D&D 5E D&D Beyond Self-Censorship: Pride Month Digital Dice Blocked In Some Countries

[Ondath]

I've been seeing the notification on my D&D Beyond account about the free pride-month dice that I could claim (there's a post about it on ENWorld here as well), but when I finally got around to clicking that link to claim my dice, I got this:

So I clicked on the link to see what was going on, and apparently they made this annoncement 4 days ago, alongside their Pride Dice announcement:
Regionally Blocked Content on D&D Beyond

Now, my country (Turkey) isn't doing too great on LGBT rights, I'll grant you that. Pride Walks are banned with little to no reason despite there being a constitutional right for free assembly, and without going too political, the current government is not pro-LGBT rights. That said, there is no law banning homosexual relations or their "propaganda" (as it is in some countries) that would require WotC to block access to some rainbow-coloured dice here. On the contrary, there is a vibrant LGBT community in big cities, and people's opinions are changing, albeit slowly. This kind of regressive attitude that puts pride flags in European or American accounts and not only ignores LGBT people in Turkey but actively blocks content that celebrates them seems inane to me. I doubt WotC was contacted by the government to do this, since D&D isn't that known outside the tight-knit TTRPG community, so it really looks like they decided to label Turkey as "one of the backwards ones" and blanket ban access to their own page.

I don't know what can be done about this, but I thought this kind of hypocritical behaviour should've been made known.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Sadly I am not surprised at all.

 

[Guest 7034872]

Ondath, I'm sorry. I agree that that's pretty lame.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That is really spectacularly crappy, and Hasbro should be ashamed, frankly, genuinely ashamed.

This kind of "progressivism for the Western countries and needlessly fervent compliance with what we deem to be backwards countries" is not helping anyone.

Really I think letting one of the major D&D-related Twitter accounts know about it might be the thing to do. I don't post on Twitter myself, but it seems like that might go viral pretty quickly if the right person from Critical Role or someone found out about it.

 

[Ondath]

That is really spectacularly crappy, and Hasbro should be ashamed, frankly, genuinely ashamed.

Really I think letting one of the major D&D-related Twitter accounts know about it might be the thing to do. I don't post on Twitter myself, but it seems like that might go viral pretty quickly if the right person from Critical Role or someone found out about it.

I tried tagging D&D Beyond's account and some Turkish TTRPG-scene folx, but you're right in that grabbing the attention of one of the bigger D&D figures would probably be helpful. Also, this is most likely a global phenomenon and not just limited to Turkey, and I'd wager their blanket ban applies to a lot of places without any restrictive laws as well.

 

[Alzrius]

That is really spectacularly crappy, and Hasbro should be ashamed, frankly, genuinely ashamed.

^ this. What an utterly feckless move on their part.

 

[darjr]

I tried tagging D&D Beyond's account and some Turkish TTRPG-scene folx, but you're right in that grabbing the attention of one of the bigger D&D figures would probably be helpful. Also, this is most likely a global phenomenon and not just limited to Turkey, and I'd wager their blanket ban applies to a lot of places without any restrictive laws as well.

Tag Greg or Shelly.

 

[Ancalagon]

that is very disappointing indeed

 

[J.Quondam]

It would be enlightening to see WotC's list of where the promo has and has not been limited. Knowing of Turkey's checkered history with internet censorship, I suspect that lawyers and execs at Hasbro weighed the risk of pushing the promo there versus having the entire D&D Beyond website blocked in that country.
Anyone interested really should take a few minutes to look into the internet censorship issue there. It's a fraught topic, indeed.

 

[Ondath]

It would be enlightening to see WotC's list of where the promo has and has not been limited. Knowing of Turkey's checkered history with internet censorship, I suspect that lawyers and execs at Hasbro weighed the risk of pushing the promo there versus having the entire D&D Beyond website blocked in that country.
Anyone interested really should take a few minutes to look into the internet censorship issue there. It's a fraught topic, indeed.

I'm certain this is what happened, and self-censorship is becoming more and more common sadly (just a few days ago, The Boys' latest season had some stuff first censored, then completely cut out. I don't watch the show so I don't know the context, but it did attract a lot of social media backlash). But even when self-censorship is applied, most companies find some way to make their stuff available. For instance, League of Legends' pride content is available in Turkey, just under the name "colour festival" (and even that gets people angry at Riot for applying self-censorship!). Netflix's wide array of LGBT-friendly content is also available in Turkey with little censorship (granted, only so far, as the government increasingly put Netflix under the media watchdog's control presumably to punish them if they add more "indecent" shows). I just find this kind of busybody heavy-handed approach to be unhelpful either to the company (who'll anger progressive users in Turkey, who are more likely to be their users) or the country.

Tag Greg or Shelly.

Would that be Greg Tito and Shelly Mazzanoble?