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After Thai actor Vachirawit Chivaaree liked a photo on Twitter that listed Hong Kong as a "country," Chinese fans inundated his Instagram and other social media with comments "correcting" him, and he soon postedan apologyfor his "lack of caution talking about Hong Kong," which is a semi-autonomous Chinese city, and not an independent nation.

Vachirawit, who goes by the name "Bright," was not the first foreign celebrity or brand to cause offense in China by mischaracterizing issues related to Hong Kong or Taiwan, or by crossing numerous other political red lines familiar to those within China's Great Firewall.

Nor was he the first to try to apologize, only to have more alleged transgressions dredged up by nationalist Chinese web users looking for a new scalp.

They called for a boycott of Vachirawit and his TV show, "2gether," and some began posting attacks against his girlfriend on both Weibo and Twitter under the hashtag #nnevvy.

The expression of similar sentiments on Twitter were met with pushback by Thai fans, who quickly found themselves targeted by the Chinese users, who posted insults demeaning the southeast Asian country and its government. But here the users, used to debating within the limits of the Great Firewall, revealed something of how limited their political worldview is by censorship and propaganda.

In seeking to insult the Thais they were arguing with, they turned to the worst topics they could imagine, but instead of outrage, posts criticizing the Thai government or dredging up historical controversies, were met with glee by the mostly young, politically liberal Thais on Twitter.

While all this may seem petty and inconsequential, the failure of this particular trolling campaign is illustrative of a wider issue. The attitude expressed by the angry "little pinks" engaging in it, an easily offended, touchy nationalism that links love for country with love of the Communist Party and its leaders, has grown substantially in recent years, drowning out -- with the assistance of the censors -- what limited criticism there was of the government on the Chinese internet.

This type of groupthink could have potential real world consequences down the line. While China's leaders do not need to worry about public opinion in the same as their counterparts in a democracy, they cannot ignore it entirely. On issues such as pollution, corruption and food safety, public opinion has had a notable effect on government policy, even as the censors worked to ensure that people did not escalate their online dissatisfaction to offline protests.

However, in the past the authorities have seen patriotic anger run out of their control.

In both instances, intense policing both online and off was able to rein in the protests, but it also exposed the government to a level of public anger they were not used to for not giving in to calls for a more belligerent response to either Japan or the Philippines.

This led to calls from many online in mainland China for the Chinese military to intervene.

When the Hong Kong government instead gave in to some of the protesters' demands, it was to the understandable shock of many in China whose view of the unrest had been shaped by state media. This led to a backlash against Beijing, with some online asking the obvious question of why Hong Kong protesters, which state media had persistently referred to as rioters, could win concessions?

In both instances, just as the #nnevvy trolls were unable to conceive of anyone not being offended by having their government mocked, the limits of political imagination had been constrained by censorship and propaganda.

While some Hong Kongers and Taiwanese were crowing over the embarrassment of the Chinese trolls, they shouldn't be too complacent about the potential ramifications for any future debate over either territory's sovereignty.

If China's leaders one day find themselves painted into a corner by their own propaganda, unable to pursue or even consider more pragmatic solutions, the results could be potentially disastrous.

Continued here:
Nnevvy: Chinese troll campaign on Twitter exposes a potentially dangerous disconnect with the wider world - CNN

Some fake information related to the coronavirus pandemic has been circulating through the media, including social media, at a time when the people need accurate information to calm their nerves.

This is why the government is concerned that such information could create more anxiety, panic and confusion among the people which is the last thing we want now.

Aliran appreciates that the government is taking measures to curb distorted information. But we are troubled by the way it proposes to overcome this problem, which can eventually lead to the undemocratic practice of censoring fair and critical comments.

We now learn that the official definition of fake news has been widened to even criminalise legitimate criticisms of the government and its policies.

We take issue especially with the governments attempt to punish those whose criticisms are deemed to have caused distrust in the ruling government.

When a government, more so one that is deemed by many as a backdoor government, makes a conflicting decision that causes confusion and unnecessary inconvenience, it stands the risk of earning the distrust of the rakyat.

