After 'South Park' Censorship Episode, China Deleted the Show from the Web
vice.com
vice.com
Comedy has always been a place you'd look if you want to see someone speak truth to power, for millennia too, and South Park has always done that.
We might like the cheap goods coming from China, but remember they come from people who are forced to work at 7 days a week 14 hours a day for nearly no pay.
Boycott the NBA and Blizzard and anyone else who won't start standing up for democracy.
It had considerable part in setting back efforts to deal with climate change.
They did a mea culpa, but still, I can't tell you how annoyed I was in college with the amount of people who would challenge the idea of climate change just because they watched a South Park episode.
It’s basically about nihilism.
"if you decide not to choose you still have made a choice"
No, not always. They sometimes do that. Calling vegetarians pussies [0] is not speaking truth to power. It's punching down. South Park's approach is more the "try to piss off everyone" approach, which while funny, is a bad way to find your moral compass.
Well, it's been well established that they would make fun of anything. I'm not arguing that. You tell the writers what they should be doing though.
That term is just a way of framing speech that you disagree with in order to censor it for being anti-virtuous.
No it's not. You're making a lot of false assumptions about what I said based on zero evidence. If you don't understand what I'm saying, that's one thing, but don't put words in my mouth.
The "vegetarians are weak" meme will slowly die as more amateur and professional athletes (including MMA champions, Olympians, and even the guy who coined "You hit like a vegetarian") jump on the plant-based wagon:
Like I said, South Park does make fun of everyone. That's explicitly not always speaking truth to power, like the parent poster is claiming. And I agree with the grandparent post that we shouldn't look to South Park as a moral compass.
Exactly how many irreverent comedians who achieved significant success and are not really accountable to anyone, telling it like it is, have been cancelled by the cancel culture?
Cosby, TJ Miller, Louis CK, Jeffrey Tambor, James Franco, ...? A good list of people who did morally reprehensible things of varying degrees, from illegal to merely opening their employers to civil liability, and in my mind, they should be "cancelled." Maybe you can argue some of these, I don't think so.
Azis Ansari? I don't know how tranchant his "speaking truth to power" has ever been, but he did a Netflix special this year, and I would need pretty compelling evidence to believe that's your smoking gun. I predict he'll be just fine in a few more years.
Kevin Hart? Maybe. Again, not much of a politically-motivated comedian, but getting removed as Oscar (?) host was damaging. Nonetheless, it looks like he had 5 movies/specials in 2019 and has work scheduled for 2020. Besides the car crash, I think he'll be alright.
Dan Harmon (like James Gunn) was a political hit job and didn't go anywhere.
Am I missing anyone?
Outside of e.g. #metoo, some people didn't like Dave Chappelle's recent Netflix special. I'm not a fan of him "punching down" at trans people myself, but, I don't think it's anything he hasn't said before. Nonetheless it was trending in the top five for most of last month, I think he is, and will continue to be, doing fine.
I just don't see where people attribute all this power to "cancel culture." Chik-fil-A, Nike, ..., all doing just fine despite on-going boycotts from "cancel culture."
Another example is Shane Gillis — cancelled because of something he said, not any specific action. Getting cancelled for sexually abusing people is one thing, getting cancelled because of “offensive” speech is the real problem. Roseanne and Gillis and Hart got cancelled for words. CK, Franken, Spacey — they were ousted for actions. That isn’t really part of cancel culture. Driving someone out of business because of vile and criminal actions is much different than firing a comedian because of a joke.
If I were a comedian that make vile jokes about Obama and his daughters, I’d be cancelled. If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
This is false. The show got cancelled because of tweets by Barr that were seen as racist.[1] She was already known as a Trump supporter for 2 years before her show was revived[2][3] so that could not possibly have been a factor in her firing.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Valerie_Jarrett_...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Reality_televisi...
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roseanne_Barr#Support_for_Dona...
As for Barr and Gillis, both ABC and NBC acted immediately to get rid of them when it looked like they would hurt their bottom line. Is that "cancel culture" to you?
