Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Subvert Censorship With a Popular Pun
Anonymusing writes "In spoken Chinese, 'grass-mud horse' sounds virtually identical to an obscenity (hint: it begins with "mother-") — and as a cartoon character, it has become an amazing phenomenon. Meant as a subversive attack on censors, the alpaca-like mythical creature has led to a cuddly stuffed animal — selling over 180,000 in a few weeks — and a wildly popular YouTube video with children's voices singing words that are either completely benign or incredibly offensive, depending on how you listen." Update: 03/13 09:29 GMT by T : Since this story was set up, the originally linked video seems to have been pulled. Searching YouTube reveals that there are some alternatives available, at least for now.
I find it fittingly ironic that in a story about the nefarious Chinese censorship that the slashdot editors felt it okay to censor the expletive in question.
What's the difference?
We call it here as "Intellectual Property dispute", "DMCA Violation", "Child Porn", "Meth Making Instructions", or other undesirable works.
In Utah, possession of even a single picture considered to be child porn is 10 years. So, why pretend that Censorship doesnt exist here? It does, just under other names.
Of course no one would censor "motherfucker" or "fuck your mother" in the west on a website or in public television. Must be pure chance that everytime somebody says "cock" or "fuck" on TV in the US there is a beep sound.
There's something ghoti-y about that comment.
I mean, George Carlin has been doing things like this ages before I was born. Like the "you may prick your finger but doooon't finger your prick" bit. Not to mention the ancient song about the rooster, the donkey, the dog and the cat.
Well, maybe the difference is that those words don't just sound "bad". They are. But it depends on the context, and when you insist that you use them in a benign context, it's funny because you can "cheat" the censors. Can't censor that, I was just singing about a rooster, a donkey... whyyyyy, what did YOU think? Is it me that's naughty or is it your thoughts?
I think that's what any of those songs are about. They should show you that you, and only you, are "naughty" here if you consider this naughty.
Maybe we can learn a bit about who's the pervert from the Chinese. The one that (maybe even actually innocently) sings a tune, or the one that wants to hear something naughty in it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well, in most of continental Europe, claiming that "The Holocaust didn't happen" will land you in jail for a few years, too.
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
I would be careful reading any subversive meaning into this - they're just tweaking the noses of the net.cops.
Which is illegal where they live, and thus subversive of the system of censorship and control.
Just because people usually are not punished for this kind of thing doesn't make doing it any less brave when people have been and will be forced into slave labor for less.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Mandarin (which is the official nation-wide dialect) is much more phonetically impoverished than Cantonese: fewer tones, fewer consonants. So if there's a more lucrative language for punsters anywhere in the world than Mandarin, I'd be surprised.
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
So what's up with Youtube censoring that ..censorship subverted with a popular pun... video all the time?
China has it's firewall, we have big corporations doing the censorship... i'm not sure what's better.
I entirely agree. It's also interesting to see that China has laws on these kinds of things, and not just political censorship.
When discussing censorship laws in western countries - anything from banning violent movies or computer games, to recent laws in the UK criminalising possession of images of consensual adult sexuality that the Government disapproves of, a tired argument in support of the laws is "Oh noes, how dare you protest against such things, and call this censorship! Don't you know in China they have censorship of more important things?"
Well, the fact that China might also censor "more important things" doesn't stop these people protesting this censorship of swear words. The point is that all kinds of Government censorship are all part of the same problem. They might not care about whether they can see the particular video in question, but it's a way of opposing unjust censorship laws in general.
Of course we would never do anything like that in the US like maybe a pop song titled "If You Seek Amy".
Speaking of which, how about her song "If U Seek Amy"? No double entendres there!
What would Brian Boitano do?
1. your statements are incredibly patronizing and condescending. not to westerns, to everyone you mention. as if i cross a border of a country and POOF, human nature warps into an inscrutable concept i have no right to observe, understand, or criticize. i'm not talking from a western pov, i'm talking from ANY pov. if you actually believe what you said, then no one, in any other culture, can criticize or value anything else from another culture. that national borders are some sort of magic curtain across which everything is inscrutable. fucking bullshit
1. there is no such thing as a western pov, or indian morality, or chinese values. the only logically and morally coherent position on any topic in the world is a human point of view. HUMAN
oh, and please note, if you respond that i am displaying some sort of western arrogance or bias: i said HUMAN. i repeat: HUMAN POINT OF VIEW. therefore, continued attacks on me as a WESTERNER immediately fail. i said HUMAN
if you can't meet me on those terms, HUMAN terms, then you are intellectually dishonest
i do not require provinciality or nationalism to make my arguments. why do you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it