China's Banning Gay Content Online
Oh China, you’re at it again with banning and blocking gay content.
It feels like every other week I am commenting on something happening in China. China’s banned this, China’s allowing that, China’s doing this to its citizens, China’s letting the citizens be themselves.
It’s all incredibly tired. And you know, if I’m tried of it, the LGBTQ and allied citizens of China are beyond that.
What am I talking about now? Well, China has decided to block gay content on the web (again).
As I’ve mentioned on the list of great gay web series to watch post, China made headlines during the spring of 2016 for banning and blocking a popular gay web series titled Heroin/Addicted (it has two names).
At the time, the defense that they used for it was to cite their restrictions on tvs (even though the show was a web series found only online).
The rules state, “No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviours, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.”
But it doesn’t just stop there, the ban also covers smoking, drinking, adultery, sexually suggestive clothing, and reincarnation.
China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television are the ones in charge of looking over tv channels for violations to these rules and stated at the time of Addicted’s banning that they would work even harder to monitor tv screens.
More: China Censored Micheal Fassbender’s Gay Kiss in Alien: Convenant
And now it seems that the China is turning its attention to internet shows as well. They have just released new rules that are centered on censoring shows that appearing on Chinese websites.
These rules, presented by the China Netcasting Services Association state that they will ban content with “abnormal sexual behaviors,” any other “obscenity,” “violent and criminal processes,” and content that promotes “luxurious lifestyles.”
In addition, they will have auditors regularly scouring the internet to make sure that everything fits with the new regulations.
There are plenty of people who are protesting against these “core socialist values” that China’s regulations are trying to push on them.
For instance, the Gay Voice, a Chinese-language LGBT magazine, stated that “the false information in these regulations has already caused harm to the Chinese LGBT community—who are already subjected to prejudice and discrimination.”
It just seems now that we’ll have to wait and see exactly how intense these regulations will be and then the LGBTQ community on China’s internet will have to adapt and find new ways (loopholes, VPNS, etc) to survive.
