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CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

nytimes.com

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Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#161

Post by kitotik »

fucking_tragedy wrote: post #134
mikequinlan wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CBS said "This is the creative solution that we agreed upon with the producers". I have been wondering if the producers insisted that the segment be censored in all regions so that everyone would know about it. Otherwise Americans would never know about the censorship.

You don't fight censorship by doubling down on censorship. It's entirely possible to show the uncensored version in America and raise awareness that the segment was censored in other regions.

Somehow this reminds me of the “Explicit Language” stickers on music packaging that Tipper Gore and the PMRC brought about in the 80s.

Those stickers sold product!

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#162

Post by wait_a_minute »

swebs wrote: post #51
scohesc wrote: post #18

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 enc…

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 :^)"

It's because they're closet Marxists

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#163

Post by creaghpatr »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #64
iandanforth wrote: post #5

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

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.

Lives were literally at stake in that particular instance.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#164

Post by tsimionescu »

shijie wrote: post #156
zouhair wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 go…

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.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#165

Post by ataturk »

msla wrote: post #141
krapp wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing socialism with communism. Socialism is a political philosophy, whereas communism is one specific (but not the only possible) implementation of that philosophy. Socialism is also intended to be a criticism of and attempt to redress the immorality of capitalism, so morality does enter into it, at least in theory.

Socialism as it's understood now is a specific plan for replacing Capitalism, tied to a specific theory of history, not just a philosophy. At the level of implementation, it isn't morality, it's economics and politics. There might be morality behind it, but there's morality behind all actions, to some extent.

[dead]

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#166

Post by CharlesColeman »

iandanforth wrote: post #118
CharlesColeman wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Failure to walk away from the show over this has lost the writers any moral high ground they might have once held. No. This kind of thing is far more effective. I'd probably have never even heard about this unless they'd stayed and gone on-air with a notice like this. If they walked they'd have been replaced and new writers would have made substitute content.

There will be no effect. No one took a stand, this will be forgotten immediately.

> There will be no effect. No one took a stand, this will be forgotten immediately.

That's a bold assertion, and seems to reflect a (false) underlying assumption that small effects are totally meaningless.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#167

Post by redwall_hp »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #64
iandanforth wrote: post #5

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

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.

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)

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#168

Post by mullingitover »

Chazprime wrote: post #53
nickysielicki wrote: post #26

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…

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

I thought he was at one point, but now it's sadly obvious he's an intelligence asset. He was literally an employee of Russian state media, and I have yet to see him publish anything that would embarrass Russia.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#169

Post by sctb »

zouhair wrote: post #62

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.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19859046.

Re: CBS censors a ‘Good Fight’ segment whose topic was Chinese censorship

#170

Post by fzeroracer »

gambler wrote: post #135
save_ferris wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP posted an article on why an American company chose to accommodate said authoritarian communist regime, against the principles of our domestic media culture. What motivates a company to do such a thing, if not capitalism?

>What motivates a company to do such a thing, if not capitalism? You're just proving grand parent commenter's point. Saying that capitalism motivates censorship is like saying that money is what causes theft and robbery. It's a meaningless statement based on conflating motivation in one specific case with motivation for a class of actions in general. Not to mention that you're also conflating an economic system with…

Capitalism absolutely motivates censorship. Companies change their products to fit regional taste in order to appeal to the largest market possible.

To say otherwise would be to ignore the entire history of the gaming industry. We can argue about whether or not certain changes are good or not, but it is undeniable that companies modify their products for maximum profit which is at the core what capitalism is about.

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