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China Blocks HBO After John Oliver's Last Week Tonight Mockery of Xi Jinping (scmp.com)

Posted by msmash on from the not-for-the-faint-of-heart dept.

News agency AFP reports: After mocking censors working overtime to delete comparisons of Chinese President Xi Jinping with the cartoon bear, comedian John Oliver and now the website of TV giant HBO have fallen victim to Beijing's censorship machine. Chinese authorities blocked HBO's site in China, just days after Oliver took Xi to task, anti-censorship and monitoring group GreatFire.org said on Saturday. The website was still not accessible on Monday. HBO joins a long list of Western media outlets that have had their websites blocked in China including The New York Times, Facebook and Twitter.

6 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Trump and Xi should date. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Thin skinned snowflakes threatened by comedy.

  2. Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat by DogDude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    He isn't funny

    Wowsa. I bet you're fun at parties.

    John Oliver is great at attacking straw men.

    I think he's great at attacking real men. I'm not aware of any straw man arguments he's made. He addresses a real, actual issue on every show.

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
  3. Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat by apoc.famine · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When you're not very smart, complicated things are not funny or fun to learn about. Oliver tends to be pretty educational on complicated topics, so I can see how there'd be a subset of the population which would find that frustrating.

    Additionally, if you're a rabid believer of anything, someone attacking that thing can feel like an attack on you. And that's not funny. If you can't honestly engage with reality, I can see how Oliver wouldn't be funny as he likely is attacking one of the stupid things you really are passionate about.

    --
    Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
  4. Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat by Bryansix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    John Oliver tends to yell a lot, disparage people, insult them, avoid rational discussion of the issues and conflate complicated issues by reducing them to the point of uselessness. Every once in a while, he has his writers research some obscure topic, then has a TAKE on that topic. The problem is he always has a TAKE that is extremely one-sided and he will ridicule anyone who disagrees with him. The best example of this is when he gave his audience an opener line, they cheered, and then he informed them that they should be mad about the thing he just said. It was probably the only time I ever laughed watching that show.

  5. Re: And HBO blocks John Oliver in Canada... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Clearly, you are a suffering idiot. Please enlighten us as to how you determined Canada is a shit hole, unlike the US with 12.7 percent living in poverty.
    We are all anxiously waiting.

  6. Re:It'll take a show with a larger audience to mat by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    John Oliver tends to yell a lot, disparage people, insult them, avoid rational discussion of the issues and conflate complicated issues by reducing them to the point of uselessness.

    He should run for President.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."