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The Big [Censored] Theory

• phantom_of_cato 4y ago
  The BBC does something similar to its reruns of old shows. [1] [1]: The Telegraph: BBC makes 'woke cuts' to archives, including Dad's Army https://archive.is/Y5nJw https://archive.is/Y5nJw
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  It's really interesting that such a bland, un-subversive show whose only mentions of sensitive topics are in bad throwaway jokes is so heavily censored. I guess a more interesting show would just not get aired at all.
  • swayvil 4y ago
    It's a deeper level of censorship. Not only will you refrain from thinking about these things in a tolerant light, you will refrain from thinking about these things at all. It chops pieces off reality when you do that. Censorship is amazing. So popular (downvotes anyone?), so casually employed, yet so incredibly destructive.
    • Sin2x 4y ago
      This idea can be easily reversed: It's a deeper level of indoctrination. When these things are covertly inserted in an innocuous sounding show, not only will you start thinking about them, you will subconsiously think of them in a tolerant light. China has its own culture and mores, why should it allow that kind of soft projection of Western power.
      • wozer 4y ago
        For some things that might be true. But when the indoctrination collides with reality in a harmful way, it's a different matter. Objectively, it is true that gay people exists and that there is no good reason to restrict their rights.
        • nightpool 4y ago
          Sure, but like other people in this thread are saying, it's not objectively true that the Chinese restaurant down the street is selling you dog meet and pretending that it's chicken, or that Chinese academics in the US are siphoning grant money and funneling it to Pyongyang. "Pervasive cultural norms colliding with reality" is a two-way street.
      • cutemonster 4y ago
        > China has its own culture and mores Correction: Xi and the CCP have their own culture and mores The people, though, want to see The Big Bang Theory uncensored. The people are different from Xi. They don't want the same things as he (except for the ones Xi has successfully brainwashed, or those who have a highly tribal brain). > why should it allow that kind of soft projection That sounds paranoid, I hope you don't mind. Reasoning in that way, almost all movies in the world wold be a "soft projection" and Nation State attack. But sometimes it's just jokes or reality and a good movie ... or would have been.
        • okasaki 4y ago
          Good thing we have HN user cutemonster to tell us what the Chinese people want.
          • cowtools 4y ago
            If the chinese people had the option between the censored and uncensored version, which one do you think they would prefer? On an individual level it is obvious that almost no one advocates for self-censorship. Most people are only enthusiastic about censorship when they are the censor and not the censored. The communist dictatorship is a parasitic form of governance, but most cannot escape because they're stuck at a local maxima.
    • RajT88 4y ago
      Indeed. It seems to have had the effect of removing pieces of reality. I had a conversation once with a Chinese national, about an article about LGBTQ+ people in China. "There's no Gay people in China" (me, points at a picture of 2 young Chinese men in the article) "They're from Hong Kong. There's no Gay people in China." OK then! (This was quite a while back, I suspect the same conversation today would play out differently, since the popular opinion is that HK is in fact part of China)
      • okasaki 4y ago
        What a bizarre and ridiculous view to form based on one conversation. I'm sure you can find plenty of people in the west who believe stupid things. Does that mean that western countries are "removing pieces of reality"?
        • RajT88 4y ago
          > I'm sure you can find plenty of people in the west who believe stupid things. Does that mean that western countries are "removing pieces of reality"? Yes. The past 20 years or so the media ecosystems have been trying to do exactly that, at least in the US where I live. Remove the bits they don't like, and invent out of whole cloth replacement bits.
        • aetherane 4y ago
          I have heard the same statement several times too. I think the point was in relation to the context of censorship of LGBTQ content.
        • astrange 4y ago
          I've heard this from Chinese lesbians too. They aren't out in China, but other people are completely incapable of noticing they're gay, and other women won't admit they're gay to them even if eg they have just had sex.
    • KineticLensman 4y ago
      Hence 1984's CrimeThink
    • jollybean 4y ago
      Actually, I think there's a more benign reason and that is references to those kinds of things are just a bit below bar for normally civil programming. If you've ever watched the banal things that people go through to get something past daytime censors, or, get a PG rating for films etc. it's similar. This is not 'Xi's authoritarian' system so much as 'different cultural standards of the moment'. Respect that in some parts of the world they don't talk or joke about STD's in that context. I wouldn't want to be subject to it, but this is not the kind of censorship that's a problem. Note that in the West, we 'self censor' tons of jokes or things that might be a bit off. Finally - I'm 100% certain there are examples of this kind of censorship which are problematic, for example, the mention of 'Taiwan' etc..
      • peteradio 4y ago
        But this is streaming not broadcast daytime television. Censoring crude jokes/porn/violence that might be happened upon by a toddler flipping the remote makes quite a lot of sense.
      • swayvil 4y ago
        I wonder how China protects its censors from wrong ideas (seeing as how they must necessarily come into contact with it). Extra indoctrination? Some kind of surveillance layercake? I read a scifi where digital personality-recordings became popular for various office/industrial applications. Sorta like an AI, but human. They were used for censorship. The remedy for ideological contamination? Full reboot every morning.
        • jollybean 4y ago
          Chinese people know about 'STDs' - they just don't put them in programming. I'm sure they all know about Taiwan as well. So mostly it's just keeping programming in terms of what they define as 'civil' - and - with the added element of pulling 'political censorship'. It's about large audiences and averages not about the knowledge of a specific thing.
        • buscoquadnary 4y ago
          You choose people based on their loyalty to the party and fanatical devotion. It's a pretty straightforward way of doing it, heck somewhere else in this thread someone was already getting offended at the joke about the chicken. Some people just have no sense of humour and a fanatical devotion to a cause, they are useful if not very wise. This is one of those situations where they are useful.
  • m463 4y ago
    I can't help but wonder what the first-pass of censors did to the big bang theory (I'm pretty sure internal review and the rating service that gave it tv-14 cut stuff out too)
  • sltkr 4y ago
    Personally I'm mostly offended how stale and unoriginal a lot of these jokes are, but I can definitely see why the censors took offense at some of them. For example, the joke about the Chinese restaurant ("I'd be more concerned about what they're passing off as chicken") plays off of the stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs and cats, and the “passing off” remark implies that the Chinese restaurant owners are deceptive and would immorally and illegally serve their guests a different kind of meat than advertised. I can definitely see how that joke would be considered offensive. The author labels that joke as "harmless" but you don't have to be a Chinese censor to interpret it as reinforcing harmful stereotypes. I dare you to show that scene at a liberal college and notice how few laughs you get. Similarly, the racist remarks about Chinese people made by Sheldon's mom are somewhat offensive if taken at face value. I guess the joke is supposed to be at her expense instead ("old people are racists" is an American comedy cliche, if a somewhat tired one) but it's conceivable that either the censors didn't get that, or they feared that their audience didn't get that, so they decided to cut it out entirely. "They wouldn't get that" is probably also the right explanation for censoring the joke about Jews eating at Chinese restaurants during Christmas, which is a very American tradition. That doesn't imply the joke needs to go, but I can see how that would, at best, leave Chinese viewers scratching their heads.
    • throwaways85989 4y ago
    • jjcon 4y ago
      > can definitely see why the censors took offense at some of them Take offense maybe… censor absolutely not
    • stirfish 4y ago
      > I dare you to show that scene at a liberal college and notice how few laughs you get. Yeah, the show isn't that funny. >For example, the joke about the Chinese restaurant ("I'd be more concerned about what they're passing off as chicken") plays off of the stereotype that Chinese people eat dogs and cats, and the “passing off” remark implies that the Chinese restaurant owners are deceptive and would immorally and illegally serve their guests a different kind of meat than advertised. I can definitely see how that joke would be considered offensive. I hadn't considered the cat/dog meat angle, thank you for the perspective. In that case, I'd probably cut it too. I was thinking more of chicken nuggets, where a dozen birds are liquified and poured into a mold. Like if you ordered the pork and was served a hotdog, the "passing off as" bit would still work, you know?
