do a lot of business in China,
and they know and understand our values.
And we understand their values.
And one of our best values here in America is free speech.
We’re allowed to say what we want to say
and we’re allowed to speak up about injustices,
and that’s just how it goes...
Daryl Morey was right.
Whenever you see something wrong going on anywhere in the world,
you should have the right to say,
‘that’s not right.’”
Shaq attack!
Now while he doesn’t play for the NBA anymore,
Shaq does have endorsement deals in China.
So he’s putting his money where his mouth is.
And Shaq is no sellout.
Thanks for playing this edition of Sellout or No Sellout.
Once again I’m your host Chris Chappell.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.