Good, good....the more the merrier. Maybe finally the world will stop cuddling with China like they did in past 3 decades and start treating them for what they really are. A tight grip censorship dictatorship that has thrown dust in the world's eyes posing as softies while behind the scenes they amassed a lot of wealth riding West blindness.
> A tight grip censorship dictatorship that has thrown dust in the world's eyes posing as softies while behind the scenes they amassed a lot of wealth riding West blindness.
The West was fooled by China playing softies? No, you're being far too kind. It's more like the West willfully turning a blind eye and selling out due to greed. This is what you get when capitalism is pushed to the extreme - "values" diminish until you're left with only "value in dollars". China understood this, and western governments/corporations played ball.
China right now is national socialism like Hitler could only dream of implementing. It is eerie how directly parallel developments are, and how little this is remarked.
At least they are not the same warmongerers as the USA. Their tactics to use the legit ways of business to gain more power is really smart compared to many western countries who just invade others with brute force, military and bombs.
China is a f*ed up country concerning human rights etc. but in the end we could really use a mix of the best ideas from both worlds.
I'm afraid the world will go on like it does because globalization forces us to work together. Either one will gain absolute power or we'll have this situation going on like forever probably.
P.S.: We have our own share of censorship etc. but we have the tendency to ignore that and point our fingers at countries like China for being "much worse".
I'm curious to see if their relationship with Ubisoft gets strained, though, given some recent news with gaming companies trying hard to maintain good relations with China, and because I believe Ubisoft is partly owned by a Chinese company.
(FYI - Ubisoft / Obsidian made the Stick of Truth games, and I believe a mobile game or two with the South Park license.)
Tencent has about a 5% stake iirc. They also have small interests in Activision-Blizzard and a big chunk of Epic. I have no idea what 5% of a company buys them.
I love how a single episode of a show can piss off the government of a country. Just recently Saudi Arabia banned an episode of "Patriot Act" and now this. Tyrants are really sensitive I guess.
> No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
Here's a fun game to play: close your eyes and imagine yourself in their shoes, hanging on to power day after day by a thread, relying on fear and coercion to keep on going.
Now comes such an episode making fun of you in front of the people you scare for a living.
I don't think South Park angered the CCP only with Winnie the Pooh. Southpark can be seen as subversive to authoritarian regimes, the catchy jokes may make the people think outside the reestablished mold.
This is not about it officially airing on Chinese TV, it’s about blocking it entirely from the whole of the Chinese Internet. You can’t even search for “South Park” and get any search results, not just on video sharing sites but on web search and social media sites as well. There’s another discussion on hacker news today that goes in the more details, it’s pretty scary the extent to which the Chinese government can wipe an entire topic off their corner of the internet. And with centralized chat systems like WeChat, your messages won’t go through either if they catch censorship algorithms. This effectively allows them to limit conversation about topics, which greatly hampers the Streisand effect everyone else is alluding to.
I think you’re overestimating South Park’s popularity, especially when compared to the NBA. They cancelled it because they don’t like being made fun of.
I see lots of Anti-China sentiment. I would be very careful here into not falling into the trap of making ourselves China's "Enemy".
China in its current form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult questions like "censorship", and in order to survive will need to change - and that's what really scares them.
I don't think that setting up an enemy is what Chinese government needs to survive after 1979. it might be used to. on the contrary, what they need to survive now is to keep their economy stable and strong to prove/maintain their legitimacy to rule the country.
All the other stuff doesn't matter I guess (nba, hollywood, apple, blizzard, etc)? But since techies love south park for some reason we suddenly care? HN are full of hypocrites. In any case, I need to go rewatch the episode with chinese translations. Watched it on hulu and CC didn't show for the chinese speaking parts :( .
[+] [-] unnouinceput|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redleggedfrog|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] captncrunchcode|6 years ago|reply
P.S. While this trending topic isn't directly related to technology, great to see the masses in tech taking a stance against censorship.
[+] [-] iliketosleep|6 years ago|reply
The West was fooled by China playing softies? No, you're being far too kind. It's more like the West willfully turning a blind eye and selling out due to greed. This is what you get when capitalism is pushed to the extreme - "values" diminish until you're left with only "value in dollars". China understood this, and western governments/corporations played ball.
[+] [-] yahwrong|6 years ago|reply
Realistically climate change is a more pressing issue than censorship.
[+] [-] thrower123|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] not_a_cop75|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leesec|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] VvR-Ox|6 years ago|reply
China is a f*ed up country concerning human rights etc. but in the end we could really use a mix of the best ideas from both worlds.
I'm afraid the world will go on like it does because globalization forces us to work together. Either one will gain absolute power or we'll have this situation going on like forever probably.
P.S.: We have our own share of censorship etc. but we have the tendency to ignore that and point our fingers at countries like China for being "much worse".
[+] [-] wei_jok|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bboygravity|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shanedrgn|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] s3r3nity|6 years ago|reply
I'm curious to see if their relationship with Ubisoft gets strained, though, given some recent news with gaming companies trying hard to maintain good relations with China, and because I believe Ubisoft is partly owned by a Chinese company.
(FYI - Ubisoft / Obsidian made the Stick of Truth games, and I believe a mobile game or two with the South Park license.)
[+] [-] holy_city|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xdead|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruez|6 years ago|reply
> No one gets in trouble for saying that 2 + 2 is 5, or that people in Pittsburgh are ten feet tall. Such obviously false statements might be treated as jokes, or at worst as evidence of insanity, but they are not likely to make anyone mad. The statements that make people mad are the ones they worry might be believed. I suspect the statements that make people maddest are those they worry might be true.
http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
[+] [-] ur-whale|6 years ago|reply
Here's a fun game to play: close your eyes and imagine yourself in their shoes, hanging on to power day after day by a thread, relying on fear and coercion to keep on going.
Now comes such an episode making fun of you in front of the people you scare for a living.
What do you do?
[+] [-] carapace|6 years ago|reply
"That's silly."
"It's only going to make people around the world watch it."
"A country the size of China with the power that they have and they mess up on a tiny insult."
[+] [-] tibbydudeza|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onemoresoop|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] liuliu|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] OkGoDoIt|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sebringj|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lapsa|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitriid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Strom|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neighbour|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tempodox|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fenk85|6 years ago|reply
"'We good now China?' South Park creators issue mock apology after show reportedly censored"
Well all publicity is good publicity, fair play to them for standing up to their principles
[+] [-] shantly|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] subversionist|6 years ago|reply
This is about sending a very clear message to everybody else. You can be as big and well known and South Park, yet be cancelled in one second.
[+] [-] latexr|6 years ago|reply
I think you’re overestimating South Park’s popularity, especially when compared to the NBA. They cancelled it because they don’t like being made fun of.
[+] [-] nutcracker46|6 years ago|reply
(Look what I did there: two countries, not one.)
[+] [-] Hitton|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrower123|6 years ago|reply
Hell, give them back the Security Council seat that they had until the 70s...
[+] [-] zarro|6 years ago|reply
China in its current form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult questions like "censorship", and in order to survive will need to change - and that's what really scares them.
[+] [-] umvi|6 years ago|reply
It's hard not to be the enemy of such a government seeking to increase its power and influence on the world.
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] age_of_stone|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sabujp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|6 years ago|reply
Yesterday, HN's top story was about Apple removing the Taiwan flag from the emoji keyboard: https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-07
[+] [-] crims0n|6 years ago|reply