  • ndespres 4y ago
    Some of these jokes which are censored for criticism of China are so tasteless that they ought to be censored in the American version as well, or better still, never written at all. A joke about whether the "chicken" at the local Chinese takeout restaurant is actually chicken? In the 21st century? That is supposed to be amusing?
    • kogus 4y ago
      I think it's important to distinguish between government censorship and corporate self-censorship. Almost nothing should be censored by the government. Almost anything can be censored by private parties (however cowardly such censorship may often be).
      • ginger2016 4y ago
        Government censorship can look at lot like corporate censorship, remember Zuckerberg said Facebook limited the reach of the news story because FBI informed them something. I am sure this is probably not the first time American government “requested” a corporation to censor something without the public knowing.
  • pphysch 4y ago
    Western/American cultural messaging is very deeply baked into the popular media. What is necessarily aligned with, and un-subversive to, Western values may not be so for other sets of values. In short, "bland", "un-subversive", "sensitive" are culturally relative terms.
  • commandlinefan 4y ago
    > such a bland, un-subversive show ... is so heavily censored American censorship is honestly no better, it's just that the show was written with the specifics of American censorship in mind.
    • function_seven 4y ago
      Bullshit. Sorry, this "we're the same" retort is exhausting. The United States government does not employ censors to remove portions of shows before allowing them to air (or stream, whatever). The closest thing I can think of is DoD not giving access to a movie unless it paints Navy pilots in a certain light. Okay, fine. Not nearly the same as what this site is showing us. Yes, we have cultural taboos, like any culture. Studios have more trouble presenting some viewpoints over others. Chappelle gets protested, that one episode of Community was memory-holed on Hulu (but not on Amazon!). We ban pornography on public airwaves (but not on streaming or cable or satellite, or Blueray). If you compare and contrast the pervasiveness of censorship between China and the United States, the difference is huge. When it comes to artistic freedom, the US is way better than China. Maybe you can say we can improve even more, sure. But that's a long way off from our censorship being "honestly no better".
      • briantakita 4y ago
        Not Bullshit. If the Government & Corporations care so much about others censoring, they should lead by example. Lectures by hypocrites will otherwise be ignored...even if the censorship that you may like is categorized as being justified by you. If you don't like China's censorship policies, then appeal to China's sensibilities as their censorship is categorized as justified by them. Otherwise, the Chinese government will simply point out that lectures from hypocrites have no bearing.
        • ryanobjc 4y ago
          Absolutely wrong, the founders knew it, you should know it, everyone knows it. There's a big difference between using the rule of law to shape what can and cannot be said or sold or published. Compared to different private publishers/agents/etc deciding what they wish to do. The marketplace solves the latter problem - and it has! People are getting caught up in the "chicken" joke, but if you read the read of the article you'll see that crime dramas had to be re-shot so the "side of justice" wins in the end. What kind of anodyne cultural bullshit is that? Only the good guys win - BY STATE LAW. So absolutely not, the US and China are not even remotely the same. To suggest so is so ridiculous offensive it opens one up to accusations that they are a Chinese sock puppet... and it's a totally reasonable opinion to hold!
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • bee_rider 4y ago
    Actually, I wonder if that would be a "good" way of making a comedy that can be shown everywhere. Just film like 40 minutes per episode for a 30 minute slot, but only include throwaway jokes to they can be removed as needed.
    • stirfish 4y ago
      I read somewhere that if you're writing humor for kids, you have to strip out a lot of the context: they might not know what an Eiffel Tower is, but they will understand Big Thing. Maybe comedy that can be shown everywhere is comedy a child can understand?
    • mywittyname 4y ago
      Comedy doesn't translate well, even among people of similar demographics. What makes one person fall out of their chair with laughter will make another roll their eyes. You can water jokes down and make them generic, but rarely will you elicit more than a chuckle from people once you've completely diluted a joke. What was the last "dad joke" you heard that made you laugh uncontrollably? I think it's pointless to try an appease everyone. People should make comedy for their audiences and those who don't find it funny are free to ignore it. Just like, I think people should write sci-fi or thrillers for their audiences, rather than for everyone.
  • briantakita 4y ago
    China has a policy against feminizing men...so it's possible that the government sees the show as being a bad influence. The Chinese government probably also wants Chinese, not western, women to be seen as sexy.
  • permo-w 4y ago
    someone should try and get Brass Eye released in China
  • GuB-42 4y ago
    I suspect some of it is just censoring for the sake of censoring. It is a common problem, if your job is to inspect something and you find nothing wrong, how do you show that you did your job? Here is an anecdote: in the game "Battle Chess", the graphists were quite happy with how their work turned out, but they knew it will be reviewed, and the reviewers will have to say something. So they added a small duck going around the queen piece, in a way that was easy to remove. As planned, reviewers said "everything is fine, but remove the duck", which they did, leaving the original design intact.
• jrm4 4y ago
  I find that it's always interesting to THEN consider, okay -- while there's no centralized board or anything -- what does e.g. American censorship go after?
  • cdot2 4y ago
    Anything you can think of you will be able to find that content. We simply don't have the kind of censorship that China has. Comparing the two is ridiculous.
    • bagels 4y ago
      Profanity and nudity are the categories here, at least for broadcast tv.
    • jrm4 4y ago
      Your second sentence is absolutely correct, the others are not. Easy example: compare the Marvel "Civil War" comics to the movies. The former was critical of the military in a way that could not happen in any big blockbuster movie.
      • hackeraccount 4y ago
        The argument would be that you can find critical views of the military - just not in a blockbuster movie. The question is why the people making the content in the US and China don't want to certain content. Is it because they're worried it won't be popular or because they're worried that it will be popular. I can't prove anything (how would you?) but I tend to think in the U.S. it's the former and in the China the later.
        • Jtsummers 4y ago
          > The argument would be that you can find critical views of the military - just not in a blockbuster movie. You can, in fact, have critical views of the military in blockbuster movies in the US. But not if you want to use US military bases and aircraft and ships as sets for those movies, or to get support of the US military in making the movie. Depending on the particular movie, this could be a make-or-break deal for them (Top Gun, for instance, would be pretty shitty with stock footage of US aircraft carriers and aircraft instead of actual footage staged for the movie).
• ericskiff 4y ago
  Aside from the fascinating topic, the data visualization and legwork gathering the data for this article is outstanding!
  • m463 4y ago
    I also noticed that all images/video/css loads from the same site. I think this might just be a high-quality site, but I can't help but wonder if this prevents youtube or some other service from taking things down via supurious DMCA requests.
  • elsherbini 4y ago
    I found the repo that powers the article, cool to browse! https://github.com/the-pudding/censorship https://github.com/the-pudding/censorship
• jrochkind1 4y ago
  > This added up to over one hour of deleted scenes, or nearly three full episodes of purely censored content I would like to watch the edit of only deleted scenes strung together.
  • munk-a 4y ago
    Unfortunately it's still the Big Bang Theory.
    • powerhour 4y ago
      You didn't include the laugh track and yet I still heard it.
      • jedberg 4y ago
        The producers swear up and down to this day that they did not use a laugh track. That that was legit audience reaction.
