Man, fuck maga for making me support a giant megacorp.
One that's been giving money under the table to the same republicans who took away their special district for not being bigoted enough.
"Well look, maybe if we feed the leopard it won't eat our face?"
"If complete and utter chaos was lightning, then he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'."
In an escalation of a standoff over her firing from The Mandalorian, Gina Carano is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for discrimination and wrongful termination in a lawsuit that opens another front in the battlefield for influence over Hollywood that has drawn in corporate America.
Carano, in a complaint filed Tuesday in California federal court, alleges she was fired for voicing right-wing opinions on social media and seeks a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her. Elon Musk, making good on a promise to foot the legal bill for users who claim they have been discriminated against due to their activity on his platform, is helping fund the suit through X.
(sound of head hitting planar surface repeatedly to make the hurting stop)
Weren't the tweets that got her fired like borderline defamation of her employer? She drew a lot of negative attention for the transphobic shit, but Pedro Pascal (her costar) helped her walk those back a bit and I believe it was like a political cartoon about Disney chocked full of Protocols of the Elders of Zion tropes she shared that ultimately got her fired.
One of the bigger ways the idea of free speech has been warped is what Adam Serwer called "the right to monologue" - that is, the idea that free speech means you get to say what you want, and everyone else is expected to take it. Which is why it blows people's minds that other people can take negative inferences from their speech and act on them, because "that's not how free speech works!"
So apparently despite penning a memoir where he flat out admits he only went after disney because of their opinions, a clear case of the government attacking for speech, the judge in Florida threw out Disney's case against him.
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed Disney’s free speech lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, dealing a setback to the company’s hopes of regaining control of the district that governs Walt Disney World after it was taken over by the governor’s appointees.
U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor in Tallahassee said in his decision that Disney lacked standing in its First Amendment lawsuit against the Republican governor and the secretary of the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. The judge also said Disney’s claim against DeSantis’ appointees to the Disney World governing district lacked merit.
Disney said it plans to appeal the federal judge’s decision. A separate lawsuit over who controls the district is still pending in state court in Orlando.
So, uh, open day for states to sue corporations for having opinions they don't like, I guess.
The judge in question is a Trump appointee. Party before law or ethics.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
In an escalation of a standoff over her firing from The Mandalorian, Gina Carano is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for discrimination and wrongful termination in a lawsuit that opens another front in the battlefield for influence over Hollywood that has drawn in corporate America.
Carano, in a complaint filed Tuesday in California federal court, alleges she was fired for voicing right-wing opinions on social media and seeks a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her. Elon Musk, making good on a promise to foot the legal bill for users who claim they have been discriminated against due to their activity on his platform, is helping fund the suit through X.
(sound of head hitting planar surface repeatedly to make the hurting stop)
Weren't the tweets that got her fired like borderline defamation of her employer? She drew a lot of negative attention for the transphobic shit, but Pedro Pascal (her costar) helped her walk those back a bit and I believe it was like a political cartoon about Disney chocked full of Protocols of the Elders of Zion tropes she shared that ultimately got her fired.
One of the bigger ways the idea of free speech has been warped is what Adam Serwer called "the right to monologue" - that is, the idea that free speech means you get to say what you want, and everyone else is expected to take it. Which is why it blows people's minds that other people can take negative inferences from their speech and act on them, because "that's not how free speech works!"
That's how free speech has always worked.
See also: the guy in my waiting room this morning who was asked to leave after calling a bunch of my patients racial slurs.
Yeah you have the right to free speech. And we have the right to control our property and trespass laws
In an escalation of a standoff over her firing from The Mandalorian, Gina Carano is suing Disney and Lucasfilm for discrimination and wrongful termination in a lawsuit that opens another front in the battlefield for influence over Hollywood that has drawn in corporate America.
Carano, in a complaint filed Tuesday in California federal court, alleges she was fired for voicing right-wing opinions on social media and seeks a court order that would force Lucasfilm to recast her. Elon Musk, making good on a promise to foot the legal bill for users who claim they have been discriminated against due to their activity on his platform, is helping fund the suit through X.
