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Most indications are that the people doing the censoring didn't put much effort into investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China, eith

Most indications are that the people doing the censoring didn't put much effort into investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China, either. If you look at the emails there's a lot of 'I'm not sure whether this will be a problem'-style language, and aggressively filtering out anyone who might cause an issue based on what they imagined the law to be. It's possible they could have let all the candidates sail through and the government there wouldn't have protested, though I wouldn't be surprised if some of the candidates would indeed end up blocked.

Vecr 3y ago
That's how all censorship regimes work. If other people didn't do most of the job for you, you'd get hopelessly backed up. Preferably the author does it themselves.
- raphlinus 3y ago
  Indeed, and there's a most excellent essay that goes into considerably more detail on this: https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/ https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/ , written partly in response to the Chengdu debacle, but also covering lots of Western examples, including Galileo vs the church, the comics code, and more.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
Are the laws vague on purpose?
imiric 3y ago
The organizers were likely given loose instructions about topics that should be avoided, and decided to play it safe. Otherwise they would've been liable themselves.
maxglute 3y ago
TBF they did a "decent" job filtering, Zhao has youtube videos with 100,000s of views where she labels Xinjiang "genocide", Kuang graduated from Georgetown School of Foreign Policy, aka her credentials make her potential US propaganda mouthpiece. If local committee eventually got involved in censorship, they would have removed those two from nomination list. PRC nationalist (which I imagine have high overlap with scifi) love trolling PRC diasphora, especially female (especially reporters/media), who carries water for US narratives. These two are basically PRC version of sad/rabid puppies, I feel like they would have been made ineligbile at some point in the filtering process. There was no way anyone involved who did basic due diligence would have allowed either on the slate.
ddxv 3y ago
Panopticon style self-censorship is what makes censorship in China so effective.
est 3y ago
> put much effort into investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China Sorry but in authoritarian state, things don't work under "laws and regulations". Everyone is subject to 规矩, which roughly translate to "unspoken rules" or "how thing supposed to work without irritate powerful people". You are not safe by laws and regulations alone, other people can fuck you up in many ways.
Ray20 3y ago
>investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China This is always impossible in totalitarian countries. Where there are clear rules, there are possibilities to use them against those who wrote them - and this is exactly what totalitarian country will never ever allow (otherwise it would be not totalitarian country). This is the whole point of censorship: to ban not what is written in some rules, but what must be banned and when it must.

Vecr 3y ago

That's how all censorship regimes work. If other people didn't do most of the job for you, you'd get hopelessly backed up. Preferably the author does it themselves.

raphlinus 3y ago
Indeed, and there's a most excellent essay that goes into considerably more detail on this: https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/ https://www.exurbe.com/tools-for-thinking-about-censorship/ , written partly in response to the Chengdu debacle, but also covering lots of Western examples, including Galileo vs the church, the comics code, and more.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

Are the laws vague on purpose?

imiric 3y ago

The organizers were likely given loose instructions about topics that should be avoided, and decided to play it safe. Otherwise they would've been liable themselves.

maxglute 3y ago

TBF they did a "decent" job filtering, Zhao has youtube videos with 100,000s of views where she labels Xinjiang "genocide", Kuang graduated from Georgetown School of Foreign Policy, aka her credentials make her potential US propaganda mouthpiece. If local committee eventually got involved in censorship, they would have removed those two from nomination list. PRC nationalist (which I imagine have high overlap with scifi) love trolling PRC diasphora, especially female (especially reporters/media), who carries water for US narratives. These two are basically PRC version of sad/rabid puppies, I feel like they would have been made ineligbile at some point in the filtering process. There was no way anyone involved who did basic due diligence would have allowed either on the slate.

ddxv 3y ago

Panopticon style self-censorship is what makes censorship in China so effective.

est 3y ago

> put much effort into investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China Sorry but in authoritarian state, things don't work under "laws and regulations". Everyone is subject to 规矩, which roughly translate to "unspoken rules" or "how thing supposed to work without irritate powerful people". You are not safe by laws and regulations alone, other people can fuck you up in many ways.

Ray20 3y ago

>investigating what the actual laws and regulations were over in China This is always impossible in totalitarian countries. Where there are clear rules, there are possibilities to use them against those who wrote them - and this is exactly what totalitarian country will never ever allow (otherwise it would be not totalitarian country). This is the whole point of censorship: to ban not what is written in some rules, but what must be banned and when it must.