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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 cen

• 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_(...
      • Tao3300 4y ago
        Heavens above, Myrtle! That turtle is a ninja! With nunchaku! Someone think of the children!
        • MichaelCollins 4y ago
          > nunchaku Huh, you weren't kidding. Banned and censored in the UK, banned in Canada, Germany, and several US states... because of Bruce Lee? Bizarre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunchaku#Legality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunchaku#Legality
          • dwighttk 4y ago
            So is Napoleon Dyanamite censored too? I think he mentions nunchucks
            • EpicEng 4y ago
              The word isn't banned.
          • munificent 4y ago
            This sounds so hilariously quaint to someone in the US like me. But, I guess that's because I'm used to being surrounded by people armed to the gills with assault rifles and shit. Maybe if you're in a mostly gun-free country, nunchaku actually seem kind of scary and threatening.
            • smsm42 4y ago
              Especially ironic given nunchaku as a practical weapon is really not that great, especially in the hands of an amateur. A common kitchen knife or an iron rod (or even a good sturdy stick) would probably be more dangerous. It may be a great tool for a martial artist to develop valuable dexterity and speed skills, but as a practical weapon... It's common though for politicians to ban things out of sheer ignorance and following cultural stereotypes borrowed from fictional movies.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • lettergram 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • brigandish 4y ago
      I think the downvotes you're attracting give some indication for the HN crowd.
      • Firmwarrior 4y ago
        I didn't downvote him, but I could see how even a staunch COVID denialist would think his comment is taking the thread off the rails
        • lettergram 4y ago
          I’m pointing out how censorship really works. It’s just as active here as anywhere else, just different topics
      • lettergram 4y ago
        • elefanten 4y ago
          Well taking only this thread as a datapoint... your list of censored news stories wasn't convincing. In what sense were any of those "censored"? I read all those cases being made on the internet. Are you naming editorial choice of what to publish "censorship"? I'm just confused. Anecdotally from my own perspective, I see big waves of voting on HN that go in various political directions. Seems consistent with self-selection by topic combined with randomness. None of it inspires confidence in your assessment of being "censored" on HN, or diagnosing the audience as less curious.
          • lettergram 4y ago
            1. Are you serious? Why is Alex Jones censored? Why is Trump censored? Why did people get indefinitely banned for discussing many of those topics on social media? Just a few days ago Zuckerberg was discussing banning / suppressing discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop - https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/mark-zuckerberg-criticizes-twitters-handling-of-the-posts-hunter-biden-laptop-story/ https://nypost.com/2022/08/25/mark-zuckerberg-criticizes-twi... Idk what to say about that. It’s not editorial decisions when DMs are being censored or social media posts. Particularly when the FBI / government is suggesting it. 2. This is a perfect example of my point. Most people don’t even realize they are surrounded by censorship. Or they outright agree with it. Look up the list of topics bannable on YouTube. On Twitter you can’t even call someone by the name their parents gave them if they disagree. In schools near where I live you can get suspended for using proper pronouns, if someone disagrees. Censorship in the US is different, but very apparent.
  • imyangmo 4y ago
    in my observation (and it might not be correct), most of ppl around me doesn't even care which part has been censored, watching those sitcoms are just a way to kill time after all. however, you could find those censored clips on some video platforms where censorship is not so strict since there is no clear guidelines about what should not be exist.
  • Agentlien 4y ago
    Growing up in Sweden, I mainly watched Swedish (original or dubbed) shows as a kid. Once we got satellite and I started watching American channels I had my first encounter with censorship. Bleeps and blurs and random spots where audio cuts out. It was very jarring. I couldn't understand it at all and still can't. It really stands out, breaks the flow, makes everything feel cheap and ugly. In real life people swear and sometimes there is nudity. That never bothered me. But the jarring edits "protecting" me from these? Those certainly do.
    • gpt5 4y ago
      This relates to PG rating and the way national TV works. In order to secure prime time spots, the show must hit a certain "family friendly" rating that matches the audience of the TV network. They chose the beeps as a way to cater for both adults and kids together. FWIW, these are far less common today.