(sound of head hitting planar surface repeatedly to make the hurting stop)
Weren't the tweets that got her fired like borderline defamation of her employer? She drew a lot of negative attention for the transphobic shit, but Pedro Pascal (her costar) helped her walk those back a bit and I believe it was like a political cartoon about Disney chocked full of Protocols of the Elders of Zion tropes she shared that ultimately got her fired.
One of the bigger ways the idea of free speech has been warped is what Adam Serwer called "the right to monologue" - that is, the idea that free speech means you get to say what you want, and everyone else is expected to take it. Which is why it blows people's minds that other people can take negative inferences from their speech and act on them, because "that's not how free speech works!"
That's how free speech has always worked.
See also: the guy in my waiting room this morning who was asked to leave after calling a bunch of my patients racial slurs.
Yeah you have the right to free speech. And we have the right to control our property and trespass laws
And this is why Trump is such a problem. There's no doubt people feel the way this asshole did. But Trump has given them permission to say that shit out loud and expect no repercussions.
It used to be that people would be too embarassed to do it. Now, it's a matter of pride. Fucked up priorities.
Normally, this is a thread about how taking the side of absolute free speech is troubling and ignores a lot of reality.
Today, I bring you the other side of that coin. When in trying to protect free expression, in this case through fiction, you go so hard that you end up being a censor.
For those who aren't following along at home, here's the TL;DR.
The 2023 Hugo Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy were held in China for the first time. This cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth and was generally considered a bad idea. Even more than the coming down from the trees part of evolution. But they won their bid in 2019 and in general fandom wanted this to be a more global award, so authors collectively decided to go with it.
As 2022 progressed, not much was heard from the organizing committee in China but what was heard was encouraging. People from the US and Canada were invited to help bridge the cultural gap and generally do what they could to smooth the transition from one site to another.
Quick aside, each convention which hosts the awards does all of the legwork to determine voting slates, eligibility, count the votes, design that year's award, etc. etc. While there is a loosely knitted organization behind this, they don't have much power to overrule when mistakes are made, investigate when things go wrong, or to do much other than protect the trademarks and copyrights needed for the awards. This yearly duty is what those from the US and Canada thought they were going to be doing. Helping the Chinese con administration get this stuff sorted out.
What they did was so much worse. They compiled political dossiers on the various western authors and handed them over so they could help determine their eligibility for the Hugos. Of course this wasn't released at the time of the awards. All of the information about the "long list" of nominations, the votes, and then the final results weren't released until January 20th of this year. Which is when all hell broke lose.
In it, it details the steps takes and who took them and gives a general "why" as to why this happened. But it isn't the final word as it doesn't tell us about some specific exclusions, such as episode 6 of the Sandman Netflix series.
Let me be clear. This was all done without being prompted to by any government or business official, on or off the record. It was all done by people in states that are supposed to value free expression. All right? Do you get that part? This is self censorship. Arguably the worse kind of censorship as it means you've already bought into the bullshit being spewed by repressive forces. This is the kind of thing many "free speech warriors" claim to want to fight but never have and likely never will. If well meaning people like those administrating the Hugo awards can fall into this trap, it means we all can.
It's one thing to see the idea of free expression to be twisted around to the point of parody. It's another to let yourself do that in the name of not wanting to cause trouble.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
Normally, this is a thread about how taking the side of absolute free speech is troubling and ignores a lot of reality.
Today, I bring you the other side of that coin. When in trying to protect free expression, in this case through fiction, you go so hard that you end up being a censor.
For those who aren't following along at home, here's the TL;DR.
The 2023 Hugo Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy were held in China for the first time. This cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth and was generally considered a bad idea. Even more than the coming down from the trees part of evolution. But they won their bid in 2019 and in general fandom wanted this to be a more global award, so authors collectively decided to go with it.
