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Comment by bart_spoon | Hacker News Reader

I was just wondering about this yesterday. People were noting the reticence by ESPN (owned by Disney) in commenting on the China-NBA drama and assumed it was due to embedded financial interests. Seems like it would be relatively easy to create an association between, say Mickey, and the unrest in Hong Kong, or Taiwan, or something of that nature. And then China is forced to either allow the messaging to exist, or they crackdown and now Disney's interests are less aligned with China's.

I'm very curious to see if this kind of strategy is effective or starts to become commonplace.

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I mean, Disney owns Winnie the Pooh.

Who has no resemblance to living or fictitious person, especially not Chinese.

It’s not the resemblance. It acted as a stand in given that censors censored the premiers name. They could have used “lightning” or whatever to act as a stand in for the target person.

It’s like if Twitter were to ban the poop emoji, so people use an alternative emoji with no connection except the understanding that it represents the poop emoji and then Twitter banned this emoji and then people come up with another alternative...

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, but https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+pooh+xi+jinping&tbm=i...

Semi-related: China completely erased all South Park mentions and media from its internet properties because of their “Band in China” episode. Which of course made me watch it. Highly recommended.

Guerilla appropriation.

Leveraging the heavy handed approach of China to pit them against the western companies.

As a second order effect, by getting Overwatch and the likes banned (if that were to happen), maybe create some dissent within China itself, though that's a bit far fetched.

Its bread and games to keep the people happy. So what would be a widely cherished food item in china that could be hijacked for a political message?

I think it might be harder to do with Disney because they’re so diversified. Banning any one franchise is a tiny drop in the bucket for them. Blizzard, though, relies on just a handful of IPs for all its income. Losing one would be a massive hit to its China market.

Does ESPN have a stake in China? Was it's reticence to comment on the NBA controversy because of a potential direct retaliation or was it an indirect threat? China potentially coming down on other Disney companies?

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