> If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
Which kids? Who is out there making fun of Bannon, or are you saying Eric/Don Jr/Ivanka/[that other one] are off limits?
I'm not aware of anyone targeting any under age Presidential children..........
Oh except when Malia was being called out for drinking under age, I guess. Or, here's former Presidential candidate John McCain making a joke about Chelsea Clinton (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/02/women.j...). So I guess if you make a joke about Trump's kids, you get a Netflix special; make a joke about a Democrat President's kid, run for President?
That's not the comment she got canceled for. She was being horribly racist. Trump support is less the issue than it is extra gasoline between his racist comments and her horrible comment.
> If I made vile jokes about Trump and his kids, I’d get a Netflix special.
Where is your example here?
Furthermore, they're all still working, so I don't see how cancelled is the right word here.
P.S. While this trending topic isn't directly related to technology, great to see the masses in tech taking a stance against censorship.
Then I did my verification. And turns out it is not the truth.
baidu is dominant search engine in China. you can see that the search results do show Winnie-the-Pooh both in Chinese and in English.
http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&ps=1&ct=20...
http://image.baidu.com/search/index?tn=baiduimage&ps=1&ct=20...
I don't understand why some people say it's banned and others seem truly believe. simply a joke? you have your judgement.
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.
Trade with China has been a huge win win. Quality of life in the "West" is significantly greater thanks to trade with China.
The problem is that the "West" took the vast majority of the benefits it gained from that trade and concentrated it in the hands of a few hundred people. The destruction of labour unions and the taxation regime has crushed the lower classes, not trade with China.
Also, for all the issues with China, it's still a significantly better country than it was before Nixon visited China.
Finally, the "West" hasn't been fooled by China for at least a decade. In fact, the US spearheaded a massive effort to resolve the China problem through the TPP which would have been an extremely effective way of getting China to open up (by providing companies who are currently dependent on China alternatives amongst China's neighbors but this time with an agreed upon IP protection regime which would have prevented Vietnam, say, from becoming China 2.0.
If anything, the current haphazard tariff regime has been far more beneficial to the Chinese Leader for Life by creating an us vs them narrative which has pretty much eliminated the chances of any domestic pressure.
The challenge with China has been and will remain avoiding moral hazards when navigating our relationship to them. Temptation comes from all sides in this regard.
Realistically climate change is a more pressing issue than censorship.
>The term "National Socialism" arose out of attempts to create a nationalist redefinition of "socialism"
The Nazis got to define National Socialism as they liked, even if the meaning drifted slightly from what you could consider a national socialist ideology.
Really surprised the inconsistency survives, tbh
They "won" only in the sense that I'm 99.99999% certain when I see a white man drawing a swastika on the wall he's not wishing people luck and well-being.
Both humanity and nation states have made a development since then. Certainly one can draw comparisons but there are worlds in between.
"An entirely Americentric argument, spurred on by certain batty ideologues and infamous websites, claims that Adolf Hitler was not the far-right, anti-communist nationalist that everyone else remembers him to be, but rather an egalitarian socialist.[note 1] Much like the Discovery Institute and their assault on the theory of evolution, this attempts to evoke the association fallacy on anyone who practices left-wing politics and by that standard anyone who slightly leans to the left is an adherent of fascism ...
For this argument to be even close to being solvent ... good chunks of history need to be thrown out the window:
That the 96-member Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was Hitler's main opposition in the Reichstag and the only political party that attempted to halt the laws that established him as dictator and brought down the Weimar Republic. In fact, all of the ideological predecessors of today's conservative and classically liberal parties voted unanimously for the law, while the SPD voted unanimously against despite the presence of SA guards in the building.[3][4] That the first political groups targeted during the Nazi ascendancy were pacifists, trade unionists and communists.[5][6] That Strasserism, the only strand of Nazism that could be referred to as "left-wing" (i.e. pro-working class in nature), were all killed off (with a handful of conservative dissidents) in what we all know as the Night of the Long Knives. About the only true socialists within the Nazi Party include the likes of Gregor and Otto Strasser for example[note 2]"
The fact remains that China has effectively implemented and perfected National Socialism. Call it fascism if you prefer. But it is difficult to look at a state that has entwined single-party authoritarian rule around capitalist economic principles and not see the comparison.
