
Chinese Social Media Site Reverses Gay Content Ban After Uproar - raleighm
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/world/asia/china-weibo-gay.html
======
JumpCrisscross
> _Even People’s Daily, a state-run newspaper, published an article online
> that included veiled criticism of Weibo’s announcement. The article said
> that being gay or bisexual was “not a disease,” but it added that gay people
> needed to “take on their own social responsibilities while advocating their
> rights.”_

I think this [1] is the People's Daily article referenced. If so, the quoted
language has been scrubbed.

[1]
[http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0416/c90000-9449771.html](http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0416/c90000-9449771.html)

~~~
h8liu
[1] says it is from Global Times (which is like a sidekick of People's Daily)

People's Daily [2]. Not sure if it has an English translation.

[2]
[https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DvQGVmHrgn_yfVCg-2xYAA](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DvQGVmHrgn_yfVCg-2xYAA)

------
westiseast
I was in Fujian, China, two weeks ago and did a Bing web/image search for ‘gay
men’ (unrelated to any of this news).

Zero results returned, and a standard note about violent and sexually explicit
content being censored.

Thought that was odd.

~~~
ars
Did you try to search for "straight men"?

If there is no sexual content in the photo, what would be the difference in a
picture of a gay or straight man? They would look the same.

By specifying sexual orientation you are by definition requesting sexual
content.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Two men holding hands would, in my opinion, qualify as a depiction of
presumably gay men, while being free of sexual content.

(though it's culture-dependent. I heard that in some Arab countries it's
common for straight men to hold hands between friends)

~~~
konart
>Two men holding hands

In many countries this is not considered gay. (Saudi Arabia comes to mind)

------
KKKKkkkk1
It's heartening to see that the Chinese public will not stand for homophobia.
Countries that look to China as a model (looking at you Russia) should take
note.

~~~
ihsw2
Is there a way to oppose homophobia while still upholding family values (eg:
eschew promiscuity and instead take one partner for life)?

~~~
matthewmacleod
They're two entirely orthogonal issues. You can find homophobia repellent, and
believe that promiscuity is bad, and there's nothing stopping that. Why would
there be?

~~~
ihsw2
Every person that advocates for gay rights abjectly refuses on a basic level
to find promiscuity bad. Until these mythical people form the majority of gay
rights advocates, homosexuality will continue to be regarded as dangerous to
harmonious society.

~~~
matthewmacleod
That’s just not true for several reasons.

First off, your statement is false. There are quite literally millions of
people globally who both support gay rights and do not think promiscuity is
good. You might be confusing “finding promiscuity bad” with “condemning
promiscuity”, which are obviously two distinct concepts. Even if they were
considered the same, it’s still obviously not true.

Second, it’s clear that—generally speaking—developed western societies no
longer “regard homosexuality as dangerous to harmonious society”. Otherwise
there would obviously not be widespread support for same-sex marriage. That
feeling isn’t universal yet, but it’s unlikely to be terribly long until
society generally stops worrying about it.

------
est
Western media intends to portrait "china" as one single top-down entity, but
as a matter of fact it's not.

There are thousands of bureaucratic federal or local government branches can
start an Internet crackdown.

The whole "anti-gay" nonscence might came from a office clerk smashing his
head for April KPI campaigns and baidu'd for random shit to block and passed
through the chain of command. That's it.

~~~
jamesrcole
> _Western media intends to portrait "china" as one single top-down entity,
> but as a matter of fact it's not._

Are you saying this article does that? I don't see anything in it that does.
Can you quote me anything in it that does?

> _There are thousands of bureaucratic federal or local government branches
> can start an Internet crackdown._

You seem to be wanting to imply that this precludes the existence of attempts
that come from a higher level.

~~~
est
> precludes the existence of attempts that come from a higher level

They do exist, but 80% cases you see online is not. There's big rule is 属地原则
which topics online must be traced back to its geographical local agency to
manage. Actions taken by central government exists but just rare. e.g. 严打.

~~~
intopieces
Your post contains Chinese that most people here cannot read. Care to explain?

------
jstewartmobile
Censor criticism of the regime? _Meh._

Censor muscle daddies and slash fic? _To the streets!_

~~~
alex_hitchins
I'm sure more people would protest the former if doing so didn't have the
repercussions it has.

------
h8liu
related discussion:

[https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-on-the-recent-
Chi...](https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-on-the-recent-Chinese-ban-
of-gay-contents-on-major-social-media)

------
mattliu
Where in the article does it say that Weibo is backing down?

All it seems to say is "backlash happened".

~~~
dang
Agreed. We changed the title to that of the actual article. Submitted title
was "China's Weibo backs down from censoring gay content following backlash".

