That frigging article looks like its full of April fools day
acts, like this one:
"That China’s propaganda apparatus has a problem with satire has long been evident. In 2012, The People’s Daily fell for a satirical report in The Onion voting North Korea leader Kim Jong-un the sexiest man alive. The Communist Party newspaper ran a 55-page photo spread in tribute to Kim, quoting the Onion as celebrating his devastatingly handsome looks, round face, boyish charm and strong, sturdy frame — not realizing it was satire.
"
I really hope none of this is real. LIES all LIES?!?! :D
> the Internet at not being able to find scans of that 55-page photo spread.
Because the scans of the paper don't exist, it wasn't in the printed media, it's a 55-photos slideshow in an online English news site, and it was with the quotations from the Onion without any commentary:
FYI, this is the only active archive.org entry that is valid for this url.
Curiously it looks like they switched(redirected) to en.people.cn from english.people.com.cn just days after this article was originally released. Not sure if this is an issue with archive.org and 301 redirects or if this actually occurred on this date.
Interesting either way.
I could not find instances of any of the other pages correctly archived, sorry m8.
I haven't heard of anything like what is mentioned in this article from my friends/classmates in China. Usually news like this will show up in my WeChat groups in no time.
I am NOT trying to prove or disprove the credibility of the article.
Also, as you can see from the article, it is common to make fun of the government and criticize its policies in the Internet in China. That part is true.
I believe ThinkGeek actually uses it as a test bed for product ideas... The Ton-Ton sleeping bag comes to mind...
Though, I do wish someone had made the arcade cabinet ipad holder thing... as a bluetooth game controller, with some classic arcade games, it could have been awesome.
Google Translate gives me: "Today is the West so-called "April Fool." "Fool's Day" is not in line with our cultural tradition, does not meet the socialist core values, I hope we do not believe rumors, do not spread rumors, do not pass rumors"
It is exactly the same because I quoted them from the WSJ article.
And to give you more insights on this matter, I shall use my response from another reply: Honesty and integrity has always been part of the China's cultural tradition and it was only recently added into list of "socialist core values". It is reflective of the general consensus of population on the core characteristics of a Chinese person, and not related to the Chinese government specifically. Hence there is nothing wrong with discouraging spreading of rumours (as NH now correctly named the title of this submission).
And how that proves that the April 1st is banned? The "fool's joke" here is just the article title, itself demonstrating the spreading of inaccurate information, which is day as usual for most of the media anyway. Really a bit of meta.
It was an opinion piece, but a editorial. WaPo really tried hard to over analyze that post.
After all, Xinhua has traditionally avoided publishing opinions because their main role is a news agency, but with social media there is a lot less restraint than before.
There's absolutely nothing in that post that makes me think it's an opinion piece or an editorial. It's a regular news entry, and a very misleading one, if not outright malicious.
I guess, because of the effect of the "internet social media amplification." Ah those foregone times when we'd just be "pranked" directly by a person we can touch, or at most once a day from the media.
Yes. Possibly with a stout stick. For some reason I really, really dislike a whole day when everyone is doing their best to spam me with misinformation for teh lulz.
April Fool's day historically derives from the day of misrule, whereby the social order was inverted and for a day a lowly fool took the throne of the king.
Related: Saturnalia, the Roman holiday that predated Christmas. Slaves and masters switched some of their roles and duties for the duration, everyone got drunk, and many gifts were exchanged.
Like the medieval version of April Fool's Day, Saturnalia revelers would appoint a chief fool, the Saturnalicius princeps, whose commands had to be obeyed, no matter how silly.
As much as I support the notion, but Trump is only funny as long as he's not on “the throne”. I suspect very much that all our laughing days will be over once he ascends.
The Chinese authorities obviously take lying much too seriously to allow any jokes about it. As is appropriate for such an important instrument in their tool chest.
When I lived in China, I'd never heard of April Fools Day. It seems to be a western thing. Hence this ban isn't all that relevant inside China.
From the examples it seems like China is actually trying to ban April Fools Day for western media, but the article doesn't make this clear, and it's difficult to imagine that is the case. So I find it hard to take this article seriously.
This is blatantly misleading. April Fools' Day HAS NOT been banned in China. I can confirm because am in China. Upon searching baidu (their search engine), April Fools' day has not been banned or blocked. Rather, it's simply being discouraged by official media. There's a HUGE difference between discouraging something and banning it.
I can confirm. Two of my Chinese colleagues here were trying to pull an Aprils fools joke here in the office and they were promptly taken away by the Public Security Bureau.
I think I am seeing a very interesting trend here on HN. The submissions that allow commenters to make fun of China tend to get a lot of attention than other submissions that are not strictly related to technology.
No coverage on terrorism or tragedies around the world, but a piece of news about a country trying to fight rumors by banning a foreign holiday gets onto the front page. If you actually study a bit about China, you would know that rumors are a huge problem and people are not cautious enough to verify them before getting tricked into believing them.
