We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors. This week, from 2021: China’s video game market is the world’s biggest. International developers want in on it – but its rules on what is acceptable are growing increasingly harsh. Is it worth the compromise? By Oliver Holmes. Read by Jordan Erica Webber The Guardian
Tag: Censorship
Chizi, Standup Comic Exiled in China, Wants to Be More Than Just ‘a Rebel Comedian’
When the Chinese standup comedian Chizi decided this year to go on tour for the first time since he got into trouble with his government three years ago, he was certain about just one thing: Some people would come to the shows — in Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore — to see a “rebel comedian.” He knew he could play up that image, pulling jokes from a folder on his phone labeled “Cannot Say” — material sure to enrage Chinese censors. He had done exactly that during a tour in…
Supreme Court Appears Skeptical of Falun Gong Lawsuit Against Cisco
A majority of the Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared skeptical of a lawsuit by Falun Gong members who claim that an American tech company helped the Chinese government to target them for torture. The lawsuit asserts that Cisco Systems Inc. helped the Chinese government create an internet censorship program, known as the Golden Shield, that enabled the government to surveil and harm members of the spiritual movement, which is banned in China. At issue before the Supreme Court is whether American courts can judge such disputes. During oral arguments on…
V&A censored catalogues after demands by Chinese printer
One of the UK’s leading museums has accepted demands by a Chinese firm that publishes its catalogues to remove images that fall foul of the country’s censorship laws. The Victoria and Albert Museum has agreed to requests by the Chinese printing company to delete maps and images from at least two recent exhibition catalogues, according to documents released to the Guardian after freedom of information requests. Like other prominent institutions, including the British Museum, Tate and the British Library, the V&A often uses Chinese printers because they can produce catalogues…
The splinternet: how online shutdowns are getting cheaper and easier to impose
During the height of Iran’s blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet. Iranians could message family members on a government-monitored app and watch clips of Manchester United on a Farsi-language video-sharing site. They could read state news and use a local navigation service. What they couldn’t do was check international headlines about thousands of people being killed by government forces during one of the bloodiest weeks in recent Iranian history. Nor, for the most part, could they get evidence out…
Chinese technology underpins Iran’s internet control, report finds
Iran’s architecture of internet control is built on technologies from China, according to an analysis published by a British human rights organisation. The report by Article 19 says the technologies include facial recognition tools used on Uyghurs in western China and a Chinese alternative to the US-based GPS system, BeiDou. The report outlines the policies and imported hardware behind the growth of Iran’s fine-tuned censorship regime, which allowed authorities to almost entirely cut off its 93 million people from the global internet during the height of January’s anti-government protests. The…
‘Was I scared going back to China? No’: Ai Weiwei on AI, western censorship and returning home
Ai Weiwei is talking me through the decision-making process before his first visit to China in over a decade. The artist, known around the world as the most famous critic of the Chinese communist regime, had to do some fraught arithmetic before deciding to head back home. Before boarding a flight with his son, who had never met the artist’s elderly mother, Ai thought back to his time in detention when his captors told him he would spend the next 13 years in custody on bogus charges: “They said, ‘When…
Gao Zhen, Detained Chinese Artist, Keeps Creating From Prison
NYT
How China is trying to silence UK academics – podcast
Laura Murphy is a professor of human rights and contemporary slavery at Sheffield Hallam University. She investigates how the Chinese government exploits the country’s Uyghur community to mine rare minerals and make consumer goods for the west, something the Chinese state denies. Murphy describes to Helen Pidd how in 2024, strange things began to happen. “I started receiving emails – journalists, other researchers, and companies who relied on our research to help them do due diligence, were writing to me and calling and saying: hey, I noticed that your reports…
Counter-terror police investigate claim UK university halted research after Chinese pressure
An investigation into allegations that a British university was subjected to pressure from Beijing authorities to halt research about human rights abuses in China has been referred to counter-terrorism police. The Guardian reported on Monday morning that Sheffield Hallam University, home to the Helena Kennedy Centre for International Justice (HKC) research institution, had ordered professor Laura Murphy to cease research on supply chains and forced labour in the country in February. Murphy’s work focuses on Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China. A South Yorkshire police spokesperson said the force…