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China tries to censor satire of government
by Scott Gilbreath ~ March 25th, 2009
Internet users in the Far East are making fun of a Chinese government campaign against online pornography and other allegedly subversive material, and China has responded by trying to stamp out the satire.
Chinese netizens are reacting angrily to reported attempts by government censors to stamp out a humorous form of protest against a recent Web clean-up campaign.
Apparent government directives widely posted on forums, chatrooms and on instant update services such as Twitter are now ordering Internet service providers to clamp down on spoof items about the “grass-mud horse,” a fictional alpaca-like creature dreamed up by netizens in response to a recent anti-porn campaign.
Campaigns against online pornography are common in China, and frequently target content that the government wants removed for political reasons, as well as that considered inappropriately violent or indecent.
The name of the grass-mud horse, or caonima, is a pun on an often-heard and offensive epithet concerning the recipient’s mother.
A statement purportedly from the Communications Bureau of Deyang said the “provincial propaganda department” has called for words related to caonima to be “removed from the entire internet”.
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March 27th, 2009 at 02:53 PM
[...] SOCIALIST PARADISE WATCH… China tries to censor satire of government. Beware The Grass-Mud Horse!; The grass-mud [...]