
CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship - leavjenn
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/arts/television/cbs-good-fight-chinese-censorship.html
======
scohesc
It's a bit telling when a media giant like CBS can't strike a happy medium by
you know - both not censoring it in the US and censoring it in china -
instead, choosing to censor the whole thing outright on the entire platform.
It's almost like all these American companies are moving en masse to do
business in China with the sole purpose of increasing profits every single
quarter, irrespective of (and arguably, now encouraging) the numerous,
controversial human rights and ethics violations that China is known for.

~~~
swebs
It's also strange how quick people in this very thread are to brush it off and
shift the blame. "An authoritarian communist regime is engaging in human
rights violations? This is capitalism's fault :^)"

~~~
lostgame
Um, no, this is about American censorship, not the actual issues in China.

~~~
dmix
This is a large American media company bowing to pressure from a totalitarian
regime. Even Google bowed down after initially taking a stand. So many other's
have as well.

Same with the silly apology tour multiple companies did over merely including
Taiwan and Hong Kong as separate countries from China...in a dropdown menu on
their websites: [https://www.businessinsider.com/zara-marriott-qantas-
apologi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/zara-marriott-qantas-apologized-
to-china-listing-taiwan-as-country-2018-1)

It's almost becoming a new-normal, which is concerning.

~~~
kbenson
> Same with the silly apology tour multiple companies did over merely
> including Taiwan and Hong Kong as a separate country from China...in a
> dropdown menu on their websites

You say it's silly, but I imagine if we had the internet during the civil war
and some European company listed the United States as two separate items for
North and South, that could very easily end up being a political issue and
politicians might threaten repercussions over it. I don't actually think it's
silly, whether I agree with it or not. It is lamentable because I'm not sure
there's a "right" way for a company to handle it other than going where the
money dictates until it's mostly settled politically (which may never happen).

------
nickysielicki
I feel like free speech has never been under such attack. Culturally, we don't
care about it, we find offensive content more offensive than censorship of
offensive content.

Politically, they can censor you completely if they want to by hitting you
with an NSL. EFF says that happens 60 times a day. The most hard hitting
journalist in the west, Julian Assange, was just put in jail.

I'm scared about the future. It's not any particular point, it's just the
movement overall.

~~~
Chazprime
Julian Assange is a journalist? Not sure I agree with that labeling.

~~~
inflatableDodo
Don't trust his motives or bias, but if folk at the Daily Mail and Fox News
supposedly qualify as journalists, then Assange counts, and then isn't even
one of the most biased. Personally I'd place him more in an editorial role
than a journalist, but I suspect he may disagree.

~~~
b_tterc_p
I won’t make any specific judgments to any outlets but at a certain point
you’re really just a propagandist rather than a journalist if your primary
goal is to sway public opinion instead of informing people on the truth.

So I think relativism doesn’t help here.

~~~
grenoire
It's not Assange's fault if the truth caused opinions to sway.

~~~
cycrutchfield
>It's not Assange's fault if the _selectively-revealed_ truth caused opinions
to sway _due to his editorial influence_.

~~~
serf
It's a relativity thing.

He selectively revealed truths that were hidden from us by people who were
either out-right lying, or were totally ignorant to the existence of what was
revealed.

So, as a citizen, do I trust an individual who selectively introduces me to
information, or do I trust the large conglomerate governments which I now know
to wholeheartedly lie to me on a repeated basis?

In old Louisiana parlance : " if I gotta choose between bags of shit, i'll
take the one that comes with the clothes pin for my nose. "

------
Animats
Vanity Fair says the show runners threatened to quit. They got CBS to put “CBS
HAS CENSORED THIS CONTENT" on screen for 8.5 seconds.[1][2]

[1] [https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/the-good-
fight-...](https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/the-good-fight-
censorship-cbs)

[2] [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cbs-
censors-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cbs-censors-the-
good-fight-for-a-musical-short-about-china)

~~~
partiallypro
Censoring a bit about censorship is so meta, it almost hurts.

------
yumraj
So US media censors US content, containing bits about China censors, due to
financial and other unknown reasons, but when it comes to US happenings, good
and bad, they want and have complete freedom of press and speech.

Oh, the irony.

~~~
hedora
Add to that the fact that the NYT won’t let me read the story because my
browser is in private mode, but regularly runs features about the Chinese
surveillance state.

~~~
lancesells
It won't let you read it because you're not signed in correct? I haven't had
an issue with private browsing and reading the 5 or so free articles a month
that they offer.

~~~
hedora
[http://tinypic.com/r/2u5dgyv/9](http://tinypic.com/r/2u5dgyv/9)

Ironically, I had to turn off ad block to view it. Does anyone know of a
better service like this?