The recent government ruling to allow barbers to operate is a case in point. Would critics and barbers associations, which are concerned with the physical proximity between barbers and clients, be hauled up by the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission?

Similarly, would concerned Malaysians be blamed if they called out ministers whose behaviour only invited brickbats, such as in the Doraemon, TikTok and warm water remedy cases?

In defining fake news, the government warns against news and comments that could lower the reputation of an individual, organisation and country. So what do we do with the ministers of Doraemon, TikTok and warm-water fame who have done a splendid job of lowering not only their professional reputations but also the governments and the nations. Think of how their antics have turned us into the laughing stock of the world.

The government could deal with any fake news or information by quickly coming out with clarifications that could be disseminated to news portals and over social media.

Resorting to censorship, especially in its extreme form, in a time of crisis reflects the insecurity of the government of the day.

Rather we should be upholding public scrutiny and the democratic checks and balances, including over the media, during this difficult period.

Aliran executive committee

12 April 2020

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Censorship under the guise of action against 'fake news' - Aliran

Under a government directive, all studies on Covid-19 will need to be screened by central authorities. The government is attempting to control what is said about the epidemic and push through the idea that it did not originate in China. Wuhan's doctors were the first to be gagged.

Beijing (AsiaNews) - China is censoring scientific studies on the origins of the coronavirus, according to a government directive published - and thenimmediately removed-by the Fudan University of Shanghai and a university in Wuhan.

Under the new rules, any academic research on Covid-19 will need to be checked by a State Council working group before its possible publication. Since the outbreak of the pandemic in January, a series of articles written by Chinese scholars have appeared in the most prestigious international medical journals. In some of them, doubts arise about the official numbers of victims in China and how Beijing's leaders dealt with the emergency.

Speaking to CNN, a Chinese researcher claims that his government is trying to control what is said about the epidemic and pass on the idea that it did not originate in China. He maintains that this governmental screening jeopardizes the impartiality of scientific research in the country.

Beijing is accused of hiding the truth about the initial spread of the virus,gaggingWuhan's doctors, who first raised the alarm. Ai Fen, head of the emergency department of the central hospital in the capital of Hubei, was ordered to remain silent in order not to create panic. Ai, of whom nothing has been known since mid-March, has shared sensitive information with hercolleagues. They includedLi Wenliang, who then was arrested by the police for talking about the virus. Li died of the infection on February 7, followed by other doctors in Wuhan.

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CHINA Beijing censors scientific research on the coronavirus - AsiaNews

On Wednesdays broadcast of the Fox News Channels The Story, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) touted legislation to sanction officials in China who are actively censoring and silencing information on public health.

Cruz said, Weve now seen that its not just a human rights threat, but it is also a threat to national security and global health. When it comes to this Wuhan outbreak, the Chinese Communist government has direct responsibility, direct culpability, for silencing, for covering it up.

He added, I think there needs to be direct accountability. I introduced legislation today to sanction Chinese officials that are engaged in actively censoring and silencing public health information that endangers the lives of Americans and people across the globe.

Cruz further stated that there needs to be a careful accountability as to whether the Chinese government played an inadvertent part in the outbreak itself.

Follow IanHanchett on Twitter@IanHanchett

See the article here:
Cruz: Sanction Chinese Officials Who Are Censoring Health Information - Breitbart

Detail from the 1990 poster for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (New Line Cinema)

In 1997, over a year after the film had debuted in US cinemas, one of the most underrated Hollywood comedies of the decade snuck out onto video, completely bypassing a theatrical run. Theres a sporting chance youd not heard of it: A Very Brady Sequel.

Even to get to video, this 12-rated film had required 23 seconds of cuts to get a certificate at all. For it found itself on the wrong side of the British Board of Film Classifications (BBFC) crackdown on nunchucks, a campaign that had intensified a few years earlier when the Turtles first came to town.

Nunchucks, then. The traditional martial arts weapon had come to the BBFCs attention after the success of Enter The Dragon, but itd come fully into focus with 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film.

Itd be no understatement to say the whole Turtles phenomenon was a cause of sizeable consternation to British censors, leading infamously to the animated television series and associated merchandise going under the moniker Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the UK instead. But whilst the 1990 film got through with the word Ninja in the title, British cinema-goers were forced to wait a long time after their US counterparts to actually see it.