As 2022 progressed, not much was heard from the organizing committee in China but what was heard was encouraging. People from the US and Canada were invited to help bridge the cultural gap and generally do what they could to smooth the transition from one site to another.
Quick aside, each convention which hosts the awards does all of the legwork to determine voting slates, eligibility, count the votes, design that year's award, etc. etc. While there is a loosely knitted organization behind this, they don't have much power to overrule when mistakes are made, investigate when things go wrong, or to do much other than protect the trademarks and copyrights needed for the awards. This yearly duty is what those from the US and Canada thought they were going to be doing. Helping the Chinese con administration get this stuff sorted out.
What they did was so much worse. They compiled political dossiers on the various western authors and handed them over so they could help determine their eligibility for the Hugos. Of course this wasn't released at the time of the awards. All of the information about the "long list" of nominations, the votes, and then the final results weren't released until January 20th of this year. Which is when all hell broke lose.
In it, it details the steps takes and who took them and gives a general "why" as to why this happened. But it isn't the final word as it doesn't tell us about some specific exclusions, such as episode 6 of the Sandman Netflix series.
Let me be clear. This was all done without being prompted to by any government or business official, on or off the record. It was all done by people in states that are supposed to value free expression. All right? Do you get that part? This is self censorship. Arguably the worse kind of censorship as it means you've already bought into the bullshit being spewed by repressive forces. This is the kind of thing many "free speech warriors" claim to want to fight but never have and likely never will. If well meaning people like those administrating the Hugo awards can fall into this trap, it means we all can.
It's one thing to see the idea of free expression to be twisted around to the point of parody. It's another to let yourself do that in the name of not wanting to cause trouble.
This has gotten worse - there's actual evidence that several years of Hugos may have compromised balloting now, thanks to McCarty's attitudes over controlling the tallying.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
Russia wishes it had this kind of cultural hegemony
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
That starts to sound less like self-censorship and more like plain old racism.
edit: and probably misogyny, given what "codes of conduct" usually mean in majority white male nerd spaces.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
That starts to sound less like self-censorship and more like plain old racism.
edit: and probably misogyny, given what "codes of conduct" usually mean in majority white male nerd spaces.
Hey now, don't underestimate the amount of impact that sexual/gender identity has (specifically, but not exclusively, transphobia/transmisia) on these people.
I mean, it's usually both (and infrequently some old fashioned racism), but the volume of shit I saw when some of the larger gaming conventions went "woke" (their term, not mine), was frankly shocking.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
I object to this inference that the Hugos ever had legitimacy!
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
That starts to sound less like self-censorship and more like plain old racism.
edit: and probably misogyny, given what "codes of conduct" usually mean in majority white male nerd spaces.
Doubtful given the history of the Hugos and WorldCon. They've been pushing super hard to be seen as inclusive and promoting minority voices and all that kind of thing. For years now. There was even a hilariously ill-considered backlash against it that blew up in a bunch of morons faces. Self-censorship on the other hand is like squarely in their wheelhouse.
What did they expect would happen?!?!??!!?! Holy shit.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
That starts to sound less like self-censorship and more like plain old racism.
edit: and probably misogyny, given what "codes of conduct" usually mean in majority white male nerd spaces.
Doubtful given the history of the Hugos and WorldCon. They've been pushing super hard to be seen as inclusive and promoting minority voices and all that kind of thing. For years now. There was even a hilariously ill-considered backlash against it that blew up in a bunch of morons faces. Self-censorship on the other hand is like squarely in their wheelhouse.
There was absolutely massive amounts of racism involved here - most notably that there's evidence the votes were rigged for Western works, because there was a strong possibility that Chengdu would have otherwise had a slate of winners dominated by Chinese works not translated for the West. Not to mention all the racism involved in the arguments for self-censorship (remember, they did all this without any provocation by the CCP, which is why they get to be a legitimately injured party here.)
The left can be (and frankly, often is) bigoted as well!
