The second episode of The Simpsons has the following line: “Look at beautiful China. Bitcoin mines, labor camps, kids collecting smartphones and love.”
According to Agence France-Presse, the episode was published last October on the streaming service but is now not available in Hong Kong.
“very sensitive system”
According to SVT’s Asia correspondent, Tilda Lewin, it is not unusual for films and television to be censored by China.
– The Chinese system is a very sensitive system. It’s not just labor camps, it could be Tibet, homosexuality, and a long list of taboo subjects.
According to Lewin, there are many American TV and film productions that, on the one hand, want to reach the large Chinese audience, but on the other hand, do not want to adapt too much to mainstream censorship.
– They also have their eyes on you in Hollywood, you can’t adapt as much as you want.
Not the first time
Earlier, another Hong Kong episode of The Simpsons was removed after it contained satire directed at China.
Then one of the episodes featured a scene from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square with a banner reading “In this place, nothing happened in 1989,” a reference to the Chinese regime’s cover-up of the 1989 massacre of the pro-democracy movement in the square.
Neither the Hong Kong government nor Disney + have yet wanted to comment on what happened.
Hear Tilda Lewin tell more about Chinese censorship in the clip above.
“Lifelong food practitioner. Zombie geek. Explorer. Reader. Subtly charming gamer. Entrepreneur. Devoted analyst.”
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