
China Bans the Word 'Leica' on Social Media - mmastrac
https://gizmodo.com/china-bans-the-word-leica-on-social-media-1834163199
======
spectramax
Powerful ad.

My gut feeling is that there will be a day in the future where everything in
China is going to boil-over just like any other totalitarian regimes in the
past. It could be 20 years from now when Xi dies or some type of student
uprising again, or could be from the HK/Taiwan situation.

The behavior of the Chinese government and as they call it "the hand of
Beijing" has a self-propelling streisand effect, the more you clamp down, the
more it leaks and at some point, it will boil over. Nationalism is tribalism
in its glorified, patriotic form. On one hand, we have great men who strive to
make the world a better place - journalists, scientists, mathematicians,
teachers and community workers and on the other hand we have ugly human
tendencies surfacing in a powerful form from politicians.

Every politician should listen to Jiddu Krishnamurthy's UN speech in 1985:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcga8ATBNh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcga8ATBNh0)

There rest of the world needs to fearlessly criticize Chinese censorship as it
is only going to get worse. If the Chinese government is insecure from opening
history books, hell even calling Xi Jingpin a Winnie-the-Pooh; that's not the
kind of superpower I wish to see in this world.

~~~
Veen
The West is the outlier here. Most of the world has lived under dictatorships
for most of history. China is a millenia-old civilization that has never been
a democracy. The current regime may fall, but it is not written in the
universe that it will progress towards anything resembling a Western
democracy.

If I were playing the odds, I'd put money on democracy failing in the west
rather than it rising in China in the next century.

~~~
lvs
The West was never a democracy until it suddenly was one. Heads rolled.

~~~
Zuider
Heads rolled in France, but that lead to the totalitarian Jacobin regime.
Across the channel in Britain, democracy had been growing slowly since the
signing of the Magna Carta began the process of subjecting power to the rule
of law, divesting the monarch of the claim to absolute power and distributing
that power among institutions such as parliament.

------
efoto
In an unfortunate act of self-censorship, the video has been now removed from
YouTube.

Update: while the video linked by the article has been removed, here it is:
[https://youtu.be/dQpKcw-n330](https://youtu.be/dQpKcw-n330)

~~~
2bitencryption
"Self-censorship" is much scarier to me than the "traditional" censorship.

It's terrible when a government takes away your voice. But it's so much worse
when people do it voluntarily to avoid the consequences.

(in this case, of course Leica is a business that doesn't want to lose a
market with billions of people, but still... Leicas have been used for a
hundred years to expose this type of nonsense, and now they're doing this...)

~~~
waiseristy
If Leica wasn't run by a spineless board of directors then they would have the
power to pursue principle instead of profit.

~~~
plink
Too bad no one supposes it worthwhile to form a backlash boycott against
Leica's toadying stance with China.

------
apo
The Chinese are innovating totalitarianism faster than any other country. Take
this, for example:

> ... When undergraduate students at Peking University, which was at the
> center of the incident, were shown copies of the iconic photograph [of Tank
> Man] 16 years afterwards, they were "genuinely mystified." One of the
> students said that the image was "artwork." It is noted in the documentary
> Frontline: The Tank Man that he whispered to the student next to him "89,"
> which led the interviewer to surmise that the student may have concealed his
> knowledge of the event.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man)

The fact that Leica, a foreign company, is now apologizing about the ad (and
has deleted it from their YouTube account) shows just how effective the
Chinese government has become at their trade. From the article:

> “Leica Camera AG must, therefore, distance itself from the content shown in
> the video and regrets any misunderstandings or false conclusions that may
> have been drawn,” Emily Anderson, a spokesperson for Leica, told SCMP.

~~~
dx87
That reminds me of an interview with a Chinese esports team I saw at a
tournament a few months ago. The interviewer was doing a light-hearted game
where they showed twitch emotes to the Chinese team and asked what they
thought the emotes meant. One of the emotes was a frog (the creator of the
game goes by IceFrog), and the Chinese translator said that the players
weren't allowed to say anything about the emote. We later found out that they
were afraid to say anything because the nickname of the former president of
China was "Toad King", and the players were worried that they'd get in trouble
if they said anything about the frog emote.