People just love making fun of China, aren't they?
I think I am seeing a very patronizing smug here on HN.
> If you actually study a bit about China
I grow up in China, and I know that the root problem is that it's a one-party state. There is no election whatsoever and the country is owned and abused by princelings and government officials. Rural areas are underfunded and manipulated so that resources are concentrated in the major cities. The justice system is not broken, but has never been built. Thought crimes don't only exist but are also prosecuted. With all these serious problems, you are telling me rumors are a huge problem?
Rumors are just a proxy. People are concerned about regional instability and human rights abuse, aren't they??
I'm not convinced that the system in the US is all that different. A whole extra party to vote for! A whole ~10% of quiet media not directly in the hands of the elite!
Plenty of FBI suppression of "thought criminals" too. They just have different names, like Black Panthers or anarchist.
I agree that the US has its own problems. But they are on a totally different level from China's. If we lived in China, we couldn't even have this debate about problems, let alone advocate for them to be fixed...
Firstly I am very sorry for your experience growing up in China, but do note that many others grew up normally in China and continued on with their lives.
I agree with all the problems that you listed, but I believe the spreading of rumors is a problem that has to be tackled. It is true that there are many more problems to attend to, but why not fix them one by one, starting from the most obvious ones like rumors.
Wouldn't a culture of rumors arising from a distrust of government press be better tackled by establishing freedom of the press rather than adding more restrictions?
I do believe freedom of press is the way moving forward. However at the same time, restricting rumours (actual rumours that have no grounds or basis) for the time being would help for people who have less discretion to be better informed.
I'm more interested in the idea that "rumors" are a problem that needs to be tackled and the best way to do so is to ban them and only trust what is coming from the government. Isn't this type of system ripe for abuse? Let's say a rumor was that a certain government official embezzled $100M Yuan, but it was true. Perhaps that would be very embarrassing for the central party and thus they issue a statement saying that is not the case. Isn't it the public that is hurt in this situation?
Hi. Your example, by definition, does not involve rumours. Hence if the government tries to hide it, it is the government's fault and we should blame the government.
However, you might not realize that there are many other rumours in China that are not true, and has nothing to do with the government per se, such as a disease outbreak or a certain foreign firm exploiting fellow Chinese people. These are the rumours that we need to fight.
I do not expect you to believe me though. After all you would not know any of those without living in China for a few years.
These submissions also tend to bring out the apologists for China's authoritarianism, such as yourself. As the article makes clear, they are banning April Fool's day because they don't want anyone to make the government look bad, not because rumors are dangerous. You fell for the propaganda hook, line, and sinker.
I believe you are confused about facts and opinions.
The fact is, and I quote:
“'April Fools' Day' is not consistent with our cultural tradition, or socialist core values,” state news agency Xinhua announced on social media Friday. “Hope nobody believes in rumors, makes rumors or spreads rumors.”
What you are suggesting is the opinion of the WSJ editor on this matter.
This is a relatively well educated and intelligent forum population. Simplistic Communist Party propaganda isn't persuasively here.
There are a few hundred too many billionaires in Chinese government for anyone to believe that honesty and integrity and socialism are Chinese government values.
And the Chinese Communist government has no tradition -- is it a decent tyranny imposed on the Chinese people.
Honesty and integrity has always been part of the China's cultural tradition and it was recently added into list of "socialist core values". It is reflective of the general consensus of population on the core characteristics of a Chinese person, and not related to the Chinese government specifically.
Your rhetoric is in the style of propaganda/PR-speak. Are you implying that honesty and integrity are frowned upon in other countries? In any civilized place, the general consensus is that honesty and integrity are virtues and make a person better.
The argument at hand is that clearly the Chinese government can't take a joke (among many other things, including the whole controlling/oppression thing), and the people of many other countries laugh about it because we find it amusing. It doesn't make us dishonest or bad people, just because we don't talk about how these are our "core values" and part of "cultural tradition."
I like to make fun of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) not China. Please don't confuse these two concepts again and again. CCP or Chinese goverment is evil. They don't deserve any respect.
I understand that the HN community should be polite in discussing matters like this, but I do think your comment demonstrates utter ignorance.
Note what the government calls rumors are often embarrasing news that the government wants to cover up. Legitimate news are often first reported by Reuters and other western media, and then in China. Sometimes true stories that circulate outside of China are never reported domestically. For example, the former premier of China has huge wealth overseas [1].
The Chinese government is suppressing free media and transparent information by cracking down on jokes/rumors. I have no idea what the h* you are doing here.
> If you actually study a bit about China, you would know that rumors are a huge problem and people are not cautious enough to verify them before getting tricked into believing them.
Rumors spread quickly in the United States too, often through Facebook and Twitter. We even have a website dedicated to debunking them (snopes.com). But we don't see rumors that Trader Joe's is going out of business, the Weather Channel switching to Celsius, or that the president is a Muslim as a particular problem or a justification for totalitarianism.
