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Notes -
Aside from this and with the Hogwarts Legacy awareness campaign going on, I'm also reminded of two incidents when Chinese censorship collided with American entertainment corporations. The first was the Blitzchung controversy, when Blizzard acted out against a Hearthstone player who talked about the Hong Kong protests during an official stream. The second was when Chinese corporations withdrew their sponsorships for the NBA because the NBA didn't "sufficiently" punish someone in the NBA who tweeted support for the Hong Kong protesters. The NBA chose to accept the withdrawals and stand behind the free speech of the tweet.
Despite one action being pro-China and the other being anti, I think both decisions were correct under the principle that it's good for us to have "sanctuaries". There should be times and spaces where we can consciously ignore conflicts to do something enriching together, as a reminder of common humanity. Even if both sides return to war, even if they have incompatible values, we at least remember the cost of casualties.
Sports have a tradition of being such a sanctuary, and I feel like signal boosting a conflict-heavy cause during these spectator events is a violation of that. Signal boosting outside of the events, outside of the sacred spacetime, falls under the judgement of free speech principles in that context (or your equivalent principle). Public discussion spaces like The Motte pursue a similar sanctuary ideal, and that pursuit is likely more important than the sports sanctuary.
Should art be a sanctuary? I'm not confident enough to say that all "art" is eligible for sanctuary. Editorial cartoons and documentaries are closer to the conflict and are probably part of the culture war battlefield. But identifying art that's eligible for sanctuary is more of an I-know-it-when-I-see-it affair. Is it largely apolitical (distant from the hot points of conflict)? Is it well crafted? Is it heartfelt? Is it self-expression? Is it honest? At some point, yes, consuming, sharing, and discussing that art has the same function of connecting us through human commonalities, even as we're divided by our just as human differences.
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