Blizzard community,
Our world has a long history of racism. Humans create groups, and then create divisions between groups unlike themselves. Ironic how we need each other as social creatures, yet we developed the practice to ‘other’ humans who at first glance don’t look like what we see in the mirror.
I have made it a personal obligation to educate myself about trauma others endure, and to work to change those experiences for them. Many within Blizzard come from a place of strong purpose, with a will to do in order to help society.
Last year at BlizzCon, I made a commitment for Blizzard to do better. We pride ourselves on learning and growing, and doing something now that reflects our company and community values. I also said that our actions would matter more than our words—we have been publicly silent until now because action is the important part.
Let me be clear: Blizzard stands in solidarity with those fighting against racism, because racism is as dangerous as any pandemic for those affected. We stand with those fighting against social and institutional structures that promote inequality among people of color.
Last week, AB announced donations to the Equal Justice Initiative, the United Negro College Fund, and the Management Leaders of Tomorrow (MLT) to fight systemic racial inequality. At Blizzard, we are working on initiatives for our community and our workplace.
In our games: For many years, we’ve had teams working with A.I. and machine learning to reduce toxicity and hate speech, as well as to help improve the overall gaming experience. Since January 1 this year, we’ve banned over 30,000 accounts for these reasons, as well as issued more than three million total hours of player suspensions. These penalties have notably improved our game environments: over the last two years, we’ve seen a 43% reduction in poor behavior reports, and a 59% reduction in the re-offense rate. And while this is progress, we’ve identified other places where we can use this technology and have more work to continue to do toward this effort.
In our relationships: We are also reviewing our partnerships to identify opportunities to support Black-owned and diverse businesses, and to amplify the voices of Black content creators and influencers.
Juneteenth: Today at Blizzard, we are observing Juneteenth with the goal of encouraging employees to take the time to be educated. We hosted a virtual session with a leader in our home city of Irvine, California, so employees can learn more about implicit bias, implications for law and policy, and how they can get involved in local efforts to drive change. We have also provided a list of resources to help coworkers self-educate, and shared ways to get involved in advocacy.
Ongoing: We are stronger with more diverse views and experiences. We are committed to being a more equitable workplace, including how and where we recruit, our HR practices, and employee support. We will also put an ongoing employee education program into place. This program will include more training and education (with the materials purchased from Black and minority-owned businesses), and Blizzard-wide town halls with experts on allyship, advocacy, and racism.
All of this work will continue to make Blizzard better, and play some small part in a larger, positive shift.
To our Black community, colleagues, and partners, Blizzard stands with you.
Black lives matter, today and always.
- J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment
CO-founder of the movement outed herself a marxist versed in marxist political strategy, anyone who supports BLM is either a marxist themself or just a useful idiot. Screw your appeal to identity politics. ALL LIVES MATTER, and THAT's THAT.
as long as they ban people for speaking out for their country and livelihoods in general
this current whatever it is means nothing, the damage has already been done. sorry, j.allen
better luck next time (maybe)
In my opinion, supporting "BLACK LIVES MATTER" and supporting anti-racism and black people are different things. It's also not an anti-racist movement, when it is being racist itself to all other races besides black, and being offensive to people holding other beliefs, especially right-winged people.
Violently forcing affirmative action will not bring the black community closer to equality; The community will throw the black community bones, such as soft words, some job positions and few budgets, but will fear them more. They won't be taking care of the real issues that put the black community in USA a step behind, like handling crime and giving them proper education like they should have. I support anti-racism and all equality for all races, black, yellow and white, but cannot support BLM.
And about Blizzard. this feels like an ass-cover; You mostly respect your money sources, like China (Blitzchung will confirm), and not black people. How many black streamers do you have compared to White and Chinese ones? How many Black officials you have in your company compared to White ones? How many teams from Africa participate in your tournaments?... (It's okay, BLM doesn't care to much about Africa either). [This is only my opinion based on partial information and I can change it, comments are welcome].
Not really
Telling me to use my brain, you are the bottom feeders in society, using one stat to justify your bigotry. Facts? how about IQ is correlated to level of one's education way more than genetics. Also exposure to lead in run down neighborhoods. And your discussion is with other white nationalists so you can jerk eachother off instead of having real discussions.
Jesus Christ, well this has certainly had the effect of revealing what views lurk beneath the surface of many of the regulars on this site. The levels of equivocation and straw-manning are pretty mind-blowing.
