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After 'South Park' Censorship Episode, China Deleted the Show from the Web
- nutcracker46 7y agoDeleted only from the web controlled by the Peopple's Republic of China. You can still access South Park from the Republic of China and elsewhere. (Look what I did there: two countries, not one.)
- Hitton 7y agoThat's because China is in English a short term for People's Republic of China while Republic of China's short term is Taiwan.
- pndy 7y agoIt's rather an alternative name, not a "short term"
- thrower123 7y agoThe One China policy is moronic. If they keep being assholes, it is about time to give Taiwan their long overdue recognition. Hell, give them back the Security Council seat that they had until the 70s...
- baybal2 7y agoDo you understand that US blessing was what made PRC's UN seat possible? China wasn't that popular even with 3rd world countries back then. Reversing that now, when Chinese money are going all around the globe now will not work.
- mschuster91 7y ago> 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.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoHeld accountable by whom? The UN isn't a military force. The blue helmets only exist with support from the Big Five and could never take on any of them. The veto exists to reflect the reality that these countries, especially the US, Russia, and China all have the ability to completely destroy each other.
- marcosdumay 7y agoHum... Are you aware that the UN has no intrinsic power, but is just a forum that hosts diplomatic negotiations? What change do you expect getting rid of the veto would bring?
- mschuster91 7y ago> Hum... Are you aware that the UN has no intrinsic power, but is just a forum that hosts diplomatic negotiations? 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.
- wei_jok 7y agoIf you cannot watch the episode in your country, here is a link to the "Band in China" on facebook (subbed in traditional Chinese): https://www.facebook.com/fighterstudiohk/videos/396572967928125/?v=396572967928125 https://www.facebook.com/fighterstudiohk/videos/396572967928...
- bboygravity 7y agoUhm? Facebook is the first thing that non-Western countries will block for political reasons.
- wei_jok 7y agoOh, not block for political reasons (some copyright issues apparently). 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://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s23e02-band-in-china
- stan_rogers 7y agoIn Canada, The Comedy Network has exclusive rights to South Park (and several other Comedy Channel properties).
- nopemagnet 7y agomagnet:?xt=urn:btih:645FEB655D770627403E61BD6DF817C8EE30492B&dn=South+Park+S23E02+HDTV+x264+SVA&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.coppersurfer.tk%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.leechers-paradise.org%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337%2Fannounce&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.trackerfix.com%3A80%2Fannounce
- swebs 7y agoWhy is this link downvoted? If it's due to your views on piracy, torrents shouldn't be any worse that the pirate Facebook stream.
- 7y ago
- tibbydudeza 7y agoAwesome response ... love those two ... fortunately they have financial and creative freedom to do what they want.
- unnouinceput 7y agoGood, 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.
- VvR-Ox 7y agoAt 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".
- rm_-rf_slash 7y ago>At least they are not the same warmongerers as the USA Yes, it is so much better that they conduct their business of organ harvesting domestic prisoners and putting Muslims into concentration camps in their own (conquered) territories instead of doing it in places that fly different flags. Think of how horrible that would be if that were the case! Edit: 你好，无毛党！
- saiya-jin 7y agoThat's a lame argument. US could be considered more evil than China (I agree with you), but both are evil when looking at specific aspects of their behavior. Argumenting that they (brutally) repress their own citizens does somehow absolve US from war crimes done on foreign soil is simply not valid.
- 7y ago
- dmitriid 7y agoIs it irony that the episode on censorship isn't even available outside of the States?
- Strom 7y agoThere is no US-only restriction. Some locations might be restritcted, but I could watch the episode in Estonia. https://southpark.cc.com/ https://southpark.cc.com/
- dmitriid 7y agoThe restrictions are weird. The link you posted isn't available from Sweden. The irony of anti-censorship episode being only available in select countries...
- swebs 7y agoTry iTunes or Google Play. The Nordic version of South Park Studios is always several months behind.
- odabaxok 7y agoIt is not like it is censored in Sweden, it's just someone holds the distribution rights in Sweden for South Park. So, they cannot show it to you on their website. So, there is no irony here, it's copyright issue, not censorship issue.
- goalieca 7y agoIn Canada it’s much music who has the rights. Yes.. that channel is still around! But the show is online and streaming. Worth a watch! https://www.much.com/shows/south-park/ https://www.much.com/shows/south-park/
- Cyclopentane 7y agoCopyright and censorship are not mutually exclusive.
- fenk85 7y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/oct/08/we-good-now-china-south-park-creators-issue-mock-apology-after-show-reportedly-censored https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/oct/08/we-good... "'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 7y agoThey got me to watch an episode for the first time in over a decade, so yeah, well done all around.
- subversionist 7y agoMake no mistake, China knows South Park doesn't give a fuck about this. 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 7y ago> You can be as big and well known and South Park 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.
- age_of_stone 7y agoi'd say 99% Chinese people don't know or don't watch South Park. yes, its popularity is very much overestimated.
- s3r3nity 7y agoI love this in every way. 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 7y agoTencent 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.
- sabujp 7y agoAll 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 :( .
- crims0n 7y agoTop story right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190265 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21190265
- danso 7y agoThe Blizzard story is the top HN story today with 1,700+ upvotes. 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2019-10-07
- zarro 7y agoI 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.
- umvi 7y agoSo how do you oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard more precious than your own life? It's hard not to be the enemy of such a government seeking to increase its power and influence on the world.
- zarro 7y agoTotalitarian governments rely on distraction and misdirection of the populace in order to survive. Without it to use as ammunition to unify the people against a common "enemy", the very nature of its limiting rule forces the populace to start questions to try and improve their own condition. Questions like "freedom" and "censorship". Totalitarian governments are not equipped to satisfy difficult questions like this and will either adapt or crumble. 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.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- age_of_stone 7y agoI 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.
- 0xdead 7y agoI 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.
- gruez 7y agorelevant quote from pg: > 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 http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html
- ur-whale 7y ago> Tyrants are really sensitive I guess. 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?
- randie63 7y agoYou don't ban it, cuz it shows that you habe been hurt by it.
- liuliu 7y agoInteresting. To my knowledge, South Park was never imported into China. Maybe I am outdated, when it is imported to China?
- OkGoDoIt 7y agoThis 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.
- liuliu 7y agoI just surprised it wasn't already years ago, given South Park's nothing-is-safe free-pass in The States which we loved.
- carapace 7y agoI just explained this to my mother, who is 80 and has dementia, and this is what she said: "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."
- sebringj 7y agoSouthpark, NBA, keep going and China will implode with boredom.
- onemoresoop 7y agoI 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.
- neighbour 7y agoOnce again, Parker and Stone are breaking the mould. Power to them.
- Lapsa 7y agoHave noticed Morey guy, Matt, Trey & whatnot. China remains faceless. China this and China that.
- tempodox 7y agoSo China is censoring the fact that they are censoring.