Submitters: rewriting titles like that is a violation of the site guidelines.
If the facts have changed since the article was written, you can explain that
by posting a comment about it to the thread, or by finding a more up-to-date
article and submitting that.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
PakG1
See my other reply, there are articles that explicitly say that it actually
happened. See other reply for links. Perhaps change the link instead?

~~~
dang
Ok, we've changed the URL from
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/china-gay-
ban-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/world/asia/china-gay-ban-sina-
weibo-.html). Thanks!

------
bezosisevil
I thought people on HN weren’t supposed to change the headlines? The NYT
headline is completely different and contains nothing saying that Weibo was
backing down. Is HN just another fake China apologist now when it comes to
changing headlines?

~~~
dang
We've changed the title. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16855849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16855849).

On another note: a username of the form "recognizable_person_is_evil" crosses
into personal attack, which isn't allowed on HN. You may not owe better to
billionaires, but you owe better to this community than to break its rules
with every post. So I've banned this account. Account renaming, which we'll
have soon, would be a more elegant solution, but it's not ready yet.

~~~
bkor
> Account renaming, which we'll have soon, would be a more elegant solution,
> but it's not ready yet.

That's awesome! Years ago the suggested solution was to create a new account,
which I didn't want to do. I'm quite happy there's a nicer solution now.

~~~
dang
Soon :)

------
rectangletangle
Incidents like this are starting to make me feel that software engineers
should have a code of ethics, similar to the Hippocratic Oath. So technologies
aren't abused to marginalize individuals/groups.

~~~
maxxxxx
You have to be careful with this. Ethics can also be used to discriminate
against people for religious reasons. These people think they are as ethical
as you think you are.

~~~
dlwdlw
All discrimination already is doing this, just indirectly. There's always an
implication. The major one in the US is that harder working people are
ethically better than lazy people. This combined with the belief that hard
work equals success allows for very easy punishment based mindsets to spread.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I don't really understand this mindset. Are we supposed to treat people like
there's absolutely no right or wrong way to live? How are we supposed to have
a stable society when there are no standards by which to live by or strive
for? Why shouldn't we discriminate against bad behavior and provide positive
feedback for good behavior?

~~~
edent
> Are we supposed to treat people like there's absolutely no right or wrong
> way to live?

Yes. Modern society says that as long as your actions don't harm me, you
should be able to do what you wish.

There are some edge-cases, caveats, and exceptions - but that is the essence
of modern liberalism.

> How are we supposed to have a stable society when there are no standards by
> which to live

You are assuming stability is a good thing. Progress is made through
instability.

You also assume that stability occurred back when society had standards. A
quick look through history doesn't show any evidence of that.

You also assume that stability doesn't harm people. It clearly does. When a
society says no deviation is acceptable, the deviants are punished for the
"crime" of existing.

> Why shouldn't we discriminate against bad behavior and provide positive
> feedback for good behavior?

Who decides what is good behaviour and what is bad? Allowing women to receive
an education was considered bad behaviour in many societies. But society
changes.

Why should my behaviour be punished if it doesn't hurt anyone? Who I love is
none of your concern.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
> Modern society says that as long as your actions don't harm me, you should
> be able to do what you wish.

No, modern law may strive for this ideal, but society doesn't. Society itself
has a social aspect that goes beyond some modern liberalistic ideal. Since
people are social and tribal, society will always have standards by which we
live by. For example, people walking down the street naked will always be
interpreted as crazy, regardless of any harm committed against other people.

> Progress is made through instability.

This depends entirely upon your definition of "progress." I personally don't
think of the complete degradation of social standards as a good thing.

> You also assume that stability doesn't harm people. It clearly does.

Real life has winners and losers. Life is a system of inputs and outputs, and
social pressure guides people into frameworks that lead to productive behavior
in our society. Can they be taken too far? Sure. That, however, does not mean
that _all_ social pressures are bad. For example, if a person is shamed for
constant novelty-seeking through drinking, partying, and obnoxious behavior, a
sense of shame may guide them into a mindset that allows for longer-term
planning and goal seeking instead.

------
tomcooks
That's what happens when you use a centralized service, especially if it's
state approved.

~~~
aplummer
Is it though? Does it happen in a centralised system in any democratic
country? I feel you are letting them off the hook in a sense, centralisation
!= censorship, often it seems with western services the centralised system
providers fight against censorship.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Yes. Listings are removed from Google, Bing etc all of the time. Recently, a
subreddit dedicated to sharing beer was removed from Reddit. Youtube recently
banned certain gun-related videos [1] on its platform.

[1]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43500714](http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43500714)

~~~
aplummer
I don’t know how you can link to an article about banning killing machine
video content as a comparison to banning gay content with a straight face.

This is an example of YouTube taking positive social responsibility which is
fantastic. And no, “positive” is not subjective in this case at at all.

~~~
bfuller
You asked for an example, then moved goalposts once given one.