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I thiiiink the point spool is trying to make is that even without directly provoking calls for censorship, the CCP has fostered an atmosphere where it is understood that they prefer it.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I thiiiink the point spool is trying to make is that even without directly provoking calls for censorship, the CCP has fostered an atmosphere where it is understood that they prefer it.
Except that none of the Chinese members of the convention committee were involved in these discussions, and McCarty literally admits in his communications that he had no idea of what the actual situation was, but chose to engage in building dossiers on potential finalists based on how he thought the government would react without any evidence for his beliefs.
Edit: This comment elsewhere sums it up:
Of course there is actual state censorship in China, and i'm sure Chinese folks really do comply in advance/self-censor when required. But none of that happened here! This wasn't self-censorship by anyone with actual knowledge of conditions on the ground! It was McCarty being a racist shithead! You can't just speculate on what "would" have happened as an excuse to be sinophobic!
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
The two books at the center of the controversy (Babel, Iron Widow) literally have formal publication in mainland China. In fact, Chinese SF fans have pointed out that the way this was handled has done moredamage to the Chinese SF community than any formal censorship from the government would have. And again, the people involved openly acknowledged that they had no actual understanding of what the actual situation was, and their "dossiers" contained blatant lies.
The reality is that the Western staff acted in a bigoted, ignorant manner, without any outside provocation.
Edit:
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
Again, none of the Chinese members of the Chengdu convention committee were involved in any of this! If the real concern was making sure the convention happened safely, you would think they would be involved.
Stop trying to excuse Western bigotry with "concerns" soaked in the same toxic stew.
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
Given the actions of the 2023 Hugo administrators, there should also be a ban on the administrators censoring work for political reasons. If the government of wherever the Worldcon is that year demands censorship of the Hugo finalists, then make that government fucking do it. (And then resign in protest.) The administrators should not be willing accomplices in the act of censorship. It goes against everything the Hugos, and any serious literary award, should be about.
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
Do you seriously think China's censors would have pulled every single entry from China? Because that puts the lie to your narrative right there. He also kicked people off for "visiting Tibet" but not Ursala Vernon, who very famously did just that and brought the yak worms home as a souvenir.
It's a control-obsessed government. It's going to be problematic regarding any sort of human expression. Same with Russia and a bunch of other dictatorships.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I read it!
There's no such thing as a lack of provocation from the CCP when you're talking about speech happening inside China. It's the default environment in which everyone operates.
In this case the Hugo awards themselves are the problem, but that's not going to make places with Social Credit a good place to host contests of ideas.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I thiiiink the point spool is trying to make is that even without directly provoking calls for censorship, the CCP has fostered an atmosphere where it is understood that they prefer it.
That's exactly the case. And you can see it playing out later in the post, as they talk about Chinese fans unwilling to go on the record and discuss the situation.
it's not "sinophobic" to accuse someone of self-censoring because they believed actual censorship that does actually exist might impact the awards. It makes you a coward and a quisling to do that, at best, but doesn't make you a racist.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I read it!
There's no such thing as a lack of provocation from the CCP when you're talking about speech happening inside China. It's the default environment in which everyone operates.
All this serves to do is to attempt to justify McCarty's bigoted conduct. Again, several of the works in question are openly available in mainland China, and there was no actual understanding of what the actual situation was on the ground.
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
Given the actions of the 2023 Hugo administrators, there should also be a ban on the administrators censoring work for political reasons. If the government of wherever the Worldcon is that year demands censorship of the Hugo finalists, then make that government fucking do it. (And then resign in protest.) The administrators should not be willing accomplices in the act of censorship. It goes against everything the Hugos, and any serious literary award, should be about.
I guess I don't see value in going through the work of hosting an event in a country where you know works are going to be censored in order to resign in protest when they are. Just don't host them there. Censorship in China isn't new, nor is it restricted to some small avoidable niche(Germany and swastikas, or maps showing a contested territory in one country and not as part of another).
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I read it!