~~~
HAL9000Ti
Fasinating, I never heard about that one before.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad_worship_(Chinese_internet...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad_worship_\(Chinese_internet_subculture\))

searching "膜蛤" on baidu.com yields zero results.

------
ashelmire
Another western corporation loses its spine in pursuit of profits. "Hey, sorry
we mentioned that time you murdered thousands of your own citizens, it's
totally a fake event. Please let us keep selling things in your country."

One day, maybe, this cowardly behavior will end.

~~~
kabacha
People like to pretend that corporations aren't political entities when they
absolutely are - that's the whole point of capitalism and free market.

------
yorwba
This has no added value over the article it links as the source:
[https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006817/lei...](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3006817/leica-
camera-backs-away-promotional-video-depicting-tiananmen)

------
landryraccoon
Do any companies secure their confidential information by randomly inserting
information or images that would be considered subversive in China?

Like, every other page contains an embedded Winnie the Pooh image, or an
insert describing the 1989 incident. Would Chinese agents be afraid to have
such materials in their possession?

~~~
ardy42
> Do any companies secure their confidential information by randomly inserting
> information or images that would be considered subversive in China?

That would be pointless, since it's only forbidden in public discourse. People
in trusted positions are able to access subversive information if needed, and
anyone hacking foreign organizations for the state are probably in that group.

This article might be enlightening about the situation:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-
internet-c...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-
censor.html)

------
benj111
So what's the official Chinese line on Tiananmen?

Did it not happen? Was it a western plot? Student riots?

Banning the word Leica seems to be implicitly admitting that it did happen,
and that the Chinese government did something wrong, so I'm guessing the
official story isn't the generally accepted story?

~~~
anbop
The official position is “don’t talk about that.”

~~~
spectramax
That's exactly why the rest of the world needs to speak up.

~~~
ralph84
To what end? It was 30 years ago. The Eight Elders are all dead. You really
think a bunch of westerners tutting at China about lowlights in their history
will do anything other than galvanize Chinese nationalism?

~~~
nercht12
It needs to be talked about anyways. For every 100 nationals who laugh or
scorn, 1 person hears about it and starts thinking "Hm... maybe what I've been
taught here isn't so true. Maybe things really are bad here."

We need information to make decisions. One side providing all the info leads
to biased thoughts. It's exactly what's happening here in the US. People pick
their news source (CNN, FOX, etc) and gradually become polarized to think one
way.

The lesson here is: Learn about the counter argument. You should find it isn't
as crazy as people tell you.

~~~
dethac
Thing is, for a majority of people, life in China is perfectly normal (other
than maybe air quality and population density, but the Chinese government has
tried hard to combat those issues).

Most people are able to live normal lives where the government doesn't really
have a massive influence. Even if it does, it's usually in terms of
infrastructure development (transportation, housing, etc.), which can be done
much more rapidly than in, say, the US (look at high-speed rail deployment in
China over the past decade or so).

Plus, what's the alternative? China would be trading their fast-paced economic
expansion and massive infrastructure investments (necessary to keep pace with
the expanding number of people in China) for more... freedom?

And I think that's really the key here. The Chinese government is NOT
incompetent and they're able to more than adequately provide for their
citizens' needs. So, who would WANT a revolution?

------
bayareanative
China continues to force the world to bend to its totalitarian demands:
changes to Hollywood movie plots and editing, arbitrary keyword bans and FAANG
helping to "accommodate" their platforms to facilitate censorship.

~~~
thirdsun
All of those parties are free to ignore China’s ridiculous demands.

------
zachguo
When I was still an undergraduate student in China, the 4hr film The Gate of
Heavenly Peace was available in our school's internal torrent network.(Tons of
censored content was available there.) I and my buddies watched it together in
our dorm, with high expectation. But we were quite disappointed, and wondered
why the CCP censor it so firmly at all. The event is neither bloody nor
aspiring.

------
lpu4o74p
> ad agency F/Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi

Ads do really seem increasingly likely to transport some political/ideological
content. Is this happening the customer's explicit request, or are agencies
and/or their individual creatives surreptiously hitching a
political/ideological ride at their customer's risk and expense?

