NationStates

TITLE
Children's Cartoon Chafes CEO
VALIDITY
Some civil rights, Public protest is allowed, The Internet is legal, Must have private industry, Must have some mining industry

DESCRIPTION
@@ANIMAL@@ Warriors 2, a children's animated film streaming on Webflix was previously little known until a mining industry lobby group caught wind of it. In the film, a ragtag group of @@ANIMALPLURAL@@ fight a corrupt and dirty mining company and its greedy, sadistic CEO... who bears more than a passing resemblance to a @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ mining company CEO.

OPTION 1
"I'm outraged at this offensive attack on me, I mean, our industry," rages the CEO @@RANDOMNAME_1@@. "It ignores all the years of effort we've done cleaning up our processes. Why, over the last decade, employee accidents and emissions at our sites have both dropped, um, a smidge. Besides, I would never attempt to drown a bunch of @@ANIMALPLURAL@@ into a tailings pond like in this entirely fictional cartoon." @@HIS_1@@ eyes flash from side to side. Then @@HE_1@@ adds, "I demand that the streaming company pulls this movie from viewing within @@NAME@@ post-haste, and hope I can count on your support."
OUTCOME:
streaming companies are forced to pull children's films whenever a powerful person throws a tantrum

OPTION 2
"That doesn't go far enough," says mining lobbyist @@RANDOMNAME_2@@, pounding @@HIS_2@@ fist on your desk. "The movie should absolutely be banned from @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ viewership, yes. But you should also set up a government squad of our own 'reporters'; sure, let's call them that, to combat all the lies and brainwashing against one of @@DEMONYMPLURAL@@ most crucial industries. I can even head it up if you want. You know, the film's director isn't even from @@NAME@@! If you ask me there's a foreign plot against us."
OUTCOME:
anyone who even accidentally criticizes a mining company runs the risk of being doxed by government funded trolls

OPTION 3
"Don't listen to that propogandist," says co-operative farm labourer and rabid animation fan @@RANDOMNAME_3@@. "You can't just spew a bunch of malarkey over some thin-skinned fat cat's complaint and call it the truth. Imagine, squandering a bunch of taxpayer money to give negative reviews to children's cartoons and such. Embarrassing. This film isn't bad actually, and it raises several uncomfortable truths about the mining industry... maybe people like this CEO are the real villains. It's worth further study into their business practices."
OUTCOME:
the average mining site contains nearly as many environmental regulators as miners

OPTION 4
@@RANDOMNAME_4@@, the co-director of the film, chuckles over the phone from @@HIS_4@@ home in Brancaland. "You know, I never even heard of this person until after it was released, and someone pointed out the resemblance. This whole kerfuffle turned my teeny little project into a top ten streaming film. I guess they can be thanked for all the publicity. But this is at heart an artistic freedom issue; if the streaming company pulls my film over this silly tantrum, people will raise hell. Please stand up for artistic creators and put an end to this nonsense."
OUTCOME:
the film industry applauds @@LEADER@@ while hurt feelings reports from CEOs gather dust

Skaladoria wrote:@@ANIMAL@@ Warriors, a children's animated film streaming on @@REGION@@Flix was previously little known until a mining industry lobby group caught wind of it.

This made me expect an issue about the Streisand effect.

...Okay, turns out you do acknowledge that effect in the last option. But before that the other options make it sound like a government ban would actually have the desired effect.

Trotterdam wrote:

Skaladoria wrote:@@ANIMAL@@ Warriors, a children's animated film streaming on @@REGION@@Flix was previously little known until a mining industry lobby group caught wind of it.

This made me expect an issue about the Streisand effect.

...Okay, turns out you do acknowledge that effect in the last option. But before that the other options make it sound like a government ban would actually have the desired effect.

I was inspired (heavily) by the Bigfoot Family movie vs. Canadian Energy Centre issue when writing this issue, but changed the details a lot and designed a few more outcome options.
https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/it-s-silly-director-of-bigfoot-movie-thanks-alberta-energy-centre-for-controversy-1.5365643

Any additional feedback on this one?

Pretty good issue.

An obvious validity should be having a mining industry to speak of in the first place. The other thing is that there's no reason to make those options specifically male or female as far as I can tell. You can use the macro @@HIS@@ or @@HER@@ and they will show up as the correct one depending on the gender of the random speaker.

Oh, and option 2's outcome doesn't really work. Some nations have the internet banned, and it's just an oddly specific result. Who says they were talking on the internet?

May need a validity change to exclude socialist nations because CEO is literally in the name

Thanks to both of you for your feedback; I've written up a draft 2. Regarding your specific items:

Fauxia wrote:Pretty good issue.

