The Chinese Government has reported pulled a critical South Park episode called ‘Band in China’ from the internet.
Additionally, the Chinese Government has also scrubbed the internet of most South Park content after said episode.
The South Park episode addressed and criticized current Chinese government censors.
Consequence of Sound reports:
In “Band in China”, co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone intentionally take aim at Hollywood’s editorial tweaking to avoid Chinese government censors, all while seemingly knowing their Comedy Central show would take a hit as a result, hence the episode’s name. They were right. Virtually “every clip, episode, and online discussion” of the TV show has been wiped from Chinese streaming services, discussion platforms, and social media, notes The Hollywood Reporter. For example, when fans type in the URL for the former South Park thread on Baidu’s Tieba, China’s largest online discussion platform, a message pops up that reads, “According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open.”
China’s surveillance state has drawn much criticism from Western figureheads.
Its social credit system, treatment of a Muslim minority in the West of the country, and rapid industrialization have all been placed under the microscope.
Silicon Valley has also sparked outrage for attempting to create a social credit system, while assisting the Chinese Government in developing theirs, outside of the Federal Government’s purview.
Consequence of Sound continues:
“Band in China” features two different plots, both of which criticized China. The first follows Randy as he tries to sell weed in China, gets caught, and is sent to a work camp akin to the ones Beijing uses to hold Chinese Muslims for political indoctrination. Randy even bumps into Winnie the Pooh — the beloved chubby bear that China infamously censors because Internet users often compare him to Chinese president Xi Jinping. The other storyline sees Stan, Jimmy, Kenny, and Butters form an extreme metal band that quickly gains enough attention to warrant a manager. When the manager tries to create a film about the band, he must continually alter the script in order for the film to be distributed in China.
According to The Hollywood Reporter:
A cursory perusal through China’s highly regulated Internet landscape shows the show conspicuously absent everywhere it recently had a presence. A search of the Twitter-like social media service Weibo turns up not a single mention of South Park among the billions of past posts. On streaming service Youku, owned by Internet giant Alibaba, all links to clips, episodes and even full seasons of the show are now dead.
And on Baidu’s Tieba, China’s largest online discussions platform, the threads and sub-threads related to South Park are nonfunctional. If users manually type in the URL for what was formerly the South Park thread, a message appears saying that, “According to the relevant law and regulation, this section is temporarily not open.”
The Chinese Government bans things they deem inappropriate for their citizens.
Peppa Pig was banned in China because it was believed the animated kids’ show ‘promoted gangster attitudes.‘
Even the letter ‘N’ was temporarily banned in China after it was thought that Chinese president Xi Jinping’s term limits might have been dropped.
Words such as “immortality” and “ascend the throne” were also blasted as inappropriate during the letter ‘N’ debacle.
The official South Park Twitter account tweeted out a mocking “apology” on Monday.
Watch the full episode – https://t.co/oktKSJdI9i@THR article – https://t.co/nXrtmnwCJB pic.twitter.com/Xj5a1yE2eL
— South Park (@SouthPark) October 7, 2019