------
mpnordland
So my guess is that Huawei will now stop partnering with them for their
phones? How does China deal with this type of thing?

~~~
0815test
It's not even "China" that's directly responsible for most of these decisions,
really. It's each private company individually trying to figure out how to
keep the Chinese government happy and on their side. That's why these things
are inherently unpredictable. Sometimes you can even see seemingly-coordinated
behavior that's actually the result of bandwagoning - e.g. if one company bans
"Leica" on their social media site, then everyone else will feel like they
have to follow suit. It's quite a mess.

~~~
rebuilder
That's a good point. What would it even look like if there was an official,
authoritative list of things to be censored, with draconian enforcement? Xi
Jinping isn't going to personally decide what goes on the list. He's certainly
not going to personally adjudicate the myriad edge cases. Inevitably the
system must devolve into a lot of individuals making conflicting decisions.

I see no way to have a cohesive, official censorship apparatus with
centralized control, unless the method employed simply involves cutting
cables. That would be pretty unambiguous.

~~~
vageli
> That's a good point. What would it even look like if there was an official,
> authoritative list of things to be censored, with draconian enforcement? Xi
> Jinping isn't going to personally decide what goes on the list. He's
> certainly not going to personally adjudicate the myriad edge cases.
> Inevitably the system must devolve into a lot of individuals making
> conflicting decisions.

> I see no way to have a cohesive, official censorship apparatus with
> centralized control, unless the method employed simply involves cutting
> cables. That would be pretty unambiguous.

Social control and censorship is far more effective than governmental
censorship. Being "excommunicated" or ostracized from your social group is
enough to prohibit many people from making political expressions (or
otherwise).

For a dumb but illustrative example, think about how your posting habits on
social media might change if your relatives were receiving those posts.

The best part is that it allows the government to indirectly encourage
practices and behavior that would likely receive criticism in the global
community if done directly.

------
baby
I have a question that maybe Chinese people here can answer. How patriotic are
chinese people? How critical are they about the government and how many people
(especially outside of China) approve of them?

~~~
throwaway55244
Chinese people are critical of the government but when speaking to Westerners,
they are tired of being lectured.

It’s like, when you want to go wash the dishes, and then someone nags you to
wash them and “explains” the importance of keeping things clean.

Almost every interaction with Westerners about the government isn’t because
they genuinely care about Chinese people, but rather to feel superior, like
they are saving the “Chinese” from themselves.

That’s what it feels like and why many Chinese don’t like talking about it.

Unless of course pandering to Westerners can make them money. Then there are
some that will gleefully act the part.

~~~
teknologist
I mean, let's just imagine a hypothetical situation where the totalitarian
system breaks down, riots happen and 1+ billion people are starving in China.
I do not expect the West to sit and wait it out while it happens.

The West will surely only get to hear all the "sorry sorry sorrys" when it's
too late.

Unless the many of us who believe that modern democracies ARE better are
wrong, in which case China can continue taking IP, threatening foreign
companies and claiming oceans while the rest of the world waits for it all to
go tits up.

------
Squarex
Does anyone have the mentioned video?

~~~
bonoboTP
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPnnHCeRH3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPnnHCeRH3w)

~~~
malshe
Thanks for the link. There are tons of comments written in Mandarin so I used
Google Translate to see what they are saying. Suprisingly several top rated
comments are positive about the ad!

~~~
rangibaby
> Suprisingly several top rated comments are positive about the ad!

It's not that surprising, Youtube is blocked in PRC

------
saagarjha
> “Do you even deserve to collaborate with our patriotic Huawei?” one Weibo
> user said about Leica, according to SCMP.

Is this an actual sentiment that Chinese citizens have?

~~~
dethac
China has more than a billion people. It might be the sentiment ONE Chinese
person may have, or even a group, but one Weibo user does not represent a
significant fraction of Chinese citizens.

And no, I'm not even sure many people know that Leica collaborates with
Huawei.

------
devoply
Would it not be better for these idiots to simply apologize for Tienanmen
Square and promise not to do it again? And also stop all their asshole human
right violations?

