Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Government Takes Down Anti-Pollution Documentary "Under The Dome"
An anonymous reader writes with a link to BBC's report that [A]uthorities in China have removed from websites a popular documentary which highlights the country's severe pollution problem. Under the Dome explains the social and health costs of pollution, and was watched by more than 100 million people online, sparking debates. It was removed just two days after Premier Li Keqiang called pollution a blight on people's lives.
Searching YouTube gives you a pretty good idea of what the Chinese government doesn't want people to see.
I guess there's so much smog that even links can't be seen.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I guess a link is too much to ask?
I wish I could.
http://m.bbc.com/news/world-as...
...these gloomy documentaries aren't helping the cause...
Yes they do... They motivate people to demand action to clean up, and to remind them we can have nice things and a clean planet. The 'dark shadow' over the government is well deserved when it doesn't respond. I find your response highly suspect.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Are you high? Of course it's censorship. A textbook example of it, in fact. Whatever the rationale might be for it does not alter that fact.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Loading...
In a previous story on this documentary, I read that a number of national news sources were promoting the film. So what changed that they would take it down now?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
when i searched i kept getting links to some stupid escape media tv serial out of the blighted states.
says a lot, really, the things our resepective cultures prefer.
Observe the little documentary casting a shadow over big China.
Your censorship apologia would sweep away all things gloomy: fellow citizens, think positive! (or else)
damaged by dogma
"Where there's smoke there's work."
--
BMO
An anonymous reader writes with a link
...that he's apparently unwilling to share with the rest of us. Thanks!
Searching YouTube
Searching YouTube? How about acting like a professional news site instead, and providing a simple, clickable, link?
Did Tim Berners-Lee die in vain?!
I expect a news story, not homework and a test. Yes, I'm lazy. That's why I visit news sites in the first place instead of roaming the world to see things first hand.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Its kinda of bollocks though, in that this isn't something invisible people can stick their heads out the window and not see more than 100m due to the smog in some cities. Or the sludge in the rivers...
I watched the document earlier today. It's not gloomy. It has a very clear call to action with many realistic ideas of how to combat pollution. Actually watching it made me think that maybe China can get this pollution situation fixed some day.
Maybe you should watch it too?
"I cut up a lemon and put it beside my pillow. When I returned to Beijing, I discovered I was pregnant."
Now that is serious pollution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's one thing to see smog out the window day after day, it's another to find out how widespread the pollution is, or to see green beaches, exploded trees, and river water so polluted that it doesn't look like water. The U.S. would be where China is right now were it not for the people who raised enough hell fifty years ago that we have the EPA today.
they just cast a dark shadow over China and its government.
How can they tell?
I vehemently disagree. I highly recommend taking the 16 minutes and 39 seconds to actually watch the most compelling part of the documentary before trying to wave it away as "gloomy documentaries." For you to say such a thing shows that, contrary to your statement, you are denying the presence of pollution--or at least the social responsibility we all have to improve our health, life spans, and quality of life by regulating pollution.
I live in Washington DC and spend a great deal of time worrying about my health and the health of my children because our air quality here can get so bad that we have Red Ozone Days where we are told to keep our children inside, especially if they have any respiratory conditions, which they are more likely to have thanks to the poor air quality. I think it a blessing that NASA and the EPA monitor our air quality and that the local papers light a fire of panic under everyone's feet about the need to improve it because childhood leukemia and other cancers aren't something we should just shrug at.
Awareness of pollution is why we have Catalytic converters in our cars to dramatically reduce the toxic nature of the exhaust coming out of them. It's why we banned Lead Gasoline and ended the crime wave having that chemical in our brains unleashed on our culture. It's why air quality has improved over the last 10 years as new technologies, improved MPG, and other environmental regulations, but we still have much more to do.