        • spywaregorilla 4y ago
          Is that really true? Or did they simply mean it's a group of real people recorded laughing, having been prompted to laugh? Which is still lame but very easy to believe
          • jedberg 4y ago
            Well, I have no idea. But I attended a taping of a sitcom once, and the way it worked is they had mics hanging above all the parts of the audience. Before they show they had a warm up comic, which both put us in the laughing mood and gave them a chance to record our particular audience laughing really hard. Then when the show was recorded, we actually did laugh pretty hard. You know how you laugh louder when you're at a comedy show or at a movie theater than when you're home alone watching the same thing? Because of peer pressure? It was like that. You laugh harder in the audience. And then they would "enhance" the laughing by taking the recording of us from earlier and playing it over the spots where we laughed live, especially if they end up using a second or third take, since were didn't laugh as hard. Also I remember in our episode there was a joke where as the live audience we could see the payoff right away, but on the TV the camera did a slow pull back to reveal the joke. They added in our recorded laughter for that. I remember because I laughed at home but not in the studio. So it's sort of a combination. But except in those rare cases they don't really add in laughter where there was none. They just enhance the live audience.
• omegaworks 4y ago
  Kinda weird that author categorized the incest joke "Howard: I lost my virginity to my cousin Jeanie" under LGBTQ censorship. When she mentioned the justification: "China has encouraged straight couples to marry and raise two to three children." it makes some sense, but incestuous relationships are not considered by themselves "LGBTQIA2S+"
  • JasonFruit 4y ago
    "+", apparently.
    • omegaworks 4y ago
      The plus signifies support and acceptance of those who live with HIV.
      • ThePadawan 4y ago
        I looked at 5 sources and could not verify this statement. Do you have any that state this?
        • omegaworks 4y ago
          >Some see the plus at the end of LGBTQIA+ to signify support and acceptance of those who live with HIV. https://www.bustle.com/p/what-does-the-plus-in-lgbtqia-mean-theres-a-lot-behind-that-little-symbol-17946374 https://www.bustle.com/p/what-does-the-plus-in-lgbtqia-mean-... Though I'll admit the contentiousness of this designation, I don't think the intent of "+" was to include incest.
          • ThePadawan 4y ago
            Thanks for qualifying. After reading that article that in various places calls out... - "The plus is widely taken as a symbol to represent self-identifying members of the community who are not included in the LGBTQIA acronym" - "The plus in LGBTQIA+ not only represents other sexual labels and identifiers, but also the experiences of those within the community." besides the quote you already mentioned which includes the weasely "Some say", I personally don't really see as a strong of a consensus as your first comment suggests, but appreciate the perspective.
• ALittleLight 4y ago
  I can see how this might backfire. You notice a censored jump and start to feel the itch of curiosity as to what it concealed. I had to watch several of the censored scenes whereas I would have never just randomly watched clips of the show. Also, love the presentation on this page.
  • commandlinefan 4y ago
    aka "The Streisand Effect".
    • Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Ssssh! You're not allowed to talk about that... :-D
  • andruby 4y ago
    We (the HN crowd, often living in less-censored societies) would be very curious. I’d like to know how curious this would make non-HN people, and those living in more censored places. My assumption is that they take it for granted and just continue to watch the show. It might be hard for them to even find the uncensored clips.
    • Kye 4y ago
      I still encounter people who don't know "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" was a heavily censored version of the real show. They realize how weird the edits are in retrospect, but it didn't register much/at all for them at the time.
      • pimlottc 4y ago
        > "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" Are you referring to the UK version of the 1987 animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series? I never realized it was considered controversial! [0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(1987_TV_series)#International https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(...
• debacle 4y ago
  Interesting that censoring only 3% of what I would regard as a very trendy show can eliminate depictions of sexuality, sex, religion, and unwanted political commentary. You can effectively change reality by adjusting a tiny fraction of it. This is why the Overton Window is so important.
  • chabons 4y ago
    That percentage will depend heavily on the show. The Big Bang Theory is fairly innocuous. Imagine trying to censor dramas like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, or House of Cards to remove all of the depictions of sex, drugs, or political commentary.
    • didgetmaster 4y ago
      I remember watching a standup comedy show by either Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor a long time ago that was heavily censored. There were so many bleeps in the program that you could barely follow it. It was similar to the recent heavily-redacted FBI affidavit that was released and where every other sentence seems to be blacked out.
      • joshstrange 4y ago
        You do realize those are in no way whatsoever related and are due to 2 completely different sets of circumstances? One is a private company (either first or third-party) offering a censored version of a piece of media and the other is the government redacting things from a document that would normally not be released at all (at this stage) and the redactions were specifically done to prevent witnesses tampering or similar tactics by the accused. To call those "similar" is just absurd.
        • didgetmaster 4y ago
          When I used the term 'similar' it had nothing to do with the reasoning or methodology behind the censoring. Only that the finished product in both cases was sufficiently censored that less than half the original content remained. It is not just a few select pieces that are cut out, it is creating a whole new product that is almost unrecognizable when compared to the original.
• renewiltord 4y ago
  The video platform part is neat. The censor/uncensored stuff so you can see. Wish I could have more controls but I like the visualization.
• Dig1t 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • jrochkind1 4y ago
    I'm not sure what aspects of the current Chinese government/communist party would be called "left". For instance, they don't seem especially interested in prioritizing any kind of equality of distribution of resources or power (I'm not sure if they even pretend they are, at least in a way that even any 'true believers' believe? I'd be curious for a read from someone in China though); or with providing any real level of 'social safety net'. I think they do both of these things actually less than the USA does, at present. I think any theory that tries to mostly put things into a dimension of "left" and "right" which calls the current Chinese regime or party "left" is probably not a great theory.
    • commandlinefan 4y ago
      > what aspects of the current Chinese government/communist party would be called "left" That would be the end-state of what inevitably happens when you adopt leftist policies.
      • jrochkind1 4y ago
        That's an opinion and a boring argument, but I don't think it has much to do with "horseshoe theory". I think that read (that adopting "leftist policies" (like... social security? immigration liberalization? not sure what we're talking about) invariably(!) leads to a result that is not legible as 'left' at all but for its history) is probably incompatible with "horseshoe theory".
  • inglor_cz 4y ago
    "The political left is supposed to be very sex-positive" That is not my impression at all. See all the attempts to formalize consent in a way that does not really square with human sexuality. Consent apps? Wtf. Not to mention all the attempts to criminalize buying of sex, which is basically an ultraconservative position multiplied by -1.
• deleted 4y ago
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• aero-glide2 4y ago
  I don't really agree with this, but consider this argument : Is it really a bad thing if different countries have different understanding of what's allowed/not allowed? If the whole world had the same system of governance, that could be dangerous too.
  • S201 4y ago
    Because the people of China didn't choose this: their oppressive and authoritarian government did it for them.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • darawk 4y ago
      This is right. If people vote for censorship in a democracy, that's a perfectly fine form of governmental heterogeneity. What's happening in China is not that.
      • cutemonster 4y ago
        I find it slightly amazing how often commenters here (hello aero-glide2) fail to see that the people in a country are not the same as the dictators controlling the country. When such misunderstandings are common here at HN, where people are a bit brighter that elsewhere (or so I think) -- then, such misunderstandings must be dangerously common outside HN. I wonder what consequences follow from that
        • glouwbug 4y ago
          Their comment feels like astro-turfing. I see it on reddit pretty often when anything CCP roles around
        • politician 4y ago
          Given the scale of the demographic collapse in China -- the over-reporting of girls by 100M, the situation where 20M men have no chance of the possibility of having a stable heterosexual relationship due to the lack of women, the rapidly aging population (highest in the world) that is post child bearing age -- doesn't it begin to seem reasonable the steps that the government is taking to curtail and shape public opinion? China has no replacement generation, and they are facing internal turmoil within the next decade on a scale that has no historical precedent.
