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Comment by zarro | Hacker News Reader

Before this episode I always wondered why they kept making those bad transformers movies, turns out China loves em.

I think its fine if people want to make movies for the China market, but what I find alarming is copycat behavior trying to bring that sort of censorship here.

It doesn't make any sense to me why anyone should apologize or censor themselves creatively just because someone got salty about it. I find the notion limiting someones creative expression to someone else's judgement of "appropriate" to be despicably egregious.

Sure you can vote with your dollar and time by not watching something you don't like, but its the creators prerogative what to create and what not to create.

Anyone arguing the contrary on the effects of censorship has not looked into the origin of the word.

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It's really not about morals at all. It's about money. China is the world's most populous country, and a surprising number of American industries are fairly dependent on revenue from Chinese customers. This effectively gives China indirect control over multiple major US corporations. Until recently, this has been hidden behind the scenes exceptionally well, but the curtains are being pulled aside as China is becoming much more brash in their demands. They're effectively demanding that Americans censor their speech in certain contexts or else China will hurt American corporations doing business there. And they're getting away with it.

Every artist that cares about mass market appeal has to self-censor, lest they not offend a large market segment.

That is the point this episode of South Park very deliberately avoids talking about.

Nobody's stopping them from creating art. Really is, unfortunately, putting constraints on which kind of art is going to get bankrolled by millions of dollars of say, Hollywood money.

Those constraints have always been there, and will always be there.

Want free speech? Don't ask for other people's money... They may have opinions about what you should say, using it.

The point of debate is not about self-censuring in order to get bankrolled, the point is about contesting using the law to actually coerce someone from creating what they want, which is what China does, and the potential influence of that mentality onto our culture (and the slippery slope to law).

Yes, it is. It is exactly that.

It's just that phrasing the issue as:

"My artistic freedom to make whatever art I want, AND to make millions of dollars in China is being infringed upon by China's domestic policies."

Doesn't sound particularly noble...

The law does not compel you to censor your art. This self-censorship is driven by greed, not legislature. If you aren't interested in selling in China, their laws on speech have no impact on you.

Why don't they create a version specific to China and censor it all they want? Why do we all have to be bundled in that censorship? Only because it is easier marketing and the are saving on logistics?

If western companies happily comply with their censorship demands, why would they bother?

Yes, it comes down to saving a few $$$ for the next quarter. And when box office decrease due to alienating the western viewers the executives shrug their shoulders and blame it on streaming instead. To be honest, I couldn't care less, the stuff geared to the lowest common denominator for a few continents is not on my watch list anyway, and hasn't been for a long time. The only problem I foresee is on my part, explaining my kid why we won't be watching such and such Disney show.

And I don't mean that I will make sure my kid won't be able to consume such content because it is censored or dubbed down to please Chinese markets, kid's to small to understand, but to the increasingly crappy quality of these shows.

Once your country's media companies are getting a big chunk of their revenue from another country, though, it is nearly inevitable that they will tend to produce content that is inoffensive in all of those markets. It is similar in mechanism to how a committee is not a great way to be innovative. This is a downside to a globalized media economy which I think has not been widely understood.

>Before this episode I always wondered why they kept making those bad transformers movies, turns out China loves em.

...Which is hilarious, because they are heavily subsidized by the US military for advertising reasons.

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