That they are brazenly suppressing and exterminating ethnic and religious minorities is icing on the cake.
Socialism calls for the democracy of the workplace.
What China has done is replace the authoritarian bourgeois with an authoritarian government.
Just because North Korea's name is Democratic People's Republic of Korea doesn't mean it is democratic. Naming stuff their opposite doesn't make it so, but I'll admit it has been pretty effective for convincing people who don't know the true definition.
Or just that we shouldn't use the word "socialism" in conjunction with either, despite that being the name of one of the groups in question?
> What China has done is replace the authoritarian bourgeois with an authoritarian government.
In other words, China is not Socialist. Presumably, neither was the National Socialist German Workers Party while it was in control of the country.
The question then becomes, why is this relevant. Why say "that's not true Socialism!" in response to someone comparing Nazi Germany with China, when neither was Socialist?
The only real democracy is that which is based on a government that is biased towards the center. Far left and far right is never democratic. Democracy working correctly is filled with compromise.
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".
Keep in mind that Trump has started this anti-China drumbeat as a way of asserting the moral superiority of his administration.
The US outsources pollution to China by outsourcing manufacturing of things that US environmental laws make extra costly to manufacture in the US. Then out of the other side of its mouth the US criticizes China for being a polluter.
Also, accounts of US pollution do not consider the pollution caused by US wars and occupations, which are the single most polluting thing ever done by mankind. China may edge out US private sector pollution, but it's hard to compete with years of oil field fires.
> they are gearing up for a conflict to obtain hegemony
China does not have natural borders (oceans) like the US, so it has more regional vulnerabilities. I don't think there is evidence that China's policies reveal anything more than the typical effort to protect against regional weaknesses.
> Look at countries that fell into the US sphere of influence.
Such as Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, The Philippines? For the most part, US influence is horribly destructive to the democratic process and civil society of any nation it touches.
With respect to European wars, the US eventually decided to stop selling IBM tech to Hitler and to step in and enter the war, but it was already too late to prevent the worst atrocities. Of course the US narrative is that the US saved Europe from self destruction.
How is posturing to take over the peaceful island of Taiwan a protective act? How is allowing NK to blackmail the world with nukes good?
These countries you listed... many would be in perpetual civil war for a century or be in the grips of autocratic strongmen if the US didn't go in? So people like you don't want the US to act, and then if we pull out or don't act you say "where is the good in the world?"
Most of these countries have achilles heels in having a valuable resource that can fall into a few hands easily. The middle east countries are built on oil. Colombia drugs. Other central american countries, trafficking. The Phillipines isn' that bad?
So you say you don't want the US to interfere, and then you say they interfered too late in WW2? You seem more like a US hater than a realist.
Realism involves an honest discussion of national interest. In the US we have fairytale stories about American Exceptionalism, which serve the same purpose as religious canon.
Part of the US strategy is to frame foreign leaders and governments as horrible/dictator/strongman, etc. So then the post-intervention scenario can be favorably compared to what would have hypothetically happened if the US had not intervened.
But further analysis reveals that the US framing of foreign leaders and governments is never remotely based on reality and is always a propaganda tool to help the public consent to whatever atrocious acts the leaders seek to undertake.
Also your strongman framing explanation is overly simplified. "Never" is an absolute. Do you think Saddam was a good guy? Do you think North Korea is a good place?
I'm not nearly in support of everything the US Gov has done. But you're saying since their record is not 100% perfect, then it is a bad actor. Tough threshold you have there. It's obvious you're just anti-US and probably a troll.
It's telling that anyone who seriously questions American Exceptionalism is viewed instinctively as a troll.
> Very few intelligent Americans believe in our absolute exceptionalism.
This assertion is not falsifiable, and just sounds like praising "moderation" while simultaneously supporting the status quo. Meaningless.
> Do you think Saddam was a good guy?