• jimcavel888 4y ago
• gavinray 4y ago
  Is the author around? The visualization below "So the question has to be asked: what kind of content has been removed, and why?" Is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Could you share how this was made?
  • c0unt 4y ago
    the website (pudding.cool) has tons of other articles showing off the visualization and its great
  • elsherbini 4y ago
    (I'm not the author). Here is the repo that powers the article: https://github.com/the-pudding/censorship https://github.com/the-pudding/censorship , which forks a svelte-kit starter template most new pudding.cool articles start with. The bit that actually makes the divs for each scene that was cut is here: https://github1s.com/the-pudding/censorship/blob/HEAD/src/components/Scroll.Figure.svelte https://github1s.com/the-pudding/censorship/blob/HEAD/src/co... , and the data is here: https://github1s.com/the-pudding/censorship/blob/HEAD/src/data/cuts.csv https://github1s.com/the-pudding/censorship/blob/HEAD/src/da...
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  Reverse-engineering from the missing data to an underlying philosophy is a very clever use of the data. I wonder if there are any seasonal discontinuities? Those could indicate anything from a cultural shift in the censors to actual individual censors retiring and getting replaced, since so much of censorship is very subjective.
  • deleted 4y ago
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  • jdthedisciple 4y ago
    I wondered tho: was it really necessary in this case, since the underlying philosophy was already public knowledge?
• deepdriver 4y ago
  This type of censorship isn’t unique to China. Numerous scenes and whole episodes of The Office were silently removed from streaming services. The episodes were renumbered so you wouldn’t notice: https://www.newsweek.com/comedy-central-caves-cancel-culture-removes-episode-office-line-1623873 https://www.newsweek.com/comedy-central-caves-cancel-culture... This article goes so far as to praise the censorship: https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-office-edited-censored-blackface-christmas-episode-netflix-peacock/ https://comicbook.com/tv-shows/news/the-office-edited-censor... As usual, piracy (or the legal purchase and ripping of old DVDs) is now the only way to access this material, which was deemed suitable for public consumption as recently as a few years ago.
  • jjcon 4y ago
    > Numerous scenes and whole episodes of The Office were silently removed from streaming services Some private companies vs entire undemocratically elected governments conversation aside… What entire episode has been removed? I’m an office trivia buff and I’m not aware of this
    • deepdriver 4y ago
      "Diversity Day" has been removed in its entirety per first link. The distinction between private and government censorship is increasingly irrelevant to consumers, as in heavily consolidated markets the end effect is the same.
      • jjcon 4y ago
        Hmm still definitely in plenty of places though - chiefly NBCs streaming service https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/the-office/4902514835143843112/seasons/1/episodes/diversity-day-episode-2/eec204c0-fb33-330d-bc0b-c52fa474cbce https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/the-office/4902514...
      • awinder 4y ago
        It was removed during some Comedy Central marathon lmao, it’s still a part of the series, no episode was renumbered, and it’s on Peacock which might as well be the canonical streaming source
• sudhirj 4y ago
  We have this kind of censorship in India as well, even the in weirdly innocous places. In James Bond movies, and I think Gone Girl as well, scenes were by zooming into character's faces or just straight cuts. This is probably the only reason I maintain a US iTunes accounts (used to have to buy gift cards from sketchy sites online to keep this going, but I recently discovered that my Indian Amex card works fine with a US address). Also trivia for those who are wondering how cuts are made, at least for cinema content: all video and audio assets are usually sent to theatres in full, but there's an XML file called the CPL (composition playlist) that specifies which file is played from which to which frame / timestamp in what sequence. Pure cuts or audio censorship can be handled by just adding an entry to skip the relevant frames or timestamp, or by specifying a censor beep as the audio track for a particular time range. https://cinepedia.com/packaging/composition/ https://cinepedia.com/packaging/composition/
  • wrs 4y ago
    There is a home version of this called ClearPlay that auto-redacts movies and TV. It actually started with DVD players (!) but now does streaming. Ref: https://amazon.clearplay.com/ https://amazon.clearplay.com/
    • coryfklein 4y ago
      My Mormon neighbors tend to use VidAngel, which got in huge trouble with an absolutely hilarious payment model. 1. VidAngel purchases a bunch of Blu-ray discs and stores them in a warehouse 2. Tag all the content of a film and create filters so the user can, for example, filter out all sex and violence but leave in vulgarity 3. User "purchases" a Blu-ray for $20 (!!) and VidAngel says, "since we now know you're the owner of this copy sitting in the warehouse, we'll stream it to you right now instead of going to the bother of mailing it out" (This part legally qualified as a "performance", which was their big mistake.) 4. When user is done watching the film, VidAngel automatically buys back the Blu-ray – still sitting in their warehouse – for $19. So users could essentially stream any film they want (with optional self-selected censorship) for only $1 per viewing. Of course they get a flood of users since they're the cheapest shop in town, and of course since what they were doing was illegal they got taken to court and had to shut down 90% of their business. And then, they wrote an endless tream of publicity saying, "Big media doesn't want to give you the right to skip nudity and violence in your own home! Think of the children! They want to force their values on you!" Yeah, I don't think the film-makers loved the censorship platform, but it was the $1 performances that really got them riled up.
• yegle 4y ago
  Friends: the globe was censored, presumably because no one can be sure if Taiwan is marked as part of China: https://twitter.com/williamlong/status/1492775822859517957 https://twitter.com/williamlong/status/1492775822859517957 There's also a funny clip when Ross is trying to explain his ex-wife is a Lesbian. This part was censored, so you see Ross is about to say something, next his parents act like surprised. It actually made the scene funnier.
• lwansbrough 4y ago
  Interesting to see what passes for a joke on The Big Bang Theory. I knew the show was bad but wow. Perhaps just as surprising is the author's suggestion that a xenophobic remark about a Chinese restaurant is "harmless". I'm not even particularly sensitive when it comes to race relations, but that's just such a negative stereotype it's hard to ignore. I despise Chinese censorship, but I would support the Chinese government blocking The Big Bang Theory purely on the grounds that it stinks.
  • noitpmeder 4y ago
    "I would support the <...> government blocking <...> purely on the grounds that [I believe] it stinks". This is an unimaginably slippery slope. I think MOST american media these days stinks, but would not support any form of the above sentiment.
  • vorpalhex 4y ago
    No work of fiction only has heroes and reasonable people.
  • chclau 4y ago
    For me is one of the loveliest series I have seen
  • ryanobjc 4y ago
    So here's the thing, is that joke making fun of a Chinese restaurant, or is it making fun of racist americans who make comments like that? The reality is most Americans have someone like that in their family. Read the rest of the scene: Leonard is distinctly uncomfortable, tries to politely correct the wordage, the comment is lost and the originator moves on. In any case, are you saying that... words that offend you should be removed from media? You know, like... some kind of... woke person who is really sensitive to racism?
    • the_optimist 4y ago
      The joke is the latter. The woke college grads who write the shows think it's funny to have/lampoon racist characters. However, it is a staple of the fare that these characters must exist in the shows to add foils and character depth.
• balentio 4y ago
  • dilfish 4y ago
    If we treat what rural Chinese people are doing nowadays as standard operation, the westerners are just barbarians. Don't waste time on these non sense, lets decide which one is "STANDARD"
    • balentio 4y ago
      Perhaps I wasn't clear, so let me be quite transparent: China has terrible human rights issues. One of those issues is eating babies which they SAY is just in rural areas, but if you happen to let loose a bio weapon on the world, I tend to be a little skeptical of your main story lines.
• ascar 4y ago
  Side note: the article mentions canned laughter in TBBT rather early. TBBT actually doesn't use canned laughter but uses laughter from the live audience for its laugh track. I pity that I didn't have the chance to visit the studios and be part of that laugh track :(
  • paxys 4y ago
    It's normally a mix of both. All such shows will heavily edit/enhance the audience laugh track during post production.
