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Mike Morhaime on Combating Racism in Hearthstone
There's been a lot of discussion regarding the recent DreamHack Austin Hearthstone event, but unfortunately not all of it has been positive. During the event, Twitch chat was filled with blatant racism during matches featuring Hearthstone Pro, Terrence Miller, which was not moderated well.
Today, Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment's President and CEO, issued a statement about the event and clarified that the company is investigating ways to deal with discriminatory behaviour in the future.
- The use of a Twitch pilot program to help moderate streams/ban evades is being looked into.
- Esports tournament partner policies will have stricter checks and penalties to provide a better chat experience.
Quote from Mike MorhaimeWe’re extremely disappointed by the hateful, offensive language used by some of the online viewers during the DreamHack Austin event the weekend before last. One of our company values is “Play Nice; Play Fair”; we feel there’s no place for racism, sexism, harassment, or other discriminatory behavior, in or outside of the gaming community. This is obviously a larger, societal problem that affects us on many levels. We can only hope that when instances like this come to light it encourages people to be more thoughtful and positive, and to fully reject mean-spirited commentary, whether within themselves or from their fellow gamers.To help combat this type of behavior during live events, we’ve reached out to players, streamers, and moderators, along with partners like Twitch, DreamHack, and others, to get consensus and collaborate on what to do differently moving forward. To that end, we’re investigating a pilot program that Twitch has in the works to streamline moderation and combat ban evasion. We’re also updating our esports tournament partner policies with a stronger system of checks, balances, and repercussions to provide a better chat experience around our content.
We believe these are important steps to take to help address the related issues, but we acknowledge that they only address part of the problem. This is ultimately an industry-wide issue, and it will take all of us to make a real impact.
Additionally, GamesBeat reached out to Twitch who had the following to say.
Quote from TwitchWe take harassment very seriously and understand how important this is for the entire Twitch community. We currently approach chat behavior by providing broadcasters tools, education, and autonomy to police their own channel. While in this instance the broadcaster was unable to fully prevent the described behavior, Twitch has a responsibility to broadcasters and players to provide a welcoming environment. As such, as Blizzard noted, we are exploring new tools and processes to increase awareness and mitigation of these issues, and will continue to take action against chatters who committed reported violations. We can’t comment on specifics at this time, but we do have a team dedicated to improving these aspects of the chat experience with a lot of internal progress already that we hope to share with the community soon.
Twitch will regulate minimally so they don't lose revenue. Thats why the streamers that show cleavage for cash, flash their cooters, etc are given a NO NO smack on the wrist then set loose to repeat. The same with comments that some find offensive, the same offenders subscribe and/or donate. So any policing done by them will be done minimally.
The one question I have is, what can Blizz reasonably do? They do not control who uses twitch, nor do they have a means of really policing the actions of people not using their service. Now, maybe it's just me, but Terrence seems like a really chill guy. I get the impression he doesn't want conflict, as much as he doesn't want the hate speech.
To me, this feels like someone out there is grousing to Blizz about something Blizz has no control over, and they're taking the PR avenue. Mike has no tolerance for bullshit, though. I think he will implement something on the Blizz side, but won't do anything to twitch.
Blizzard has no direct control over Twitch, true, but they do have influence. Streams of their games bring in a lot of revenue for Twitch. With that cache, they can request that something be done, and decide whether or not they wish to continue streaming their competitions over Twitch depending on how Twitch responds.
As you can see from the purple quote at the end of the article, Twitch appears to share the same concerns and is planning on doing something about it.
Where is the joke in calling a black guy a Nigger and a Monkey ? The TriHard emote is still there.People used this emote before this and nobody complained.The emote was not the problem,but you would know that if you actually watched the stream.Judging from your ignorant post you clearly didn't watch the stream.
Just because there are bigger problems out there doesn't mean that we should ignore the smaller ones.That's a fallacy of relative privation.
And why the fuck are you mentioning feminism ? What has feminism to do with any of this ?
