IIRC, it's not a general ban, it's just censored from social media, probably by official directive.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
Even if it was slightly true it must have been incredibly insignificant hence my skepticism.
My point is that we could leave out a bit of noise as it is very easy to come across misunderstanding already.
If you can read Chinese, you will found that on some forums people are like talking with magic spells, in extreme cases, whole paragraph or article is composed of word/characters that pronounce same but looks different, or just looks similar enough so people understand what it implys.
Even if Chinese is my native language I can't read ciphertext of that level.
Talking about censorship, I'd like to share my 2 cents. For some time I had been actively browsing Zhihu (a Chinese knowledge sharing social platform), even posting and talking with the users. It's around a decade ago, the censorship back then was much looser. I am a Taiwanese, we even talked about a political incident which is basically Taiwanese people protesting about the ruling signing CSSTA... some Chinese agree, some do not, some just left hatred comments, but people back then was really talking and sharing opiinion. You find no more stuff like this now, the censorship got strengthened over years, a lot of topics are risky and people would rather not talk about it.
I think what you are saying about censorship is true but it's also because we are facing unprecedented challenges both online and in real life. The traditional academic settings of intellectuals on various sites are not the same anymore. I won't say what is better or not but I hope more communications will eventually bridge gaps. If you're skeptical about the relationship between Taiwan and the mainland, look at Republic Ireland / Northern Ireland. It could be much worse until eventually an ambiguous agreement arrived. Sometimes people just need a bit cool down to communicate.
When the Pooh meme was happening if you tried sending it the receiver would never get it.
Now that it has died down it's no longer a focus (though I'm still unsure if that image would be received). The same thing happens around certain events (Tiananmen Square Anniversary) where they get more extreme about the censorship.
The fact that they applied the censors to the Pooh meme shows that they'll do it for even the mildest 'threat'.
As I pointed out in another comment, it was also the content of the most censored Weibo post in 2015 [2], according to the Weiboscope cenorship tracker.
These examples are very easy to find if you Google for them (assuming you can Google from your country).
[0] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba...
[1] https://gamerant.com/kingdom-hearts-3-winnie-pooh-censorship...
[2] https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/china-top-5-censored-po...
"(assuming you can Google from your country)" I think it's a bit unnecessary to assume that given that HN is largely targeting tech space and people will have very diverse reasons of not using Google? Assuming we're discussing this out of good faith one should realise if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO.
When you Google “Kingdom Hearts III China Cenorship”, Google returns more than 4 million results. Assuming there are repetitions and only 0.1% of them (i.e. 4K results) are genuine and unique. You think all these search results are fake?
I will also claim that atomic bombs exist. Do you need to make an atomic bomb yourself to verify my claim?
The first article I linked above [0] discussed several instances where Winnie the Pooh is banned, and many more it is not. So the censorship is real but not universal.
[0] https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba...
> if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO
Since you don’t like English source, let me Google some Chinese sources for you:
[1] https://dailyview.tw/Popular/Detail/1182
[2] https://www.bcc.com.tw/newsView.4791295
> "(assuming you can Google from your country)"
Because those links are the first few hits when I googled Winnie the Pooh censorhip in China. You seemed unable to find such news.
Because you have never admitted censorship of Winnie the Pooh happened on Chinese social media. You kept questioning many of the evidence I provided (“if one can only read english sources it might be a little biased IMHO”, “I can not verify your claim since I don't play Kingdom Hearts”), or dismissing evidence as “trivia”.
I don’t know if you agree that censorship of Winnie the Pooh actually happened. So I had to keep Googling for alternative sources for you. You need to point out whether you agree with the key points in the above articles, or provide solid counter evidence (with sources).
Until then, there is no way to move the discussion forward.
BTW, more censorship news: https://game.udn.com/game/story/12982/5338115
I never said that censorship never happened ever in the above discussion. Maybe it wasn't clear enough for you I apologise. I'm sorry if that's the interpretation in your mind. I encourage you to read the comments again. You would notice I never denied censorship happened in China either, in multiple places. I merely point out the difference between the sensationalised notion of 'Anything related to Winnie are banned' and 'posts been censored at specific time' in China. My nephew's english name is Winnie so you can see how popular Winnie the Pooh is.
Indeed I agree there's no way to move the discussion further if the initial points were overlooked and just embarking on a path of assumptions.
I just searched for 小熊维尼 and 小熊维 on bilibili, and got the same findings as this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/m9vziq/%E5%AD%98...
Winnie-the-Pooh videos are clearly censored when you searched for 小熊维尼 (you only get generic Disney videos), but you can bypass the filter and find a few genuine Winnie-the-Pooh videos if you only search for 小熊维. The censorship is ongoing, even though not universal.
I don't like the idea of divisive labels such as wumao, gongzhi, fenqing (they are quite dated as well if you are old as me!) it will only reduce conversations to a low quality brawl. My view is as long as debates are open, rational, and logical, progressive thinking is preserved.
(Case in point: H&M is just censored from all major platforms in China, including Apple Maps [0]. This is totally unacceptable in any free society, hence this article. If people think censorship like this is noise, that’s why you will see more censorship acts in the future.)
https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/winnie-the-pooh-china-ba... is an honest evaluation of cases where Winnie-the-Pooh is censored, and where it is not. This article still concludes Winnie-the-Pooh is censored (“China’s ban on that lovable fluff ball may indeed tighten”), despite many cases it is allowed.
Censorship is not binary. Saying “Winnie-the-Pooh is not censored” is misleading and dishonest, when it is clearly censored today on major video sites.
In a Time of Universal Deceit — Telling the Truth Is a Revolutionary Act
[0] https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/26/22352357/h-m-western-bran...
However it is like you said it's not so binary. I think there are differences between censoring posts and banning a whole commercial theme. No one is doubting the former but anyone who doesn't understand China would think it's a dystopia if they hear the latter (which is clearly not true in my opinion). It is actually quite logical that Winnie won't be banned because of the popularity and a universal ban is not practical.
I didn't call it "noise" to play down censorship but in relative terms it is still trivial comparing to other concerning issues which are smothered by the amplification of sensationalism (IMHO). Simply ask any chinese person would they care if keywords of winnie are censored, and in comparison if MS word is banned. Such titles are more eye-catching than say 'the subtle difference in the agenda of the chinese congress' e.g
My hope of removing the 'relative noise' is to reveal real issues that affect actual majority of the chinese population and what they really care about. Focusing on sensationalised news just leads to more meaningless us/them argument.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/12/31/china-top-5-censored-po...
I can point out many examples of nationalistic, flamewar-instigating posts in this thread (such as the top comment) far more deserving (again, IMO) of reprimand than my little comment.
For instance:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26570631
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26570349
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2657173
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571261
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571461
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26570343
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2657057
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26568989
Some flagged/dead but egregiously bad comments:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26570411
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26569353
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26569931
Obviously you can’t comment on them all, but I feel slightly targeted for my relatively benign remarks when there are much lower hanging fruit.
Regardless, I respect your judgement and the moderation that you do here, so i’ll do my best to refrain from directly responding to propagandistic lies and disinformation.
I don't think most of the comments you listed were egregious. The last three, sure - but at least one of those accounts is already banned, and in any case, if posts are flagged/dead then they're already marked as unacceptable to this community, meaning the immune system is functioning. I'm not sure what more you can ask than that, and it certainly doesn't justify making things worse.
Once you're doing that, pretty much anything is going to clear that bar.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping#Censorship
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band_in_China