Valve sparks outrage by removing the LGBTQ+ inclusive game Flick Solitaire from Steam in Russia, bowing to Kremlin censorship demands while Apple and Google refuse.
‘This isn’t “wokeness”, it’s basic human rights and equality and nothing more,’ he added. ‘If Steam can’t support free speech of LGBTQ+ people, then at the very least they should be transparent about this.’
What a bizarre response. Neither Roskomnadzor nor Valve claimed this had anything to do with “‘wokeness,’” and Steam was in fact transparent about this.
I don’t really get what anyone expects Valve to do here other than comply with the law. Still, I’m surprised they’re even able to operate in Russia given all the sanctions.
There’s a thin red line that tie both Putin’s oligarchs and Trump’s oligarchs: “wokeness” is a concept fabricated by the latter but is completely compliant with Russian’s 2006 federal law. They can’t formalized that freedom of people doesn’t matter, they need to make-up a blurry concept of “tradition” and a vague concept of something that may corrupt the aforementioned joke (“traditional values”: the one between the traditional human ape rape cave and matrimonial rites after human ape pack raided another pack and took their females)
I mean on the literal level, “‘wokeness’” was used quotatively by Masters, as though somebody else had actually said that exact word. This is what strikes me as bizarre.
But also, the ‘woke’ thing is a new layer to the culture war that emerged in the late '10s. It was precipitated by similar disagreements over issues of social justice and affirmative action, of course, but not to the same extent or precision. However, Russia is acting consistently with how they acted a decade ago. So this is my weak argument that ‘wokeness’ is indeed not relevant here even in concept.
What a bizarre response. Neither Roskomnadzor nor Valve claimed this had anything to do with “‘wokeness,’” and Steam was in fact transparent about this.
I don’t really get what anyone expects Valve to do here other than comply with the law. Still, I’m surprised they’re even able to operate in Russia given all the sanctions.
Pull out. And the same every country, including the one we both live in if need be
There’s a thin red line that tie both Putin’s oligarchs and Trump’s oligarchs: “wokeness” is a concept fabricated by the latter but is completely compliant with Russian’s 2006 federal law. They can’t formalized that freedom of people doesn’t matter, they need to make-up a blurry concept of “tradition” and a vague concept of something that may corrupt the aforementioned joke (“traditional values”: the one between the traditional human ape rape cave and matrimonial rites after human ape pack raided another pack and took their females)
I mean on the literal level, “‘wokeness’” was used quotatively by Masters, as though somebody else had actually said that exact word. This is what strikes me as bizarre.
But also, the ‘woke’ thing is a new layer to the culture war that emerged in the late '10s. It was precipitated by similar disagreements over issues of social justice and affirmative action, of course, but not to the same extent or precision. However, Russia is acting consistently with how they acted a decade ago. So this is my weak argument that ‘wokeness’ is indeed not relevant here even in concept.
They ignored (legitimate) youth protection laws long enough, they could ignore this one, too.
? Curious, any good places to look into this?