Now celebrating its 30th birthday, the movie landed on 30 March 1990 in the US, but wouldnt hit UK screens until 23 November of the same year. The near-eight-month delay was in part due simply to different times.

It wasnt uncommon for movies to follow their US release by such time lapses in the UK, in pre-internet days where spoilers and piracy were far, far lesser issues (around the same time, for instance, both Turner & Hooch and Parenthood would trail their respective US releases by half a year each).

Furthermore, whilst hindsight is easy enough, nobody quite saw the success of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles coming, at least not to the level it ultimately reached. When the $13.5m movie barnstormed its way to over $135m at the US box office, it would become the most successful independent film of all time (a record it held until Pulp Fiction shot up a few years later).

Story continues

The movie was after a lot of development to and fro greenlit by Hong Kong studio Golden Harvest, with production work taking place in the US and at Jim Hensons Creature Shop in the UK.

But Golden Harvest still needed wide distribution, and no Hollywood studio would touch the film (burned, as the story goes, by the underwhelming grosses for 1987s Masters Of Universe). Every major turned the movie down, and cameras rolled on the film without a deal in place. Only half-way through filming did New Line Cinema agree to put the movie out in America.

This was a crucial development for the UK release.

New Line at this stage was a small company that hadnt as of yet been taken over by Warner Bros (and it was still a decade or so away from Lord Of The Rings). It had made its money off the A Nightmare On Elm Street series, but didnt have the safety net of a studio bank account or credit rating.

Taking on Turtles was thus quite a gamble for the firm, and at this stage, it didnt have tentacles in the UK. A separate British distributor would need to be sought, and that was going to add an additional delay to the UK release.

Read more: Twin Peaks at 30

Had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles been a studio film, there would have at least been a chance of a closer-together release. But ultimately Virgin Vision acquired the production for the UK market. By the time it came to actually release it at the end of 1990, the movie had become the sleeper hit sensation of the year in the States, and the Turtles themselves that years biggest toy craze.

It wasnt just Virgin Vision that noticed this, of course. The BBFC did as well. Conflict lay ahead: its distributors wanted a children-friendly PG certificate for the film, whilst the BBFC was hugely concerned by sequences including the aforementioned nunchucks, and didnt want anklebiters watching them.

The-then head of the organisation, James Ferman, insisted on substantial cuts to the film, although not all at the BBFC agreed, with one examiner arguing their young daughter had watched the US version without being turned on to chainsticks. There was pressure to revise the entire policy, but Ferman didnt yield.

In all, one minute and 51 seconds were spliced out of the movie to secure the November cinema release. Not just nunchucks, as it happened, but also the title Turtle Power song was reworked to swap out the word ninja and substitute hero in its place. Certain moments were reframed too, with the BBFC fearing that British youth would seek to be ninja-influenced. Again, this new cut took a little time to put together.

The delay, as it happened, didnt prove detrimental to the films UK box office impact, with the movie proving to be a sizeable success (in spite of pretty hostile reviews). But the contribution of the several discussed factors led to it following that of the US by some time.

Incidentally, the story of the censorship of the quickly-made sequel The Secret Of The Ooze in the UK which involved sausages used as nunchucks being cut out is detailed at the BBFCs own website, and its a pretty infamous case. It was in the last vestiges of Fermans nunchuck crackdown, and the case study is something of a classic (look for the genuine line since there is real confusion between chainsticks and sausages this sequence needs to be carefully checked)

Read more: How Honor Blackman set the Bond girl template

The Turtles story, of course, has proven to have further cinematic legs, albeit none of the releases since have been as impactful as the original. The most commercially successful the 2014 reboot has nowhere near the fanbase, and nowhere near as iconic a title tune. Nor, notably, any cuts.

But that original film? Its birthday is being celebrated with good cause. A film that was a battle and a half to make, a huge risk to greenlight, and a tougher than expected job to release, three decades on, it remains arguably the Heroes In A Half Shells finest big screen work.

Excerpt from:
'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' at 30: Looking back at the controversy around its UK release - Yahoo News