Why only black lives matter? did blizzard forgot there are white and yellow lives also? we are all equal
Okay. Get out of your fantasy world and think in real terms for a bit kid.
1) Blizzard is not a military force. They are a video game company.
2) Why stop at Blizzard? Why don't you harass all the other companies that do business with China?
3) Why stop at China? There are many countries in Southern Africa and other countries suffering from fascism.
3) What does cutting off financial ties with China help fascism and communism to be overthrown? An ideology to be eradicated from humanity. That's probably going to take thousands and thousands of years. Likely fascism is here to stay with humanity.
4) Realistically, what you desire requires blood and lots of blood. War. Nuclear weapons. There is no heaven and hell. You will be dead as a dog. I think people nowadays have forgotten what the costs of war is. Cutting off business is usually the first step to war.
5) Almost NO business wants to be taken advantage of to spread YOUR OWN political agendas. There is also something called NSFW.
This is a depressingly ignorant response
I don't even know where to begin. It is a list of excuses and rationalisations. None of which would hold up to scrutiny.
I don't know why I have singled you out. It was the first comment that I saw I suppose but I want to have a educative conversation with people and I read this stuff and it is assertions upon assertions.
It can easily be seen as inconsistent for blizzard to support BLM but kow to China, but it is important to remember that Blizzard are a capitalist organisation within a capitalist system that they have no interest in undermining. But, then I think a strong argument against capitalism should be developed in response to the inconsistency, as many people are doing. Many people, especially within the critical race theory movement, are arguing that racism is intimately tied to capitalism and to solve the former the latter must be dismantled.
So in response to your curious bullet pointed list. 1) why is that relevant? Partnerships and cooperatives are legitimate business models that are less aligned to a thoroughgoing captialism. 2) Noone either begins or ends with blizzard, it is a demand that should be made of all private business. 3) Noone either begins or ends with China, most countries across the world are controlled undemocratically by oppressive economic systems that must be dismantled. 4) Nonviolent strategies are proven to be both effective and efficient in overcoming oppression. Also, as an aside, this is an abhorrently ignorant thing to say. 5) What is the NSFW? Why is it relevant? That business operates largely outside of political pressure is arguably problematic and a weakening of any claim of democratic governance, because, let us not forget, our elected officials are not unresponsive to the demands of business - this creates a one directional relationship.
Forgive me for picking on you. I realise that you haven't intended to spell out a clear idea and you responding to a pretty naive comment because it is not in blizzards interests to challenge the authority of their business affiliates, but your comment was complete nonsense.
Another mysterious new account defending Blizzard's silence about Hong Kong.
Look at all the emergent heathpwn racists. I'm white and I am happy to say that BLM. I do not feel threatened by a movement whose sole aim is to level the playing field a bit and expose institutional racism and bigotry.
Racial discrimination is a stain on humanity and you in the USA are world champions at it. If I was black the USA would be the last place in the so-called free world that I would want to live.
I suppose you'd rather live in the middle east or Africa where black people are still sold as slaves? As opposed to America where they benefit from affirmative action...
x
You should read his comment again ...
Yeah, because hatret/aggression towards the other side, jumping to conclusions, making assumptions out of thin air and creating an almost conspiracy-like narcistic "anti-agenda", while treating your own position as infallible, could never lead to anything related to racism, right?
Dude, you seem very butthurt about this whole thing. Or just ready to hate on everything, just because you can argue with people.
"Ironically people like you are the main reason bigotry happens"
So it's the people calling racism out, who are the problem ... Wow. Just wow.
Whatever dude jank yourself off of that "they start their own dictatorship!"-Edgelord conspiracy bs.
Are you talking to yourself?
In CHAZ they physically and sexually assaulted a guy for preaching his religion and recorded it. Dictatorship.
Well, they sure did a good job leveling Seattle...
"Last year at BlizzCon, I made a commitment for Blizzard to do better." - I am curious what they were doing that was detrimental to the black community before he made the commitment.
Because facts and statistics without an unbiased conclusion, as provided by the actual studies, end up making false conclusions. The stat themselves while true does not give you the right to harass the person with them. Try walking into your job or a random person of color on the street and explain to them the stats show the average person of my race has about 13% more IQ than a average person of your race. Or hey all my statistically likely people to have a lower IQ than me, how was your morning meeting? That's a one way ticket to HR.
It's hate speech because you are not a master in the subject matter, thus citing them does not guarantee you understand the studies purpose or even what remedies are needed.