It's also a moral issue for us, because our Made-In-China marketplace is why they have so much pollution. We want cheap goods and they turn a blind eye to the pollution to keep the products cheap. But that pollution is making it's way back to us over the Pacific Ocean. I want to keep buying cheap stuff from China, but I am also willing to pay a little more if it allows the Chinese people to improve their health.
The Chinese government should let people understand the science and choose for themselves.
i ~ Celebrating Science, Cyberspace, Speculation
It is well-known that the government is still very unwilling to touch the heavy industries that pollute the most, especially in cities where there is just one employer. They're also very hesitant to bring polluters to justice, even if they pour poison freely into the river that supplies the city next door with drinking water.
It's high time Chinese folks understood that pollution is not a natural occurrence that cannot be prevented, but occurs because the cost of doing business is paid out of their health.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
Tricky thing though. How can you censor information about pollution from people who wear masks daily because of pollution. So likely it is more about repackaging and delivery at a more controllable pace to prevent mob reaction as they have quite a large mob to deal with. What is interesting in the documentary is the denial, they know the problem, they can not really pretend that it is not happening. However they live in denial preferring a comfortable lie, rather than an uncomfortable truth. How will they react, when the truth is forced on them, in the typical mob way? Seek a culprit or group of culprits to blame for everything, persecute them and then, once sufficient time has passed, months, go back to denial and the comfortable lie. That is the self evident truth of people who run around everyday needing to wear masks to breath without coughing because of pollution wanting to pretend the pollution is not that bad. You can not censor what people already know, just refuse to admit it because it might economically disadvantage them even when the reality is failing to act is going to not only hugely shorten the life but inevitably will hugely economically disadvantage them. The real problem is greed driven stupidity, most of the pollution is because they are too cheap to spend the extra money to reduce the level of pollution being generated and they all know it and participate in it and there is now way anyone could even try to censor that from them, their own individual greed lets them self censor and that is the real problem. Oh Look, America and climate change, there is a whole lot of that exact same greed driven stupidity and self censorship going on. You do censor information from those who choose to be ignorant, they do it to themselves and often scream at you and attack you if you try to expose them to the uncomfortable truth.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
China is America at the height of the industrial revolution.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I thought this was about Stephen King's novel and television/TV s(eries/how). :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The documentaries should instead let people know what the government is doing...
You are free to write one yourself. You have no right to tell other people they can't just because you don't like the content. Your posts appear to be very suspiciously like ones of a government 'employee', very likely in in their public relations department. There is no other logic behind them.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Ironically, India is also trying to ban a documentary, about a rape that happened on a bus in New Delhi ("India's Daughter").
It's not ironic! It's just coincidental!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Yep, you are definitely working in a government's 'public relations' department. Censorship is always bad, regardless of the culture. Nobody has the right to decide what others can see and say. I am for anything that forces a government to respond to its citizens. And this kind of reporting makes them respond faster, which is a good thing. It helps people see through the facade, and it exposes who the government serves. This helps to motivate them to fix their government. We are on one planet. The pollution does not respect your borders. If it did, nobody would care if the Chinese suffocated themselves in their smog. The propaganda you post here is written by the bad guys and is nothing but a blatant appeal to authority. You can't hide that fact behind the AC moniker.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The issue isn't about burying heads in sand. People here discuss pollution daily. It's on the news, it's in the media. The premier, last Thursday, made a speech about pollution and how the gov't vows to continue fighting pollution, calling it a "blight on people's quality of life and a trouble that weighs on their hearts". There is a huge effort in China to try to curb the pollution issue, and as someone who lives here and has serious concerns about the air, I can attest to watching the AQI (US consulate sourced) in a variety of cities.. and I believe pollution is *actually* getting a little better in the last couple years compared to airpocolypses that was slamming our lungs in the past. I don't claim to know why this docu. was removed from Chinese media specifically but I would guess it has less to do with the content itself, and more to do with controlling the narrative. Rest assured, though, pollution isn't being 'hidden' from the Chinese public, it's being breathed in daily.