China takes on banning movies from Douban
Dec 21, 2021
Beijing [China], December 21 : The censorship regime of China has become more and more stringent over the last few years, as it can be seen across the chains from making scripts to distribution rights of the movies, claimed China Digital Times (CDT).
According to The Hong Kong Post, in an episode released on October 27, CDT through their popular podcast, "404 FILES", meticulously analysed the prevailing censorship in China.
It analysed the reasons why more than 30 films were removed from Douban, a highly popular social media entertainment platform wherein the users rate and record information relating to movies.
According to the podcast, one of the prominent reasons for taking down films such as "Summer Palace", "The Mob Fathers" and "Ten Years" was due to prevailing political sensitivities.
The second reason described by the podcast was the Communist Party's disregard for democracy or freedom in general. For example, the biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi called "The Lady" was recently taken down from the platform.
The Hong Kong Post further reported that CDT blamed the Communist Party's attempt to streamline the movies along with the official narrative of China over various political incidents that arose over the year with its neighbours such as the Korean War of the 1950s.
Recently, the Chinese Cyberspace Administration had slapped a fine of 1.5 million Yuan on Doubon for its acts of "unlawful release of information". It is worth noting, Doubon was also fined nine million Yuan in the month of November 2021, The Hong Kong Post reported.
This is not the first instance of censorship by Douban. In March 2009, Douban had removed art paintings of the Renaissance on the grounds of pornography.
In the same year, when the country was mourning for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, Douban went into high alert and had banned tons of content containing keywords that may be related to the infamous incident.
In June 2021, Douban started banning the users pre-emptively before posting any content concerning the incident.