    • vlunkr 4y ago
      Also scenes are occasionally filmed outside the studio where there is no live audience.
      • ascar 4y ago
        Afaik they prefilm these and show them on a screen to the audience at the right moment of the episode and then capture that reaction.
  • nindalf 4y ago
    Most shows that use canned laughter (Friends, Seinfeld etc.) were filmed in front of an audience. It’s not worth the hassle to set up audio recoding for the audience, especially because people aren’t reliable. They might not laugh at the right moment, one or two audience members might have a weird laugh, they might be too soft or loud. The audience reaction is useful feedback for the actors, but the laughter is canned.
    • ascar 4y ago
      Well, TBBT is especially known for recording and using the audience laughter. That's why I explicitly mentioned it and it creates some interesting moments the producers didn't even intend to be funny. You can find multiple sources for that like point 10 here [1]. There are some YouTube videos giving deeper insight into the process but I don't have them at hand. [1] https://www.cbr.com/big-bang-theory-annoyed-anger-fans/ https://www.cbr.com/big-bang-theory-annoyed-anger-fans/
• briantakita 4y ago
  Companies & Governments in the US & West censor for political reasons. Why is this any different?
  • camdenlock 4y ago
    Citation needed. Please show an example of a foreign piece of content which has been chopped to bits by the US government before being allowed to be distributed here.
    • Dracophoenix 4y ago
      Broadcast anime on daytime television. While companies like 4Kids that did the actual censoring (like digitally editing cells) and replacing lines ( "localization" as they would call it), it is the FCC that has power over broadcast licensing and provides a disincentive for showing work that soccer moms found distasteful, even if otherwise covered under the First Amendment.
      • trinovantes 4y ago
        broadcast != distribution It's not illegal to import/purchase the unedited original versions with guns, deaths, and nudity (excluding lolita). With online streaming being the norm now, the government has no say in the content consumed.
        • Dracophoenix 4y ago
          In this context of both the GP and the main post itself, broadcast is no different from distribution, whether via television or the Internet. > It's not illegal to import/purchase the unedited original versions with guns, deaths, and nudity (excluding lolita). One could say the same about China. There's no law against importing uncensored movies for private consumption and any laws against their sale by local denizens, if such laws exist, go unenforced. Even in Beijing, you can buy high-quality, uncensored bootlegs of practically every American movie and TV show.
• Havoc 4y ago
  Great site/article
• wizofaus 4y ago
  Is aversion to discussion of sex a part of traditional Chinese culture? Seems odd given I'm not aware of any puritanical religions taking hold there.
  • alldayeveryday 4y ago
    Why would a culture require a puritanical religions to have an aversion to discussion of sex? And do you consider an aversion to discussion of sex to be default lacking or present in a population?
    • wizofaus 4y ago
      Because why else would such an aversion arise? I don't think there are any sensible "defaults" for human cultures. But I wouldn't expect aversion to talking any sex to arise spontaneously among a population that hadn't had it imposed by prior generations or from outside. We're naturally curious beings and have lots of sex (compared to other species).
      • yorwba 4y ago
        If it's not the default state, it must have arisen spontaneously among the founders of puritanical religions.
        • wizofaus 4y ago
          Not necessarily, it likely happened incrementally. And it can still be rare for it to arise, it's just that once it did, something happened to make it stick.
          • yorwba 4y ago
            I don't think "spontaneously" and "incrementally" are mutually exclusive, but anyways, you can apply your "it happened incrementally and then something happened to make it stick" theory to China as well.
• Julesman 4y ago
  How cringe-worthy is that tired racist joke about the Chinese eating dogs? It's like that one drunk great-uncle at Thanksgiving who just absolutely loves that joke and you know, every single year, you gotta hear it. And he can't tell you once single practical reason why he hates China. Really, he just likes the racism. That's it.
  • mc32 4y ago
    While Chinese authorities have cracked down on dog-meat eating (especially around hosted international events), it's still consumed in some specific areas of the country. However, I don't see much diff between that and joking how incestuous Southerners might be or how they might eat squirrels.
  • npteljes 4y ago
    I think people are primed to that joke; I personally hear that "What they pass off as chicken" alludes to "mystery meat" - a derogatory term for meat that doesn's have a clear origin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat
• izend 4y ago
  We are heading to a world where every major country will be deploying a Great Firewall like censorship, especially as the cost of implementing and maintaining such a system drops.
• joe_the_user 4y ago
  It's worth noting that American censorship in, say, 1960, was at close to the same level. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_censorship_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_censorship_in_the_United_...
  • pnemonic 4y ago
    Is it just as worth noting then that China is more than 60 years behind the US in terms of social progress?
    • jl6 4y ago
      I’d probably agree with you - but only just. 60 years ago was pre-Civil Rights Act.
    • planb 4y ago
      “Behind” implies that they’re following and moving in the same direction. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s the case.
      • vkou 4y ago
        No, behind implies that they are currently in the opposite direction of the current direction of western cultural movement. If the direction of our movement changes, they will, without lifting a finger, become ahead of us. Social progress is inherently subjective (because progress in one value system is actually a regression in a different value system), and the observer always grounds their claim of 'behind' or 'ahead' in their culture's viewpoint.
      • pessimizer 4y ago
        The incarceration rate of the US in 1960 was about 225/100K, and in China it's currently around 120/100K, so China is doing a little better than we were 60 years ago. Of course our incarceration rate now has nearly tripled to 640/100K, so thank God they're not following us.
        • 4y ago
• AndrewUnmuted 4y ago
• dqpb 4y ago
  This is what OpenAI wants to do to AI. Censored, neutered, prudish, anti-human. It's not "safety", it's sick authoritarian control.
• insane_dreamer 4y ago
  Kudos for the design
• dqpb 4y ago
  > Most scenes are in the sex category, where characters mentioned sexual descriptions, body parts, and other relevant languages. Meanwhile, they're looking forward to a nice population decline. Idiots.
  • Noumenon72 4y ago
    TV doesn't teach you how to procreate. It teaches you that sex is something for beautiful people and lead characters to engage in as a hobby. Actually having children would limit you from all this no-strings sex you expect to have every week.
• npc54321 4y ago
  Youtube does not allow footage of the recent/outgoing protests against banks in China.
  • avrionov 4y ago
    This is not true! Here is one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLdobKqTPB0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLdobKqTPB0
  • neop1x 4y ago
    Another example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBBnQmRcRI4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBBnQmRcRI4 The author is says that chinese bots are downvoting it. It may or may not be true.
• still_grokking 4y ago
  What's the moral here? There is also a lot of censoring in the "western" world. It's also mostly justified by the exact same "reasons" like the ones mentioned in that blog post. Especial the "but the children" "argument" is used the whole time. And if that gets boring than it's "terrorism". Than again "the children". Also there are a lot of things one can't publicity say for political reasons. In Germany for example most people know: If you want to watch some more "controversial" movies, or play uncensored games you need to get them on the gray or black market. The German versions are very often heavily censored, or there is just no German version at all because the content is outright verboten. Also communication online gets censored. It's impossible by now to say some (still) completely "legal" but "not politically correct" things online especially around mainstream media. The censorship in the EU gets also stronger every year. Now they banned "dangerous" foreign media… Actually without any grounding in established law. But who needs laws? It will take as always many many years until some judge will have the last saying and declare the things the government did as illegal. But than the game will just start again, also as always: Making illegal "laws" takes weeks. Getting rid of them takes decades. Then they change the wording, and you need to sue through all instance form the beginning. Ad nauseam.