I can't stand how weak people have become. If you believe in evolution, then the strong survive and the weak don't. Don't protect the weak. They are weak for a reason - out of the gene pool. We have tolerated the weak too long. If you are easily offended or "emotional sensitive" get off the internet. Survival of the fittest...Darwinism...tolerate the weak and the weak is all you will have. <obvious> Grommash Hellscream
Not even close, but I have learned when people make comments like the one you made, generally they are revealing something about themselves.
You people are actually very stupid. Yes, this act is in fact a violation of free speech, and I'll explain why.
Free speech is more than just a law. It's an idea, it's an ideal, it's a social practice. Saying free speech isn't violated because twitch is a private entreprise is easily one the most retarded things I've read on this website. The law is there for court cases and for decorum. What truly allows the practice isn't a law, it's the very architecture of society. Free speech exist because we live in a democracy where people are allowed to take part in the political decisions that will determine the fate of the collectivity. Free speech exist because education is affordable and obligatory. Free speech exist because the technological world we live in allows people to voice their opinions and have them be freely distributed to society and the world at large.
This boils down to the age old distinction made between legitimacy and legality which a majority of people fail to understand. Things can be illegal yet legitimate, and they can be legal yet illegitimate. What we have here is something that is legal but not legitimate or ethical. The whole idea is very stupid anyway since twitch chat is a place meant for exactly the kind of stuff you see on twitch chat on a daily basis. Trying to turn twitch chat in PC regulated forum borders on retardation.
Oh and btw, your definition of ''harassment'' or ''racism'' is not objective at all. It's a definition that takes its roots from critical theories that have morphed themselves into the garbage SJW stuff we see nowadays. It's extremely easy to see how this logic could become 1984 tier if every company were to do it.
Here, look
1) Set up a condition where something is worthy of being moderated by the PC police. (aka, something that ends in -ism)
2) Said condition is based on ideology and not logic. Nothing is objective about it. (self explanatory)
3) Allow yourself to freely change the definition of 2) (just look at how the definition of racism changes every month/year)
4) You can now moderate anyone you want using varying levels of mental gymnastic. And the beauty of it all is that it's all supported by the current dominant ideology is society.
Again, you people are stupid.
Free speech can be negated if your speech causes direct harm or suffering. Besides, not all people live in the US, other countries have different laws
Don't be ridiculous. Assholes are not special flowers who have the right to spew their crap wherever they want without consequence.
Kicking racists and jerks out of our houses is not a violation of free speech. Cleaning their vile graffiti off of our front doors is not an evil to be avoided. Refusing to to let them use our property as their platform is not an indication that we are slipping towards totalitarianism.
Likewise, Twitch's website is their house on the internet. They have every right to kick racists and jerks out of their house. They have every right to scrub their chat logs of vile graffiti. They have every right to not provide a platform for those they do not wish to be associated with.
The freedom to do these things is not illegitimate. It is essential to living in a free society.
The logic of what you are arguing is that we do not actually have the moral right to freedom of association or to control what is done with our own property.
That sounds a lot more like 1984 than telling a jerk they can't use my website.
This is the first and last time I'll comment on this, since the Hearthpwn community is so rational and level-headed.
1) Freedom of speech has nothing to do with this. Twitch chat is a form of communication offered by Twitch, a company, therefore afforded the protection of the private sector. Basically, by creating an account, you agree to certain terms and conditions. Twitch could aggressively ban anything they wanted (unless it somehow offended a minority or other "protected group") and you'd have no real recourse except "take it, boy."
2) With that being said, Twitch relies on individual streamers/channels/corporations to establish their own rules and standards. I can understand that, from the outside looking in, one might look at Twitch as a whole, a single entity, and say, "Wow! It's full of -ists/-phobes!". One need only spend 5 minutes investigating how Twitch runs its business to see that it's less of a giant continent and more of a sea full of islands. Each island has its own rules and levels of tolerance for certain things, and that's exactly the way it should be. Only things that violate the boundaries of the agreed-upon terms & conditions should be disallowed, because some rules need to be in place. If Twitch wants to more aggressively enforce the idea of stopping -isms/-phobias in ALL channels that use their platform (via the aforementioned terms & conditions), they can.