An obvious validity should be having a mining industry to speak of in the first place. The other thing is that there's no reason to make those options specifically male or female as far as I can tell. You can use the macro @@HIS@@ or @@HER@@ and they will show up as the correct one depending on the gender of the random speaker.

Oh, and option 2's outcome doesn't really work. Some nations have the internet banned, and it's just an oddly specific result. Who says they were talking on the internet?

I've added in the macro changes and mining industry requirement. Regarding the internet thing, in draft 1 & 2 "the Internet is legal" is one of the required validity options since the movie in question was released on a streaming site. So this issue won't even show for nations with banned internet. Also, since in option 2 the outcome sets up a squad to combat industry criticism from all media, including internet, I had the comment specify that opponents risk "being doxed by online trolls". But in draft 2, I took out the work "online".

Laka Strolistandiler wrote:May need a validity change to exclude socialist nations because CEO is literally in the name

I put in a new validity item to specify "Must have private industry". I'm not sure how specific the definition of "Must not be socialist" would mean, since a lot of nations considered socialist do have private industry CEOs.

How do you plan to enforce censorship outside of your own borders? Unless you go full China, that is, and if you went full China, that would be a different issue in and of itself. The most you can do is block it within your own borders

Australian rePublic wrote:How do you plan to enforce censorship outside of your own borders? Unless you go full China, that is, and if you went full China, that would be a different issue in and of itself. The most you can do is block it within your own borders

Good point, thanks. The issue didn't go into specifics on how far the ban would go, but it makes sense that it would probably be limited to the borders of the one country whose government complained. I've tweaked the wording in option 1 and 2 so that it makes sure to reference pulling the movie within local borders only.

I made some minor tweaks to the draft, not enough to make a new version. Just took advantage of the @@ANIMALPLURAL@@ and @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ macros rather than the non-standard variations I had before ("@@ANIMAL@@s" and "@@DEMONYM@@s" respectively).

I put up a draft 3, just cleaning stuff up. I will use this issue for the contest as well. Please let me know if there is any additional feedback.

Going to move this to last call before submitting.

(Edit - moving back to Draft 3)

...why mining? Just seems very...odd. Normally people sneak political things into cartoons but mining is just so narrow.

Also, I'd slow down a little. Just because you aren't being swarmed with feedback doesn't mean you should submit. Use your 30 days.

Minskiev wrote:...why mining? Just seems very...odd. Normally people sneak political things into cartoons but mining is just so narrow.

Also, I'd slow down a little. Just because you aren't being swarmed with feedback doesn't mean you should submit. Use your 30 days.

I chose mining because it's the most similar to the oil industry, where my inspiration for this issue came from. Both are major industries (in a number of real life countries) with a lot of potential baggage directly relevant to this issue.

For sure, I'll leave it until near the end of the month before submitting. Just wasn't seeing any feedback for a while.

Bump

Will be submitting by the end of the month contest deadline. If anyone has additional feedback, please feel free to share.

I'm not going to lie, I thought this was inspired a bit by the John Oliver vs. Murray Energy thing that happened a while back. Seems this issue is more common than it appears

I think in general, the options can do with a bit more humor. For example, I think the first option can be improved by having the CEO deny things more unconvincingly. The lady doth protest too much, methinks and all that.

That said, I do like the issue and hope to see it in the game eventually. Good luck!

Thanks, appreciate the feedback. I like your suggestion of adding more humour, and added a couple of things to a new draft... with any luck I'll come up with more before the deadline. I didn't even think of John Oliver vs. Murray Energy when creating the issue; great stuff there!

The Atlae Isles wrote:I'm not going to lie, I thought this was inspired a bit by the John Oliver vs. Murray Energy thing that happened a while back. Seems this issue is more common than it appears

I think in general, the options can do with a bit more humor. For example, I think the first option can be improved by having the CEO deny things more unconvincingly. The lady doth protest too much, methinks and all that.

That said, I do like the issue and hope to see it in the game eventually. Good luck!

Since I wasn't certain if four different instances of @@RANDOMNAME@@ (one for each option, each from a distinct speaker) would result in the same name recurring or not, I separated them into @@RANDOMNAME_1@@, @@RANDOMNAME_2@@, and so on. That seems to be the preferred way to do so but in the issues spoilers there are examples of issues doing it either way. If anyone knows if the issues editors have a 'preferred' way of receiving multiple random names in an submission, please let me know.

The issues has been submitted for the contest. Thanks for the feedback, everybody!