There's no such thing as a lack of provocation from the CCP when you're talking about speech happening inside China. It's the default environment in which everyone operates.
All this serves to do is to attempt to justify McCarty's bigoted conduct. Again, several of the works in question are openly available in mainland China, and there was no actual understanding of what the actual situation was on the ground.
It's a weird sort of justification to argue that a bunch of people are garbage because they decided to censor the awards, rather than they're garbage because they didn't want Chinese authors as finalists.
Pretty sure the article we're talking about says that the large group of Chinese authors was removed to prevent slate voting, not because one guy was a racist. This reads like an act of cowardice and conformity, a belief that the project you're working on is more important than the values you want to uphold, a willingness to abandon ethics in favor of optics.
I wouldn't call my opinion a justification of anything.
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
Do you seriously think China's censors would have pulled every single entry from China? Because that puts the lie to your narrative right there. He also kicked people off for "visiting Tibet" but not Ursala Vernon, who very famously did just that and brought the yak worms home as a souvenir.
The question is not "What would China do?" it's "What would the organizers be afraid that China would do?". That's what makes it self-censorship.
And in the link that started this discussion, that's exactly what they are talking about in the emails obtained around why these works were excluded.
I'm intensely skeptical of the idea that any censorship in China can be considered to happen without provocation by the CCP. It's not really possible for them to be a legitimately injured party with regard to any act of censorship inside China.
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I thiiiink the point spool is trying to make is that even without directly provoking calls for censorship, the CCP has fostered an atmosphere where it is understood that they prefer it.
That's exactly the case. And you can see it playing out later in the post, as they talk about Chinese fans unwilling to go on the record and discuss the situation.
it's not "sinophobic" to accuse someone of self-censoring because they believed actual censorship that does actually exist might impact the awards. It makes you a coward and a quisling to do that, at best, but doesn't make you a racist.
It does when it's based on racist conjecture with no actual anchoring in the real world. Again, you had works openly published in mainland China being pulled over concerns of "censorship", with no involvement by the actual Chinese members of the convention committee. Turning the CCP into a boogeyman to justify racist goosery is not only a rationalization for said goosery, but serves to cloud understanding of how Chinese censorship actually works.
I mean surely we're not going to lowkey argue that the CCP doesn't censor media or that they're not an oppressive authoritarian presence that acts as the default within which all things must operate at their peril.
Posts
"Well look, maybe if we feed the leopard it won't eat our face?"
One of the bigger ways the idea of free speech has been warped is what Adam Serwer called "the right to monologue" - that is, the idea that free speech means you get to say what you want, and everyone else is expected to take it. Which is why it blows people's minds that other people can take negative inferences from their speech and act on them, because "that's not how free speech works!"
The judge in question is a Trump appointee. Party before law or ethics.
See also: the guy in my waiting room this morning who was asked to leave after calling a bunch of my patients racial slurs.
Yeah you have the right to free speech. And we have the right to control our property and trespass laws
And this is why Trump is such a problem. There's no doubt people feel the way this asshole did. But Trump has given them permission to say that shit out loud and expect no repercussions.
It used to be that people would be too embarassed to do it. Now, it's a matter of pride. Fucked up priorities.
Today, I bring you the other side of that coin. When in trying to protect free expression, in this case through fiction, you go so hard that you end up being a censor.
For those who aren't following along at home, here's the TL;DR.
The 2023 Hugo Awards for Science Fiction and Fantasy were held in China for the first time. This cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth and was generally considered a bad idea. Even more than the coming down from the trees part of evolution. But they won their bid in 2019 and in general fandom wanted this to be a more global award, so authors collectively decided to go with it.
As 2022 progressed, not much was heard from the organizing committee in China but what was heard was encouraging. People from the US and Canada were invited to help bridge the cultural gap and generally do what they could to smooth the transition from one site to another.
