Murong Xuecun has seen all his microblogs deleted (May 11), reinstated (May 17), and deleted again (May 18). Anyone who gets jerked around like this has reason to be upset; Murong, more so, considering he had millions of followers and thousands of entries accumulated over three years, and because, as he himself puts it, "to a writer, the words he writes are more important to him than his life."
Hao Qun, 39, better known by his pen name Murong Xuecun, saw all of his weibos -- Sina, Tencent, NetEase, and Sohu -- deleted on Saturday. Successive attempts to re-register were quickly thwarted as well.
He lost 1.85 million followers, but it's China and its ignoble band of fucking censors who have lost more: repute. Face. Or does that suddenly not matter?
Hong Kong University’s China Media Project already has an awesome service in WeiboScope, which preserves deleted Sina Weibo messages deemed too "sensitive." Apparently determined to bring those messages to a wider audience, CMP is now translating some of them into English with its newest service, WeiboSuite.
What does a false start and a censor's curse get you?
An opening that is kind of terrible.
Django Unchained, after its premiere was unceremoniously pulled and indefinitely delayed last month, returned to mainland theaters on Sunday, five days after it was supposed to. It earned 3.7 million yuan. Not US dollars... yuan.
We talk about censors as if they weren't real, but SCMP serves us this useful reminder that the people deleting your videos, expurgating articles, handcuffing artists, destroying the TV and entertainment industry, and -- the of course of "of courses" -- blocking porn, are made of flesh and blood, with intellectual capacities, however stunted, and human desires.
Well, some used to have human desires, before they were forced to watch porn all day. Desensitized, sex is but gymnastics with bad theatrics, something to pass the time, like a run on the treadmill.
Do you share our disdain for censorship? If so, it's not too late to check out last week's PEN International report on Chinese censorship, "Creativity and Constraint in Today's China." Launched on World Press Freedom Day as a culmination of five years of work, "the report is a frank assessment of the climate of freedom of expression in the world’s most populous state," featuring firsthand accounts and essays from 10 Chinese dissident writers.
A massive police and paramilitary presence has descended upon Fengtai District around Jingwen Clothing and Apparel Shopping Mall, the scene of either a suicide or murder last Friday.
On May 3, a young woman from Anhui province fell to her death from the Jingwen building after allegedly being gang-raped. Police hastily ruled her death a suicide and refused her family's request to see the surveillance footage.
This afternoon, thousands (edit: possibly only "hundreds") of people -- many who are migrant workers from Anhui -- gathered in a planned protest between Jingwen and Yongdingmen, a gate just south of the Temple of Heaven on Second Ring Road (a few kilometers north of Jingwen). Hundreds of police have shown up in turn, many in riot gear. Traffic is reportedly backed up for miles.
Django Unchained is ready for mainland Chinese theaters again. According to Sina, Quentin Tarantion’s revenge epic will be screened beginning May 7, with “full-frontal nudity removed.” There was hardly any full-frontal nudity in the movie to begin with, but if that’s what it takes, so be it. By now everyone who wants to see it... Read more »
The tireless, talented and slightly subversive Feng Xiaogang accepted the China Film Directors Guild's director of the year award on April 12, and he had some pointed things to say in his acceptance speech.
Pointed things that you will not hear, because they were censored.
Pointed as in the word "censorship."
The “falling for satire” bit is our little extrapolation, but what other funny way to explain this? Via SCMP: “All kinds of media work units may not use any unauthorised news products provided by foreign media or foreign websites,” according to a notice issued by the General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. This came... Read more »