  • tgv 4y ago
    You’re really not making a strong argument by invoking the German example. The things that they forbid are mainly glorification of a most shameful regime. Holocaust denial comes to mind. Good riddance, I say.
    • danjoredd 4y ago
      I think its less holocaust and more pornography these days. That and violent video games are heavily censored for nonpolitical reasons like gore, nudity, etc. I am glad they censor the holocaust glorification, but I wish they would leave in the other stuff.
    • still_grokking 4y ago
      Given the down votes I guess I've got misunderstood. I didn't made any argument up to now. I've asked for the moral of that blog post in the light of the fact that there is also quite some censorship elsewhere in the world. Sure, Chinese censorship is bad (and the examples given are partly laughable in my opinion). But censorship is bad in general. This applies the same to for example the censorship we have in the EU. (And no, it's not "only some Nazi things"). Also it's a notable fact that the "justifications" given for our censorship are the exact same as the reasons given in, say, China (or likely elsewhere). The concrete censored content may differ, but behind that is the exact same line of reasoning: That there is "inappropriate" content the people need to be shielded from. That motivation is the part that is questionable at least. (Now I've made an argument). Actually this reveals a lot in which way governments think about the population, no matter the country. Still there seems to be a lot of black and white thinking in the line of "But we are the good ones, we have reasons, but just look what the bad ones do". I refuse to take part in this narrative. The world isn't as simple as that.
• tablespoon 4y ago
  It's not exactly the same thing, but I've noticed similar kinds of edits in a couple of US children's books I've been able to compare. Some are easily explainable as political correctness or changing social mores, some might be explainable by the influence of helicopter parenting and increasing uptightness (e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/opinion/halloween-kids-movies-tv.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/opinion/halloween-kids-mo...), but others I can't make heads or tales of.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• phendrenad2 4y ago
  A fascinating look at how The Big Bang Theory is censored around the world.
• livinglist 4y ago
  I’m very glad I was able to move out of this country… China’s censorship got much much worse after Xi Jinping stepped into power. I remember around 2010 when I was in middle school, I was still able to watch YouTube and browse Wikipedia, and ppl were able make criticism on government and incidents without worrying too much about their own safety. Right now China is filled with misled and brainwashed ppl that believe in everything said and done by the government.…
• mikotodomo 4y ago
  > Sex is the most frequently censored topic in this TV-14 show, meaning that it is appropriate for audiences aged 14 and older, with 139 scenes and 43.1 minutes removed. That's pretty messed up ngl.
• OOPMan 4y ago
  Imagine trying to promote reproductive rates while censoring sexual activity...
• koonsolo 4y ago
  The censored "Temple of Doom" scared the shit out of me. (WARNING: Spoilers!) When I was young my cousin had a VHS of "Temple of Doom" recorded from the BBC. We didn't know this was the censored version. So there was this scene where the priest puts his fingers on top of the chest of the victim, and then next scene they lowered the victim into the pit. We watched that movie a few times. Needless to say, it scared the shit out of me when I saw that movie again another time, but all of a sudden his had went straight into the chest! :o
• personjerry 4y ago
  > These acts of censorship not only limit the impact of foreign-based productions, they also help the Chinese government maintain control. But why does the Chinese government need that kind of control?
  • erichocean 4y ago
    From the article: the Chinese government believes the primary purpose of culture is to raise healthy children, not to entertain or amuse adults. The Chinese also believe it is the government's responsibility to maintain their culture over time, which is why the government exerts cultural control.
• Animats 4y ago
  What's more striking is what comes out of China's domestic entertainment industry. There are far too many historical costume dramas. Those aren't as heavily censored as modern ones. More modern content looks like it was censored in accordance with the US Television Code of the 1950s. ("The code prohibited the use of profanity, the negative portrayal of family life, irreverence for God and religion, illicit sex, drunkenness and biochemical addiction, presentation of cruelty, detailed techniques of crime, the use of horror for its own sake, and the negative portrayal of law enforcement officials, among others.")[1] That's close to China's list. China also censors political subjects, to the point that nobody dares get near them in film or TV. The quality is improving, though. A decade ago, there was "Sky Fighters", which is China's version of "Top Gun". That was produced by a film unit of the People's Liberation Army, and it's as heavy-handed as you might expect. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Practices_for_Television_Broadcasters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Practices_for_Televisi...
  • neither_color 4y ago
    What's interesting is in the US that kind of censorship is attributed to the most mainstream religion but China is officially atheist and does the same. Whenever people tell me that it's only one religion standing in the way of equal rights for disadvantaged groups I remind them that there's an atheist superpower that's even less permissive except for on reproductive issues(although, in their case they do regulate it heavily, only in the other direction with limits on the amount of children you can have and forced terminations in the past).
    • no_where 4y ago
      Also that the self imposed censorship in America was a response by the studios to their customers. Where was Chinese government is furthering its Communist briefs.
      • Animats 4y ago
        China's government seems to be more concerned about containing criticism of the current Chinese government than Communist ideology. It's not like the Maoist period. The Economist has a good story about that this week.[1] Some militant Communists are now in opposition to the Xi regime.[2] The current regime is more authoritarian than Communist. Which is what usually happens when you get a Supreme Leader for Life. [1] https://www.economist.com/china/2022/08/25/chinas-communist-party-says-it-welcomes-complaints https://www.economist.com/china/2022/08/25/chinas-communist-... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-xi-protests.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/world/asia/china-maoists-...
• yangmeansyoung 4y ago
  Wow this is a paper level analysis, but given your fluency in English I’d assume you already migrated to one of the common wealth countries.so the CCP would not see it.but kudos
• avodonosov 4y ago
  > Cases in the category of disrespect usually involve a joke at the expense of China or its peers North Korea and Russia. They also care for Russia! That is friendship! https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9+%D1%81+%D0%BA%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BC+%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C%D1%8F+%D0%BD%D0%B0+%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BA&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%...
  • falcor84 4y ago
    Wow, this was an interesting Google images journey, thanks. Also, is it just my own personal bias, or would I be right to say that imagery with such close bonding between males (2 particular example links below) would not have been used in the west due to concern of being interpreted as gay? http://www.daokedao.ru/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/navek02.jpg http://www.daokedao.ru/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/navek... https://cs14.pikabu.ru/post_img/2022/03/11/4/1646974620118343763.jpg https://cs14.pikabu.ru/post_img/2022/03/11/4/164697462011834...
    • avodonosov 4y ago
      I don't know. Such connotations may also depend not only on west / east, but also on time. Those placards are from 60-70 years ago I think. See also https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9+%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%82+%D0%BF%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B5%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B9&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%...
      • falcor84 4y ago
        Interesting, but I would argue that this is actually supporting the West/East distinction, as this kind of imagery would have fit closely with the USSR's push to promote the communist "workers of the world unite" agenda. Would you be able to find any similar western imagery from that time frame?
        • avodonosov 4y ago
• teawrecks 4y ago
  > When the Netflix-produced Korean show Squid Game went viral and won awards worldwide, many Chinese netizens were asking on social media — when can a Chinese TV show be recognized in that way? Fascinating. I mean, the answer is obvious to everyone else in the world, but it'll be interesting to watch them figure it out over the next few decades. Is Squid Games even allowed in China?
  • TulliusCicero 4y ago
    I mean, yes lack of censorship, but there are plenty of countries with little censorship that haven't had the same level of success as Korea in TV shows either. Look at Germany, for example. Big country, economic powerhouse, but German TV shows and movies have little broad international appeal.