Quick aside, each convention which hosts the awards does all of the legwork to determine voting slates, eligibility, count the votes, design that year's award, etc. etc. While there is a loosely knitted organization behind this, they don't have much power to overrule when mistakes are made, investigate when things go wrong, or to do much other than protect the trademarks and copyrights needed for the awards. This yearly duty is what those from the US and Canada thought they were going to be doing. Helping the Chinese con administration get this stuff sorted out.
What they did was so much worse. They compiled political dossiers on the various western authors and handed them over so they could help determine their eligibility for the Hugos. Of course this wasn't released at the time of the awards. All of the information about the "long list" of nominations, the votes, and then the final results weren't released until January 20th of this year. Which is when all hell broke lose.
And what brought us to this link: https://www.patreon.com/posts/98498779
In it, it details the steps takes and who took them and gives a general "why" as to why this happened. But it isn't the final word as it doesn't tell us about some specific exclusions, such as episode 6 of the Sandman Netflix series.
Let me be clear. This was all done without being prompted to by any government or business official, on or off the record. It was all done by people in states that are supposed to value free expression. All right? Do you get that part? This is self censorship. Arguably the worse kind of censorship as it means you've already bought into the bullshit being spewed by repressive forces. This is the kind of thing many "free speech warriors" claim to want to fight but never have and likely never will. If well meaning people like those administrating the Hugo awards can fall into this trap, it means we all can.
It's one thing to see the idea of free expression to be twisted around to the point of parody. It's another to let yourself do that in the name of not wanting to cause trouble.
This has gotten worse - there's actual evidence that several years of Hugos may have compromised balloting now, thanks to McCarty's attitudes over controlling the tallying.
And the quislings in the US and Canada, wow what the fuck
No, quisling is too good a word. As far as we can tell, all of the issues with the Hugos are entirely due to the American-based assholes involved. China didn't fuck with things at all.
The censored books published in China! They took the spreadsheet of vote winners, deleted all the Chinese entries, and stuck western ones in their place arbitrarily.
And then just for funsies and extra fuckups they took money from a company on the US sanctions list.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's a genuine clusterfuck of international proportion. The legitimacy of the Hugos are now in serious question, the Chinese SF community has likely been damaged severely as they had managed to stay off the CCP's radar until now, the CCP gets to legitimately play the victim here, and it's come out that Worldcon and the Hugos had been run by an abusive goose who used his position to attack things like codes of conduct.
That starts to sound less like self-censorship and more like plain old racism.
edit: and probably misogyny, given what "codes of conduct" usually mean in majority white male nerd spaces.
Hey now, don't underestimate the amount of impact that sexual/gender identity has (specifically, but not exclusively, transphobia/transmisia) on these people.
I mean, it's usually both (and infrequently some old fashioned racism), but the volume of shit I saw when some of the larger gaming conventions went "woke" (their term, not mine), was frankly shocking.
I object to this inference that the Hugos ever had legitimacy!
Doubtful given the history of the Hugos and WorldCon. They've been pushing super hard to be seen as inclusive and promoting minority voices and all that kind of thing. For years now. There was even a hilariously ill-considered backlash against it that blew up in a bunch of morons faces. Self-censorship on the other hand is like squarely in their wheelhouse.
There was absolutely massive amounts of racism involved here - most notably that there's evidence the votes were rigged for Western works, because there was a strong possibility that Chengdu would have otherwise had a slate of winners dominated by Chinese works not translated for the West. Not to mention all the racism involved in the arguments for self-censorship (remember, they did all this without any provocation by the CCP, which is why they get to be a legitimately injured party here.)
The left can be (and frankly, often is) bigoted as well!
I recommend you read the report listed above, spool. All of this fuckery was done by Western leadership without any actual provocation, which is what makes it so fucking insidious, and why the CCP gets to play the victim.
I thiiiink the point spool is trying to make is that even without directly provoking calls for censorship, the CCP has fostered an atmosphere where it is understood that they prefer it.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
Except that none of the Chinese members of the convention committee were involved in these discussions, and McCarty literally admits in his communications that he had no idea of what the actual situation was, but chose to engage in building dossiers on potential finalists based on how he thought the government would react without any evidence for his beliefs.