Trust me, there are people in China and around the world working against the Chinese government specifically (you can spot some of them as the new accounts created just to add accusations as replies to my comment) that create very good rumours that look very genuine.
They put in much more efforts into crafting their speeches in order to make them look real and trick people into believing in them, nothing like the April Fool's joke. Hence it is a very difficult task to fight rumours in China, especially when people are having trust issues with the government.
I understand why you would feel that way. In fact if I were grown up in the US or the west, I would reply the same thing.
The thing that many westerners like you do not understand, is that it's not simply a fight between China and the free world, there are other parties that deliberately paint China black and the free world would gladly welcome them as their allies.
So when there is overwhelming evidence that China is bad, combined by the good investigative journalism and the rumors created by the 3rd parties, it's hard to distinguish one from another.
Now, there are plenty of people who disagree with me, some of them are good people, they present evidence and facts, and I do not try to argue my way out. But at the same time I had to recognize that there are people who pretend to be genuinely interested in freedom of speech but with the hidden agenda, which I had to disagree with.
The problem here is that the two are often mixed together, in news articles and on Wikipedia, hence it would appear that people like me are lunatic and having the mentality you described above.
I noticed this as well but never thought more of it. You're absolutely right. Could be because China doesn't play the "diversity" game and values meriotcracy with Confucius values (Like LKYs Singapore). That doesn't sit well with the SF crowd here. Especially the mods and the Guardian loving faux mod.
Personally, from talking to many Chinese, I get the sense nobody really gives a damn what the gov says or does. A casual complaint here and there, but for the most part people are too worried about their boyfriend/girlfriends, mom/dad, schoolwork, do I look ugly?, food pics, and everything else the average person talks about.
It's not about the roots of the English words. The pun is that x and y are relatively uncommon letters in English, that when they appear before the "ing" suffix, it's easy to accidentally parse them as relatively common Chinese words.
The "xinger" is that "hoaxing" has a 腥: "fishy (smell)". ;) [1]
> You Now, get clothes ! Do not see the wind is the rain all day, wanted to criticize about it, engage in a big news
> How can people Xinhua News Agency said the ban ? I do not have to comply with the Socialist Party 's core values ? I have the ability to check the water meter asdfuiygdfsnkkjseahf
Which I think is saying that regardless of what their government is telling them, Chinese folks are perfectly capable of using their heads and distinguishing truth from falsehood.
Lmao so hard rn. Too many puns/memes/jokes in this comment I can't even translate it.
Been living in China for 10+ years and in the us for 10 years, Chinese memes are some next level shit.
And also, western media is kind of a joke. Xinhua puts a weibo saying don't spread rumors(it's comment section is full of jokes and satire, mind you), Washington post be like 'China bans April Fools Day'. Same things happened again and again, and will happen in the future.
"Why do conservatives insist that democracy was invented in ancient Greece, and that it is somehow inherent in what they call 'Western civilization'—despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary? In the end, it’s just a way of doing what the rich and powerful always do: taking possession of the fruits of other people’s labor." [...]
"Democracy was not invented in ancient Greece. Granted, the word 'democracy' was invented in ancient Greece—but largely by people who didn’t like the thing itself very much. Democracy was never really 'invented' at all. Neither does it emerge from any particular intellectual tradition. It’s not even really a mode of government. In its essence it is just the belief that humans are fundamentally equal and ought to be allowed to manage their collective affairs in an egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear most conducive. That, and the hard work of bringing arrangements based on those principles into being.
"In this sense democracy is as old as history, as human intelligence itself."
Thats an overly vague line of thinking by which the CPU can be said to be invented by the Neanderthals because "someone must have though of it". Even in ancient athenian democracy egalitarianism was not a thing: only "the chosen" landowning male native citizens had a say in collective decision making. If anything egalitarianism probably became a thing since the french revolution.
Every dispute every amongst equals is settled by negotiation and a vote. It took no influence from Athens for people to figure that out.
> Even in ancient athenian democracy egalitarianism was not a thing: only "the chosen" landowning male native citizens had a say in collective decision making.
This is the point. It was a democracy amongst a group of citizens declared to be equal. It wasn't universal, and the fact that equals ultimately cast lots is neither surprising, nor was it granted to the world through Western culture through the Athenians.
Reading some pages.. the author seems to be a purist who things terms such as "the west" or "democracy" are problematic because they don't agree with his idea of them. It's also very US-centric. It's worse than i thought...
"That China’s propaganda apparatus has a problem with satire has long been evident. In 2012, The People’s Daily fell for a satirical report in The Onion voting North Korea leader Kim Jong-un the sexiest man alive. The Communist Party newspaper ran a 55-page photo spread in tribute to Kim, quoting the Onion as celebrating his devastatingly handsome looks, round face, boyish charm and strong, sturdy frame — not realizing it was satire. "
I really hope none of this is real. LIES all LIES?!?! :D