In a case of life imitating art imitating life, the Chinese government has purged all references to South Park from the country's highly restricted internet-following an episode of the show that criticized Chinese censorship.
Randy Marsh gets sent to a Chinese prison, where he meets Winnie the Pooh-a reference to China's odd attempts to clamp down on the beloved bear for its supposedly resemblance Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Now, those very same government censors, in the real world, have lashed back at South Park by deleting virtually every clip, episode and online discussion of the show from Chinese streaming services, social media and even fan pages.
A search of the Twitter-like social media service Weibo turns up not a single mention of South Park among the billions of past posts.
On streaming service Youku, owned by Internet giant Alibaba, all links to clips, episodes and even full seasons of the show are now dead. And on Baidu's Tieba, China's largest online discussions platform, the threads and sub-threads related to South Park are nonfunctional.
If users manually type in the URL for what was formerly the South Park thread, a message appears saying that, "According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open."
The South Park ban proceeds news that Chinese broadcasters will no longer air the Houston Rockets' NBA games because a general manager tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests.
https://reason.com/2019/10/07/china-south-park-ban-censorship/
They have been struggling to squelch the Hong Kong protestors, who want China to honor its commitments for democracy and rule of law in that semi-autonomous territory.
Tencent, the Chinese digital rights holder for NBA broadcasts, dropped the team from streaming.
The NBA is big business in China, where 500 million people watched games last season, according to the Associated Press, and where a new streaming deal alone will generate $1.5 billion for the league over the next five years.
China is attempting to enforce its version of the truth all around the world - bullying Chinese-language newspapers in Canada and the United States, patrolling the speech of its students abroad, demanding that foreign airlines and hotel chains wipe Taiwan off their maps.
Those dictators will say, as usual, that Morey's tweet offended the "Chinese people." But because the Chinese people themselves are not free to speak out - since anyone in China expressing support for the Hong Kong movement is also punished - those claims should not be taken seriously.
If Silver really believes that "You really do have to stand for something" - what will it be, if not freedom of expression in Hong Kong, in Houston and around the world?
https://www.chron.com/opinion/article/The-day-the-NBA-fluttered-before-China-14499738.php
Randy Marsh gets sent to a Chinese prison, where he meets Winnie the Pooh-a reference to China's odd attempts to clamp down on the beloved bear for its supposedly resemblance Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Now, those very same government censors, in the real world, have lashed back at South Park by deleting virtually every clip, episode and online discussion of the show from Chinese streaming services, social media and even fan pages.
A search of the Twitter-like social media service Weibo turns up not a single mention of South Park among the billions of past posts.
On streaming service Youku, owned by Internet giant Alibaba, all links to clips, episodes and even full seasons of the show are now dead. And on Baidu's Tieba, China's largest online discussions platform, the threads and sub-threads related to South Park are nonfunctional.
If users manually type in the URL for what was formerly the South Park thread, a message appears saying that, "According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open."
The South Park ban proceeds news that Chinese broadcasters will no longer air the Houston Rockets' NBA games because a general manager tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests.
https://reason.com/2019/10/07/china-south-park-ban-censorship/
The day the NBA fluttered before China
Last year, Silver told CNN that the "Sense of an obligation, social responsibility, a desire to speak up directly about issues that are important" is "Part of being an NBA player." Taking note of a certain meekness in other corporate suites, he said, "I think in this day and age, you really do have to stand for something."They have been struggling to squelch the Hong Kong protestors, who want China to honor its commitments for democracy and rule of law in that semi-autonomous territory.
Tencent, the Chinese digital rights holder for NBA broadcasts, dropped the team from streaming.
The NBA is big business in China, where 500 million people watched games last season, according to the Associated Press, and where a new streaming deal alone will generate $1.5 billion for the league over the next five years.
China is attempting to enforce its version of the truth all around the world - bullying Chinese-language newspapers in Canada and the United States, patrolling the speech of its students abroad, demanding that foreign airlines and hotel chains wipe Taiwan off their maps.
Those dictators will say, as usual, that Morey's tweet offended the "Chinese people." But because the Chinese people themselves are not free to speak out - since anyone in China expressing support for the Hong Kong movement is also punished - those claims should not be taken seriously.
If Silver really believes that "You really do have to stand for something" - what will it be, if not freedom of expression in Hong Kong, in Houston and around the world?
https://www.chron.com/opinion/article/The-day-the-NBA-fluttered-before-China-14499738.php
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