      • Agentlien 4y ago
        I'm quite familiar with PG ratings. Not just because it's mentioned everywhere, but also because we had some passionate discussions about which to go for during the making of one of the Need for Speed games. Honestly, I feel they warp a lot of not just how media is presented but even how it is produced, sometimes in ways which make things feel very weird and inauthentic. However, when I first started seeing this stuff as a kid I had no idea why and it really struck me as odd. I think the funniest thing I've heard about censorship was Magnus Uggla, a Swedish artist, complaining that because he had a UK firm produce one of his music videos it was a real struggle getting them not to blur a scene where they're drinking shots.
    • Kye 4y ago
      TV edits ruin everything. There's a scene in Independence Day where Will Smith's character is running from an alien fighter, and he says "oh no you did not shoot that green shit at me." TV edits make it "green stuff," and it does not work.
      • 4y ago
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    > often living in less-censored societies I think people a lot of us started to get out of the common path because of the limitations (which censorship is at the basic level) we hit. My hypothesis would be that simply “curious” people get pushed into the “hacker” bucket by getting refused something that seems reachable with some creativity. The dumb example is people will get creative and jumping through hoops to get foreign porn. Growing non-authorized plants is another example, where people have to learn so much by themselves to make it happen. Even getting pirated non-censored versons comes to require more and more technical proficiency I think, and looking at industry’s reaction it seems there’s a decent number of people sailing the seven seas.
• joshstrange 4y ago
  That was my first thought as well. Those skips would drive me crazy and would send me searching for the "raw" episodes. Wanting to know what was said would only be a part of the issue, the other would be how jarring it is and how you never know if it was a censored clip or if the media "skipped".
  • jrumbut 4y ago
    It's apparent because you're used to the rhythm of English speech and the forms of American sitcoms. I'm not sure if I would notice a Chinese show was censored.
    • Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      A lot of the examples cut off laughter, surely you'd notice that regardless of language?
• mftb 4y ago
  It absolutely backfires. No one is as successful at selling US culture as the US, except all those countries that censor exported/imported US culture.
  • concordDance 4y ago
    This seems untrue. Do more than a fraction of a percent of Chinese people watch the uncensored versions of things?
    • tuatoru 4y ago
      Not on a regular basis, perhaps. The glitches serve to remind them daily that their government is manipulating them. The dilemma that China's leaders have is that they need an educated workforce, capable of logical and critical thinking, but they can't stop that workforce thinking critically outside work.
      • sangnoir 4y ago
        I'm itching to give a counterexample, but that'll ignite a flame war. I'll cowardly insinuate it instead: you know the country I'm talking about.
        • kelnos 4y ago
          I mean, seriously. I'm American, and the US primary school system is clearly designed half as day care, and half as a factory for teaching US citizens how to think like US citizens are "supposed" to think. We also forget that, in the mid and late 1900s (or, like many of us, just weren't born yet), many (though not all) of the same kinds of censorship were present in American TV, and to some extent movies as well. I do find the Chinese version to be more insidious (and more dangerous, given current surveillance and content-blocking technology), and much of it probably is, but I do think some of it is just unconscious nationalism and "othering" on my part, as much as I try to stamp out that kind of thinking in myself.
      • kelnos 4y ago
• AnonCoward42 4y ago
  It's also unnecessary to cut them so badly. It's really disturbing.
• dirtyid 4y ago
  90s kids in the west grew up on censored looney Tunes and "localized" anime like sailor moon, I remember some barely viral discussions of comparisons with OG version and sentiment was basically meh.
  • chaostheory 4y ago
    Disney is now censoring their old cartoons. They have a ghost hunter episode where they remove all the firearms. It’s annoying to watch the new version
• koonsolo 4y ago
  The cuts are mainly obvious because of the sound glitch. I think when they would have a better crossover of the audio, it would be way harder to notice.
  • kelnos 4y ago
    There were also one or two clips where they cut off someone midsentence where they didn't really have to; just waiting for them to finish their sentence to start the cut would have been fine. Very low-effort job all around. But I suspect that if you grow up with this sort of thing, you just assume that it's normal, possibly just how foreign shows are made. You might not think anything is wrong until someone points it out, and shows you the uncensored version. But how many people in China would have access to an uncensored version?
• Gordonjcp 4y ago
  You probably haven't heard about The Streisand Effect because They want to keep it quiet.