3) The vast majority of the people who spammed weren't racists, though I'm sure plenty of people stretch the idea of being racist to, "Context and intentions don't matter - if you say it, it's racism!" Stupid argument. The idea behind it is that someone of color seeing the stuff posted in Twitch chat would most likely be offended, and that's why the intention of the person posting it doesn't matter. Problem is, the ability to take offense only when offense is actually meant is something that's lost in today's society. Obviously, you can't look into a person's eyes on Twitch chat or hear the tone of their voice to know if they mean what they say or not. But you should know that Twitch fosters an environment where people react to things they see on the stream; that's true for every game, every streamer, every chat. As soon as Terrence isn't on screen, Twitch chat will occupy themselves with whatever IS on screen - unless, as with DreamHack, the issue is blown to proportions that just rile the chat up like an angry beehive.
Yes, they can take it too far by being mean about what they see, joking about a person's color, weight, sex, or nerdiness. It has little to do with race specifically and more to do with commenting on what they see in order to get a reaction or some laughs. In more sane chats, they'll comment about the game itself. Good luck with that in large chats.
4) Because chat is impossible to effectively moderate with large viewership, I'd support the streamer being able to disable it entirely (per stream, not all the time). Also, maybe allow registered accounts to choose which channels they want to chat in (because really, closing the chat panel every time takes effort and we know how horrible it is to ask someone to do something requiring effort). Something like a concise, easy to see, "this is how many people are viewing" and "this is how many people are chatting" number would be nice, too, as a sort of "at-a-glance" indicator of whether a chat's pleasant to participate in or not.
5) Don't put the blame on streamers. Or, well, you can place the blame on them, but don't expect them to change. Each streamer is his or her own person, in it for his or her own reasons, with his or her own viewpoints and tolerances. Twitch should offer the freedom for anyone abiding the rules to stream in the manner that suits them best; with that freedom comes the responsibility of having to moderate their own chat if they wish to. Don't look at a streamer who laughs or even joins in when Twitch spams memes, point, and say, "You're the problem!" No, the problem is that streamers who DON'T want memes in their chat aren't aggressive enough with their moderation. It's very possible to have rational, nice Twitch chats even with memes and a bit of copypasta, if it's entertaining. An easy suggestion is to have a bot that plays various chat games to keep people entertained; Hotform and Zetalot immediately come to mind.
And before you jump on me with pitchforks, keep in mind everything I said stems from the fact that as a streamer or a chatter, you abide by the terms & conditions Twitch sets. So, ultimately, it's up to Twitch.
ggggg
As always Americans will spend millions of dollars on researchs and writing anti spam codes while Glorious Russia would just disable chat during bigger tournament and thus fix problem properly.
Please never vote.
I have been thinking about this for over a year. Whenever there is something terrorist related all you see is ANELE spammed. I have no idea why Twitch has allowed this emote to be used for so long when its only purpose is to portray terrorism. On the other hand whenever there is racism involved you see TriHard spammed. Both these emotes are only used for these reasons. I went as far as just blocking the emotes myself so i don't have to see them.
They should have seen this coming a mile away and acting like it was a surprise just baffles me. Just keep sub chat on and remove the emotes. Many issues solved! Of course this won't happen though.
I'm surprised that this kind of behavior (being hostile, for stupid reasons, like color of the skin) has grown a lot. Humans don't cease to shock me, for bad reasons, most of the time.
Unfortunately, the only way for these braindead kids to stop is by giving them a nice falcon punch in their stomach, and you can't punch people in the internet (yet).
I wish good luck to Twitch, but I don't believe they're capable of fixing peoples brains.
Oops I forgot something important.
The racist kids (which also downrepped my comment LMAO) deserve a falcon punch in their stomach, AND a Roundhouse kick in their fugly faces.
I bet these losers wear Ku Klux Klan robes in Halloween.
then, look this kid even cant accepted downrepped your comment and wanna punch them, punch with ur pillow kid
Twitch has still space for improvement hope it will come soon.
You know what offends me on Twitch chat? People spamming those stupid "kappa" emotes like mentally retarded people.
You know what I do about it? I just hide the Twitch chat and improve my viewing experience tenfold by not being aware of things that piss me off. But then again, I'm not a millenial crybaby, nor of of their cucked enablers on media or corporate governance.
I kinda agree, its sorta fascinating