~~~
ronilan
If you suggesting China adopts a system in which every government
systematically apologizes for what previous generations have done, while
laying the foundations of the next apologetic generation; then they can’t do
that. It’s copyrighted by the Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada.

~~~
joe_the_user
[sarcasm] Oh I'm sure Canada and other Western nations are offering licenses
for their model and indeed one might see this entire enterprise as a long
effort to sell those licenses, while China just insists on relying on simpler
methods.[/sarcasm]

That said, China's unwillingness to mention Tien Ah Min expresses the point
that nation has to adopt a "no apologies, don't talk about this and we'd
definitely do this again" position because the state ultimately deals in
absolutes. This situation indeed implies a certain fragility.

Edit: Just for clarification, I certainly hope a framework of democracy and
freedom of speech prevail but I am still clear quite a few Western interests
have entirely selfish reasons for wanting this (and the Western model indeed
has its flaws).

~~~
devoply
It's funny because China seems to have the mentality that this must be so. And
look over to the Japanese and at one time they were similarly minded. And yet
look at them now, a pleasure to deal with both on individual and societal
level. So it's simply a choice and a mentality which will lead you into all
sorts of bad situations. Unfortunately Chinese don't have enough experience
with this and instead looking to history to guide their actions, which is a
mistake. We simply can't act this way in the world we have built, the
consequences are too grave for everyone involved.

------
monochromatic
Typical communists.

------
HNthrow22
Why are discussions surrounding Chinese Politics permitted but no other
political discussions? Seems like a double standard. Just quickly looking at
the removals here's a 4 hour old Mueller report thread instantly removed -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712217](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19712217).

~~~
ufmace
This is more about how politics affects the tech world, not politics for its
own sake. Mueller investigation drama doesn't really have anything to do with
tech.

~~~
stonogo
That's a weird take, since huge sections of the report deal with Wikileaks,
email server administration, and social media manipulation.

~~~
ufmace
Do you think a thread like the one linked above would have a rational
discussion of those tech-related topics that are kind of connected, or rapidly
devolve into a OrangeManGood/OrangeManBad flamewar and moderation nightmare?

~~~
techntoke
I recall seeing probably 3 to 5 frontpage stories on Assange after his arrest
and Wikileaks, but then the report that specifically talks about him and
Wikileaks isn't allowed? Weird!

------
jordache
lol most serious photo journalists do not use leica cameras

~~~
Jonnax
What would they have used in 1989m ?

~~~
jordache
canon and nikon. You think journalists would bother shooting a telephoto lens
w/ a Leica rangefinder viewfinder? LOL

------
Simulacra
At what point does it all become ridiculous? Until the Chinese government
reaches this point I don't see them ever becoming a true superpower.

~~~
adventured
Only more transparent, liberal, open government systems can withstand
criticism. The authoritarian models are always and without exception the most
fragile, which is of course the exact opposite of how those systems try to
project themselves to the rest of the world. You can easily tell how fragile
they are, based on their tempers and thin skin when it comes to criticism.

It's unfortunate, China was on a better path. The regressive shift to Xi's
authoritarian-heavy model was entirely unnecessary. It was solely done for his
own glorification, and he openly pretends it was done for opposite reasons. If
that were true of course, Xi wouldn't work so hard to bury Deng's legacy under
his, he wouldn't be so susceptible to that intense need for vanity and
idolization. Prior to Xi locking everything back down, China had slightly
opened up further to internal dissent and criticism, there was far more quasi-
free speech 10 and 15 years ago online in China for example than there is
today. I agree with the common statement that China's culture may never choose
to fully liberalize or adopt Western-style democracy, however I also think
they could have easily pushed a lot further toward that direction from the
stopping-point of progress where Xi began to deviate the system backwards.

------
libeclipse
> The dramatic video is set in 1989 during the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy
> protests that are forbidden to talk about in China.

> the company is now distancing itself from the 5-minute video after Chinese
> social media users cried foul

> “Do you even deserve to collaborate with our patriotic Huawei?” one Weibo
> user said about Leica

------
pmlnr
So many angles.

Leica is an iconic brand and making politically heated ads is a bad idea:
showing up with a Leica following ads like this will put it's own customers in
a situation where they will be associated with the company's stand, and that
is dangerous; both for them (the customer) and the brand.

Banning the name of an important technology company which is actively present
in it current smartphones, lenses, science, etc, will makes things way too
complicated.

Youtube(r) removing the ad, besides being a coward act, will only trigger the
Streisand effect.

~~~
lpu4o74p
> making politically heated ads is a bad idea

Which is why I strongly suspect ad agency creatives did this on their own.
Being in Brazil may have made them feel free from client scrutiny.