    • teawrecks 4y ago
      This sounds like the fallacy of the inverse[1]: Increased censorship implies less favorable critical reception, but less censorship does not imply more favorable critical reception. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
    • rurban 4y ago
      German movies which want to be recognized overseas usually go the Nazi road. That always guarantees an Oscar nomination. And some weird dry German shows had appeal in similar weird neighboring countries (Neitherlands, Russia, China, South Africa, ...) such as Derrick. Unrelated to the fact that its main actor was in the Waffen SS. This related factoid didn't help though. Similar to the recent run of northern (danish & swedish) TV shows and trash literature in Germany. Proper quality foreign shows, like southern, indian or east asian shows would stand no chance.
• Widtalay 4y ago
• cercatrova 4y ago
  The solution to this is, of course, piracy. I'm glad people like those on /r/DataHoarder preserve media in their complete forms so I don't have to watch them censored. A recent example is Community which has an episode of a character dressing as a dark elf, and the joke is that another character assumes it's blackface, even though it's not. Well, networks and streaming services now removed it and unless you have the original discs, you simply can't watch that episode. Unless, of course, you pirate it, which is how I watched it.
  • pchristensen 4y ago
    Brutalitops!
  • anonporridge 4y ago
    And of course Netflix has started covertly editing older episodes of their series. There may come a day where the Berenstain Bears Mandela effect is the result of a legitimate conspiracy to change all the publicly available media.
  • wodenokoto 4y ago
    Anyone in China? Do they still have those dvd carts on the streets? Or did they lose out to streaming? What about torrents and such? Have they been blocked by the firewall or is pirated movies still readily available online?
    • est 4y ago
      No DVD carts, but NAS is somewhat popular. Xunlei or BaiduPan is insanely popular.
      • wodenokoto 4y ago
        I’m assuming NAS is a local server with a hard drive. What is is Xunlei and BaiduPan?
        • est 4y ago
• rmah 4y ago
  Way back in the day (think before 2000), I worked for a major cable TV company that showed films around the world. Every film had different cuts for different regions to comply with various censorship rules, licensing restrictions, dubbing, etc. Including the US. Yes, there were things that were cut from the US release that might have been in the UK release. It was nightmare to schedule everything properly everywhere. From what I can vaguely recall, a lot of errors were made, but as long as a decent effort was made by the company to censor according to their rules, most nations were ok with it.
• kypro 4y ago
  This happens in the West too. For example one of my favourite shows, "Peep Show" has a scene removed because one of the main characters wears black face to break social taboos. Obviously, it's done in a mocking way, but even mocking someone for black face has been deemed inappropriate by modern Western standards. The show isn't even that old either. I'm almost certain there would be things seen as normal or inoffensive in China that would be seen as offensive and censored here. For example, a show that expressed criticism of homosexuality probably wouldn't be tolerated in the West. I'm guessing there could also be scenes that we would consider examples of animal cruelty given our differing views on animal welfare.
  • kasey_junk 4y ago
    Peep Show was not edited due to laws, it was a private streaming service that made that decision. At the same time a rival streaming service was showing the unedited version. I think there is an important conversation to be had about censorship by large corporations but equating them to widespread, governmental censorship is not helpful.
    • handsclean 4y ago
      On the contrary, censorship is effective even if it only makes something less common. No censorship is absolute: Chinese people absolutely know homosexuality exists, what its censorship accomplishes is keeping it the province of the “weirdos”. Towards the same end, the USG regularly uses financial incentives to make one side of an issue 100x more prevalent than the other. It’s actually a more insidious form of censorship, because there’s less legal oversight, most people don’t know that it’s happening, and it’s hard to call out any particular instance of it.
      • kasey_junk 4y ago
        In the OPs example 1 provider censored and another didn’t. It made global news. It wasn’t subtle. Therefore it wasn’t insidious and was clearly not equivalent to systematic governmental intervention. Again, I’d be happy to discuss how western governments use soft power and financial incentives to accomplish their censorship goals. It’s an important topic. But I’m not going to do it from the basis that it’s equivalent to governmental action at the barrel of the gun. I also won’t accept a boxing match where you can kick and eye gouge and I’ve got a hand tied up. If you think either of those things is equivalent, great, it’s your right in the west. It’s not in the regimes you are tacitly defending and I won’t explicitly condone it by engaging.
• forchune3 4y ago
  • dshpala 4y ago
    Oh hey, they've added a couple more chars since the last time I encountered the term! Now we just need to rearrange the letters to make pronounceable, how about QBIG2SALT+?
  • pvg 4y ago
    Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies, generic tangents, and internet tropes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• avodonosov 4y ago
  In the future censors could not only cut parts, but also insert something - fragments promoting desiraole values, etc. If the show producers offer them as options to order for particular audiences; or maybe with the help of generative machine learning tech.
• jurassic 4y ago
  As an LGBTQ person, this makes me very sad. Just look at fandom twitter and you will see how much even a small amount of representation on screen means to people like me. I wish everybody could experience that.
  • yomkippur 4y ago
  • Banana699 4y ago
    Why does it matter to you that your sexuality is depicted on screen? Sounds like a bizarre thing to worry about. And US studios already has you covered for centuries worth of "representation" heavy film and TV, why is the Chinese allowing them important?
    • carapace 4y ago
      Your question is the answer to itself.
      • Banana699 4y ago
        Is this supposed to be a coherent answer?
        • carapace 4y ago
          Did you see the episode of South Park where the boys go to Afghanistan to return a goat and the boys there tell them that "Half the world hates America." And they're like "Why?", and the kid says "Because you don't realize that half the world hates you!"
          • Banana699 4y ago
            No, I didn't. How does this relate to my comment ?
• forgingahead 4y ago
  Having accidentally seen gratuitous gore on shows like Game of Thrones on HBO or The Boys on Amazon, I'm not against a general set of standards to avoid the assault on my eyes (or the eyes of younger members of society). In my day, you could always get the uncut version on DVD if you want to - but the mass market versions should certainly adhere to some basic societal standards.
  • computerfriend 4y ago
    Don't watch it if you don't want to. Take responsibility for the media you consume.
• sdf4j 4y ago
  > weird jumps, pauses, and disconnected canned laughter Sounds like the usual show
• ouid 4y ago
  • dang 4y ago
    Can't say I like it either but: "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—things like article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• ryanSrich 4y ago
  I’m fairly certain this happens in the US as well. I distinctly remember The Office censoring a few bits - notably the Belsnickel bit from season 9.
• sashenka 4y ago
• mmaunder 4y ago
  Censorship is obviously a bad idea to those of us in developed countries, and disastrous to those of us who have experienced it first hand. But when many consider the opposite, which is the requirement that you fight to defend your enemy’s right to freedom of expression, they find censorship to be preferable.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • novolunt 4y ago
• wawjgreen 4y ago
• wodenokoto 4y ago
  Kinda related: I watched a video essay on YouTube about Chinese horror movies and why they are so bad. The reason was not just regulatory constraints (the ghost turns out to be a dream, because you can’t have ghosts in movies) but also that these changes on quite short notice. So if you have an idea for a movie and you think it can wriggle around the current regulatory restrictions you better hurry up and film and edit it as fast as possible.
• eyear 4y ago
  Where is the diversity we advocate? Must the whole world accept one value? We accept homosexuality so we won't accept other people like Muslims not accepting it? So WE are definitely right and people who are different from us are absolutely wrong?
  • lettergram 4y ago
    • ipython 4y ago
      Isn’t “canceling” exactly what the ccp did here though?
    • slater 4y ago
      haha, good one!
  • ipython 4y ago
    So it’s ok to censor a homosexual joke? Because we need to accept Muslims? Personally I'm ok with jokes about Muslims and homosexuals and Christians and atheists and pimple faced basement dwellers and yuppies driving bmws and…
  • jadbox 4y ago
    The diversity march advocates for the freedom to express oppressed minorities. I think it's philosophically a vulgar view of liberal diversity is that diversity is also defined as the ability to also tolerate groups that systematically suppresses its people of diversity (a view that Alexander Dugin espouses).