[edit: the screenshot is for a different article, but I get the same spy-wall
on the one linked above]

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Oh, so it was adblock that was the problem. I was confused, since I knew NYT
works in incognito mode.

Can you really blame them for blocking Adblock users? They're a business, if
you're both not logged in (ie, not a subscriber) and blocking ads, you're
preventing them from capturing any revenue. How do you suggest the New York
Times stays in business?

~~~
rhizome
Native ads and subscriptions, the same thing that worked for 150 years.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
If you’re not logged in, you’re not (verifiably) a subscriber, so I’m not sure
how that’s relevent.

I for one would much rather NYT block adblock users than increase their
reliance on native ads. Also, native ads are relatively new, what do you mean
“for 150 years”?

~~~
rhizome
Native ads are what print newspapers have, and they don't require logins.
They'd just charge Chevrolet $50,000 to run a skyscraper on sports articles
for a week or whatever.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Print newspapers don't require logins because you can't read a print paper
unless you already purchased it. To replicate that online, a login is
necessary.

I was under the impression the New York Times didn't allow companies to pay
for custom articles until recently, but I could be wrong. Do you know when
this happened?

~~~
navait
Apparently Native Ads means something else: having your own adtech on the
website, rather than doubleclick or whatever.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Sorry, I was referring to "sponsored stories", or other paid content that is
not immediately recognizable as an ad. This is often referred to as "Native
Advertising" in the industry.

------
slantyyz
When I watched the show last week and that censored bit showed up, I thought
it was actually a gag and not for real.

The animated Jonathan Coulton bits on that show are my favorite part of the
show, they're quite well done and funny. The show, however, is overly
politicized. When compared to the Good Wife, it is much less about fighting
interesting legal cases now than it is about US politics.

------
duxup
If they're willing to censor news.

I wonder how long until China extends its social credit system (or a form of
it) to people outside China... and what companies play along?

------
iandanforth
Failure to walk away from the show over this has lost the writers any moral
high ground they might have once held.

~~~
Cthulhu_
The same happened to South Park where the network ended up censoring a
depiction of Muhammad - well, in the one episode, in an earlier one it was
still up. And thankfully they didn't quit, they ran with it because it points
out the hypocrisy, double standards, and weird morals that the US networks
have.

~~~
redwall_hp
The crazy thing with South Park was it wasn't just censoring Mohammed. There
was a 5 minute monologue from one of the characters about the importance of
not giving in to people who make threats of violence...which had a continuous
tone censoring the whole speech. (A network decision, due to having received
such threats.)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_(South_Park)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201_\(South_Park\))

~~~
UnFleshedOne
Why did they censor the closing speech though?

Kyle: That's because there is no goo, Mr. Cruise. You see, I learned something
today. Throughout this whole ordeal, we've all wanted to show things that we
weren't allowed to show, but it wasn't because of some magic goo. It was
because of the magical power of threatening people with violence. That's
obviously the only true power. If there's anything we've all learned, it's
that terrorizing people works.

Jesus: That's right. Don't you see, gingers, if you don't want to be made fun
of anymore, all you need are guns and bombs to get people to stop.

Santa: That's right, friends. All you need to do is instill fear and be
willing to hurt people and you can get whatever you want. The only true power
is violence.

Stan: Yeah.

— The closing speech, which was censored by Comedy Central[2]

------
agbell
I really am loving this show, and I thought the "censored by CBS" was some
sort of joke. The animated shorts they mix into the show are great fun. The
good wife had interesting takes on tech issues of the day and The Good Fight
has really taken the format into some interesting political directions.

------
quotz
By tolerating China's censorship, The West too starts censoring.

------
russellbeattie
This isn't "ironic" or a "creative solution", this is straight up censorship.
Wow.

China has basically made it known they will go after a company's employees.
I'm sure that CBS is very concerned about general access to the Chinese market
and don't want their shows banned for purely economic reasons, but the subtle
threat of their Chinese employees disappearing because of a cartoon is a _real
thing_.

Let's say this was my decision, pretend I'm a director or VP at CBS and I need
to make the call about this cartoon, and whether the threat against my
subordinates in country - or myself on my next business trip - is real. After
Fan Bingbing's disappearance last year, I would take this very seriously and
I'm not sure I would make a different call.

That's censorship, full stop.

I'm not sure what CBS alone can do about this - they're a single company
against a sovereign nation. Not to let them off the hook, but I really feel
the U.S. government has to step up here.

~~~
babypuncher
I'm going to call BS on CBS' excuse that the Chinese government would actually
harm CBS employees in China over the companies production of content that
isn't available in China.