Life in Iraq under Saddam was substantially better for most Iraqis than life in Iraq during the American war and occupation. Note that the death toll for US Iraq adventures is approaching 1 Million, so it is harder to find dissenting voices than it would otherwise be.
> Do you think North Korea is a good place?
I don't think there is any reason why tiny NK needs to be fodder for such dramatic propaganda toward US citizens. At best, NK is relevant because of some broader conflict between the US and China, and is a pawn used by both sides.
> But you're saying since their record is not 100% perfect, then it is a bad actor.
No, I am simply saying that the US is most definitely a bad actor when measured by any reasonable standard. The idea that the US has (overall) a glowing "record" is simply a way of incorporating past successes (WW2) into the rhetoric for today's backward policies. The US may not have always been a bad actor, but it has been for the past 3 or 4 decades.
> Tough threshold you have there.
As a US citizen, my job is to be honest and direct about the failures of US foreign and domestic policies. I have a duty to do that. I certainly think we all have a duty to fix our own country before throwing stones at others.
> It's obvious you're just anti-US
You forgot to provide attribution for this quote. It's attributable (in paraphrase) to George W. Bush, who said "You're either with us or against us".
Here are the things that would allow the US to take some first steps toward stopping being a bad actor:
- Have an internal discussion about US national interest that does not involve personal attacks or accusations of insanity or ideological extremism directed toward foreign peoples/leaders.
- Allow for the possibility that the US might undertake wars of aggression or might attempt to simply steal resources that belong to other countries for its own selfish gains, and not for humanitarian reasons. All foreign policy is now explained in American Exceptionalist platitudes about freedom, women's rights, etc. Give me a break.
- The pentagon budget should be fully auditable
- All foreign operations/engagements that cost over $1M, involve over 100 troops or last longer than 30 days should require a congressional majority. All operations and spending should be re-approved via a new congressional vote every six months.
Here in Europe we are very thankful, if it wasn't for America we would still be a third world country living in tents. Thanks for democracy, freedom, art, philosophy, medicine and so on. I only wish Europe had any of the smart minds that you have, maybe we could come up with them. Oh wait...
I was saying that whatever system the US promoted after WW2, it worked out pretty well for most of us. Europe and the US have protected press, free thought, science advancements. People can watch/read what they want. There are problems but it's def a collection of good societies. So idk what your issue is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...
My friends in Hong Kong and Canada couldn't watch the official stream for some reason, and got some copyright page instead: https://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china
†: https://www.saporedicina.com/english/vpn-how-to-access-faceb...
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.)
> 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.
What do you do?
"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."
The irony of anti-censorship episode being only available in select countries...
So, there is no irony here, it's copyright issue, not censorship issue.
To the average human, it doesn't really matter if it is the state that prevents you from seeing something or the forces of market capitalism. You have to do something illegal to see it either way, and you will be punished if discovered.
"'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
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.
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.
(Look what I did there: two countries, not one.)
Hell, give them back the Security Council seat that they had until the 70s...
I'd rather prefer reforming the UN SC to get rid of the "veto" concept. It's time that the US, China and Russia have to finally be held accountable for the shit they did all over the world.
What change do you expect getting rid of the veto would bring?
I was talking about the Security Council which can legalize military interventions either by individual countries or by UN-labeled forces (e.g. as in the Afghanistan War), and can conduct investigatikons into war crime and other international law violations.
> What change do you expect getting rid of the veto would bring?
Right now, the veto powers block consequences for their allies - the US/Israel don't want their numerous illegal acts (regime changes, Iraq/Afghanistan war crimes, their part in the Palestine issue) investigated, the Russians block investigations into the atrocities of Assad's Syrian regime and the Chinese block everything that targets North Korea plus whatever the Russians need support. The only thing that's somehow consistently investigated are crimes of African warlords, creating an additional nasty white supremacism layer on top.
Reversing that now, when Chinese money are going all around the globe now will not work.
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.
It's hard not to be the enemy of such a government seeking to increase its power and influence on the world.
Thus the best way "oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard more precious than your own life" is to allow it to face its internal problems without giving it the "enemy" it so desperately needs as ammunition to use against you.
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