Edit: This comment elsewhere sums it up:
The idea that they should have just left a slate filled with stuff that they suspected would piss off CCP censors, as the correct way of doing things is nonserious.
Once you are operating something in a country that lacks basic freedoms and due process, your job as an organizer is to try and keep anything that may run afoul local "law" clear of the event. Firstly because it minimizes the likelihood that the event will have its permits or approvals pulled, and more importantly because it will help keep your attendees safe. Did they do a good job of it, probably not, but the idea that them doing their own first pass screening of things is somehow wrong is just misguided.
Their job is not to take some quixotic stand against the CCP. It's to run an event there successfully and safely. The issue is that the single greatest risk factor on both those fronts is the government of the host country.
The lesson here is don't host things like this in China(Or Saudi, or Russia, or increasingly India, etc).
The two books at the center of the controversy (Babel, Iron Widow) literally have formal publication in mainland China. In fact, Chinese SF fans have pointed out that the way this was handled has done more damage to the Chinese SF community than any formal censorship from the government would have. And again, the people involved openly acknowledged that they had no actual understanding of what the actual situation was, and their "dossiers" contained blatant lies.
The reality is that the Western staff acted in a bigoted, ignorant manner, without any outside provocation.
Edit:
Again, none of the Chinese members of the Chengdu convention committee were involved in any of this! If the real concern was making sure the convention happened safely, you would think they would be involved.
Stop trying to excuse Western bigotry with "concerns" soaked in the same toxic stew.
Scalzi said something that resonated to me
Do you seriously think China's censors would have pulled every single entry from China? Because that puts the lie to your narrative right there. He also kicked people off for "visiting Tibet" but not Ursala Vernon, who very famously did just that and brought the yak worms home as a souvenir.
It's a control-obsessed government. It's going to be problematic regarding any sort of human expression. Same with Russia and a bunch of other dictatorships.
I read it!
There's no such thing as a lack of provocation from the CCP when you're talking about speech happening inside China. It's the default environment in which everyone operates.
Brah you don't have to go to bat for the authoritarian regime here, it's ok.
That's exactly the case. And you can see it playing out later in the post, as they talk about Chinese fans unwilling to go on the record and discuss the situation.
it's not "sinophobic" to accuse someone of self-censoring because they believed actual censorship that does actually exist might impact the awards. It makes you a coward and a quisling to do that, at best, but doesn't make you a racist.
All this serves to do is to attempt to justify McCarty's bigoted conduct. Again, several of the works in question are openly available in mainland China, and there was no actual understanding of what the actual situation was on the ground.
I guess I don't see value in going through the work of hosting an event in a country where you know works are going to be censored in order to resign in protest when they are. Just don't host them there. Censorship in China isn't new, nor is it restricted to some small avoidable niche(Germany and swastikas, or maps showing a contested territory in one country and not as part of another).
It's a weird sort of justification to argue that a bunch of people are garbage because they decided to censor the awards, rather than they're garbage because they didn't want Chinese authors as finalists.
Pretty sure the article we're talking about says that the large group of Chinese authors was removed to prevent slate voting, not because one guy was a racist. This reads like an act of cowardice and conformity, a belief that the project you're working on is more important than the values you want to uphold, a willingness to abandon ethics in favor of optics.
I wouldn't call my opinion a justification of anything.
The question is not "What would China do?" it's "What would the organizers be afraid that China would do?". That's what makes it self-censorship.
And in the link that started this discussion, that's exactly what they are talking about in the emails obtained around why these works were excluded.
It does when it's based on racist conjecture with no actual anchoring in the real world. Again, you had works openly published in mainland China being pulled over concerns of "censorship", with no involvement by the actual Chinese members of the convention committee. Turning the CCP into a boogeyman to justify racist goosery is not only a rationalization for said goosery, but serves to cloud understanding of how Chinese censorship actually works.