~~~
helloindia
China did make Hongkong Bookstore owners disappear(some of them disappeared
while visiting China), because they were selling books(banned in mainland
china) in Hongkong.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/magazine/the-case-of-
hong...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/magazine/the-case-of-hong-kongs-
missing-booksellers.html)

------
spacedog11
A segment about Chinese censorship gets censored on a US network...the irony

------
kyleblarson
'Ms. King said that she and her husband initially told CBS that they would
quit the show if the song was pulled but that they eventually agreed on
inserting a message saying that the company had censored it.'

AKA they want to keep their paycheck.

~~~
taobility
Lots of people saying they would leave US if Trump be voted, but none of them
actually doing that. So, that's the reality.

------
mrobot
Are there any Chinese people on hacker news who have opinions about Chinese
censorship?

------
rhizome
Next they should do an episode on Mohammed bin Salman and see what happens.
Red-team US censorship standards.

------
basetop
Man, if only the nytimes and the media was more concerned about censorship
here in the US. But then again, it's the nytimes and the media championing
censorship at home.

------
erlangNewb
Let's not forget that there are humans making these decisions, and their names
are...?

------
basicplus2
This a is about money being more important than morals

------
gtfratteus
What are the odds this will teach the American left that censorship is not a
good thing and lead them to stop demanding Google, Twitter, and Facebook ban
every user who wants to reduce immigration? 1%? 0%?

~~~
Miner49er
I don't think this is a good comparison. The bans you are talking about
(ignoring the hyperbole) are for hate speech. This is censhorship of critisicm
of an authoritarian government. I don't think the two are remotely comparable.

------
zouhair
I don't get why you are acting so surprised. In Capitalism the only point is
to make money, that's all there is.

If siding with human rights helps make money they will side with human rights,
if genocide helps make even more money they will side with genocide.

As long as Capitalism is the main economic system this will always be only
about the profits.

~~~
convivialdingo
Capitalism doesn’t work without choice of consumption. If you have a bad or
misleading product, eventually people won’t use it.

I’m less worried about typical profit-mongering than I am about the corporate
owned media however - media has a powerful ability to skew and censor truthful
news.

~~~
zouhair
That's a myth of Capitalism, a lot of crappy products are used every day
because of marketing, market flooding, patenting, copyright, corruption and so
on and so forth.

~~~
shijie
Not a myth at all; what you just described is generally a result of crony
capitalism, in bed with the government.

When a true free market is allowed to operate (which happens all the time in
many aspects of our economy), it is the most democratic meritocratic and fair
way to exchange goods and services, and accumulate wealth. Pure capitalism has
brought more people out of poverty than any other system or system of
government in the history of mankind.

~~~
tsimionescu
How is a completely free market insulated from the influence of
marketing/advertising? They are very effective techniques for convincing
buyers to choose non-optimal products, and work exceedingly well in that
regard.

I also think you would find it very hard to point at an example of a working
free market that has not devolved into an oligopoly, with no govrnment support
at all; nevermind one that has produced large-scale wealth.

------
uberman
Before damming CBS you might want to hear their motive. According to them the
90 second segment was removed because _" such a sequence would endanger CBS
executives on the ground in China"_. If that is the true motive, I personally
give them a pass. If this is about preserving safety of employees and not
about profit, can anyone condemn them?

This article written by a friend of one of the performers in the 90 second
animated short that was cut out has what I think is the best coverage. It
includes a good amount of detail including a play by play of the cut content:

[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cbs-
censors-t...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/cbs-censors-the-
good-fight-for-a-musical-short-about-china)

~~~
komali2
If they're concerned about the safety of employees in China over the content
they produce, perhaps they should not station employees in China.

Unfortunately it's such a big market it's apparent that companies are willing
to forego ethics to do business with China, despite the numerous human rights
violations.

~~~
Cthulhu_
CBS is an American based company; given its blatant human rights violations,
perhaps they should not station employees in their home country?

~~~
komali2
I didn't claim the United States is perfect, but it certainly isn't mass
incarcerating members of a peaceful religious group and harvesting their
organs, so I won't agree to your false equivalence.

~~~
glenneroo
> In September 2013, the incarceration rate of the United States of America
> was the highest in the world, at 716 per 100,000 of the national population.
> While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's
> population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners.

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

~~~
komali2
Correct, the USA has some pretty stupid laws and a malformed justice system.

It is not mass-incarcerating people arbitrarily for their membership of a
peaceful religion, and then harvesting their organs.

Again, I reject your false equivalence.