  • kiratp 4y ago
    The good ol’ Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
  • Spivak 4y ago
    The paradox of tolerance isn’t really a paradox, it’s a proof by contradiction that the naive notion of tolerance is not sound. Homosexuality is a natural observable phenomenon in the human species across time and cultures. It is an aspect of people as fundamental as height or skin tone. Not accepting them for any reason is intolerance and does not have to be tolerated. It is also intolerance to not accept Muslims, but you do not have to tolerate any intolerance that manifests from their beliefs. People are not tolerant or intolerant, specific views held by and actions done by people are. You don’t need values to reason about tolerance.
• kebman 4y ago
  On that topic, I can highly recommend the documentary “Chuck Norris vs. Communism”^[1] about censorship in Romania under Ceaușescu. [1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2442080/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2442080/
• jwmoz 4y ago
  Long live Taiwan.
  • ipnon 4y ago
    Censorship was just as widespread if not worse in Taiwan before the military dictatorship fell away. The smash hit "When Will You Return?" by the cross-strait superstar Teresa Tang was censored: The titular "you" pronounced in Mandarin rhymes with the word for "army." "When Will The Army Return?" was never going to be a hit with the military dictatorship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Taiwan#Music%20and%20performance%20censorship%20in%20Taiwan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Taiwan#Music%20a...
• bjarneh 4y ago
  Similar to the feeling I got when re-watching Dark Knight Rises, and Drive on a plane (Lufthansa?). Something was missing — the violence. I guess airlines have to assume that any age can watch films on those screens and cut films accordingly. Strange to think that a country wants to treat the entire population like Lufthansa treats kids.
• spookierookie 4y ago
  It must be fun living in China.
• EGreg 4y ago
  I wonder what you all think of this, in light of that: https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-change-the-world/ https://qbix.com/blog/2019/03/08/how-qbix-platform-can-chang...
• _0w8t 4y ago
  At the end the article claimed that censorship prevented creation of good movies. In Soviet Union a few good movies were made despite draconian censorship. Then after abolishment of all censorship there were less good films from former USSR. It almost looked like directors tried to put all previously banned sex, violence and cursing on screen but in the process forgot how to film good stories.
  • throwaway98797 4y ago
    when censorship was removed so were the barriers to leave … thus the good people fled
• hoseja 4y ago
  TIL egg freezing is banned in China.
• nathias 4y ago
  it seems that US censorship seems to be apparent to all except some people in US. This bizzare notion that private companies somehow can't be doing censorship is terrible for free societies.
• nomilk 4y ago
  > To find out, I compared 100 episodes of the original version of The Big Bang Theory with the edited Youku version to understand what was cut out and decipher the logic behind the decision. Is there any website that keeps track of censored parts of shows more generally? The BBC has been censoring parts of shows it deems 'insensitive'. It would be interesting to know what the banned parts contain and to see how it changes over time.
• jarek83 4y ago
  As far as censoring is concerning, can I just diverge to how crazy cool is the page - I mean the UX, the thoroughness of the subject and execution of it. I'm in awe.
• wruza 4y ago
  Such unequal treatment is bizarre I may lack huge parts of these contexts or misinterpret them, but there is something obvious in the pictures alone. Kissing in a drama may have a very different connotation than in a sitcom, or may simply be one of the central scenes. The difference in the back exposing scenes is not in the back itself, but in the man in the background looking to the forward part of this back. I’m not pro censorship and mostly not pro conservatism, but this complete blindness to the difference in context and inability to hypothesize it feels, well, bizarre itself.
• janandonly 4y ago
  The following stuff is censored in China: TV series or movies should be edited if they have the following content: (1) distorting Chinese and other countries’ culture and society; (2) defaming Chinese military forces, policemen, and judiciary; (3) showcasing obscenity content, either visual or verbal; (4) showcasing “excessive” images of murder, violence, horror, interrogation, drug-taking, and even gambling; (5) advertise negative and decadent values or deliberately exaggerate the negative part of society; (6) advocate religious extremism; (7) advocate environmental destruction and animal torture; (8) excessively showcase alcohol addiction, smoking, or other bad habits; (9) demonstrate other illegal content. I have to ask: How would simply not putting this kind of negative stuff in our media not benefit us? Why does a TV show have to show a lot of gore? Why can we only laugh about sexual explicit jokes? My only issue is with (9) because what is legal today can be illegal tomorrow. Simply no longer being allowed to mention something that was/is/going to be illegal is a bit far fetching I guess..
  • martin_a 4y ago
    > (1) distorting Chinese and other countries’ culture and society; Then no sarcasm is allowed which is an important measure to critize a state and its behaviour. > (2) defaming Chinese military forces, policemen, and judiciary; Same as for (1), making these groups "untouchable" and "uncritizeable" (if that's a word) > (3) showcasing obscenity content, either visual or verbal; Who defines "obscene"? The Ministry of Truth? The president? The government? Your mother? > (4) showcasing “excessive” images of murder, violence, horror, interrogation, drug-taking, and even gambling; Is there any movie where such display is not used as a negative example in the end or to explore the boundaries of human downfall? Tony Montana is not really the hero in the end, same goes for Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill or Fight Club. > (5) advertise negative and decadent values or deliberately exaggerate the negative part of society; Yeah, please don't put your finger where it hurts, we don't like that so much, someone could have a bad opinion of a broken state. > (6) advocate religious extremism; "Being Christian" is enough to be considered extremist in China, I think. Or let's ask the Uigurs how well these rules work for them. > (7) advocate environmental destruction and animal torture; Especially China is very good at the practical side of this, really no need to make movies about that. Besides that: Are there any movies where animals are tortured? > (8) excessively showcase alcohol addiction, smoking, or other bad habits; Same as with (4). > (9) demonstrate other illegal content. Bingo. Wildcard. > How would simply not putting this kind of negative stuff in our media not benefit us? You can't simply close your eyes and hope everything will get better by itself.
• krmboya 4y ago
  While I'm generally anti-censorship, I also believe cultural insensitivity should not go unchecked. What may be acceptable in one culture may not be acceptable in other cultures. Diversity in the global sense is cultural diversity, a step up from what is usually assumed to be diversity in American discource.
  • rpigab 4y ago
    Yes, like Winnie the Pooh, he's cute to us, but extremely offensive to Xi Jinping, just a cultural thing. (It's Hubris and need for absolute control over a big population, mostly)
• scaredginger 4y ago
• kryptozinc 4y ago
  ITT: Bunch of white dudes deciding on my behalf if Raj's character should offend my Indian sensibilities or not.
• rfwhyte 4y ago
  What's really terrifying / depressing / disgusting though, is that an even more insidious kind of Chinese "pre-censorship" is now increasingly worming it's way into western media not even explicitly intended for the Chinese market. As China becomes the either #1 or #2 global market for films, tv shows and video games, global media companies are lobotomizing their products to ensure they'll pass the CCP's censors / goons, and as a result, marginalized voices are ultimately going to be pushed further even further to the margins. Big globomediacorps won't take the risk that including whatever "Sensitive" subject matter the CCP has decided it's against that week will bar their product from the Chinese market, and as a result the Chinese censors don't even have to do anything as the film / tv / game companies are doing their job for them in advance. I mean, just look at Legendary Entertainment. There hasn't been a single LGBT+ character in any of their films since Wanda group bought them in 2016, and I've got a bridge to sell you if you think that's anything less than intentional.
• tuneloud0 4y ago
  [flagged]
• benniomars 4y ago
  They somehow managed to make a bad show worse.