Chinese Social Media Site Reverses Gay Content Ban After Uproar

Bowing to intense pressure from millions of internet users, a Chinese social media site, Sina Weibo, said on Monday that it would scrap plans to censor cartoons and video games with gay themes.

The site, Sina Weibo, had announced on Friday that it would target gay content as part of a campaign to remove pornographic and violent material from its site.sina weibo

But its efforts were almost immediately criticized as discriminatory and repressive, spawning an outpouring of #Iamgay hashtags and slogans like “gays aren’t scary.”

On Monday, Sina Weibo said in a post that it would scale back its “cleanup” effort and focus on “pornographic, violent and bloody content” instead of gay material. In a nod to the intense backlash, it thanked internet users for their “discussion and suggestions.”

The company did not say whether it would continue to delete texts, photos and videos with gay themes, which were also listed as targets in the original announcement. Weibo did not respond to a request for comment.

Internet users welcomed the change on Monday. Still, some said the company owed gay people an apology.

“It is totally insincere,” Bai Fei, a feminist activist in Shanghai, said of the announcement. “They have already harmed us. I want them to stand up and make a public apology.”

Others called on the company to restore content that it had already deleted in the campaign, including a popular Weibo account called the Gay Voice, which published cultural news and podcasts for its more than 230,000 followers.

Weibo’s vow to cut gay material prompted an unusually fierce backlash from internet users, who said the campaign would worsen discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in China. Still, some said they saw signs of progress in the company’s decision to change course.

Ma Baoli, the founder of Blued, a popular gay dating app, called the uproar a “historic event” in China. He said Weibo’s response showed a gradual change in attitudes toward gay people.

By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ and ZOE MOU

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Landmark China Same Sex Marriage Case Rejected

China Same Sex Marriage Case Rejected Dealing Gay Rights Movement A Major Blow

BEIJING (Reuters) – A court in China on Wednesday rejected a landmark China same sex marriage case by two men who had sought permission to get legally married, one of the plaintiffs said, a decision that shines the light on gay rights in the world’s most populous nation.

While homosexuality is not illegal in China, and large cities have thriving gay scenes, same-sex marriage is not legal, and same-sex couples have no legal protections.international surrogacy

In what activists hailed as a step forward for gay rights, Sun Wenlin, 26, had lodged the suit with a court in the southern Chinese city of Changsha against a civil affairs bureau that denied him the right to marry.

But after a short hearing, the court turned down his request to marry, Sun said.

“Of course I’m not very pleased about it but I’m not going to give up,” he told Reuters by telephone. “I plan to appeal.”

Sun said he had filed the lawsuit in December because he wanted to form a family unit with his 36-year-old partner.

Sun previously told Reuters he had tried to register to marry his boyfriend at the Furong district civil affairs bureau in June but was rejected by an official who told him “marriage had to be between a man and woman.”

April 13, 2016 – Huffingtonpost.com, via Reuters

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China bans depictions of gay people on television

Content that ‘exaggerates dark side of society’ is banned from TV in China – from homosexuality to adultery, showing cleavage and even reincarnation.

 

The Chinese government has banned all depictions of gay people on television, as part of a cultural crackdown on “vulgar, immoral and unhealthy content”.

Chinese censors have released new regulations for content that “exaggerates the dark side of society” and now deem homosexuality, extramarital affairs, one night stands and underage relationships as illegal on screen.

Last week the Chinese government pulled a popular drama, Addicted, from being streamed on Chinese websites as it follows two men in gay relationships, causing uproar among the show’s millions of viewers.

Chinese surrogacy

The government said the show contravened the new guidelines, which state that “No television drama shall show abnormal sexual relationships and behaviors, such as incest, same-sex relationships, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual violence, and so on.”

The ban also extends to smoking, drinking, adultery, sexually suggestive clothing, even reincarnation. China’s State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television told television producers it would constantly monitor TV channels to ensure the new rules were strictly adhered to.

The clampdown follows an increase in cultural censorship in China since Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012. In December 2014, censors stopped a TV show, The Empress of China, from being broadcast because the actors showed too much cleavage. The show only returned to screens once the breasts had been blurred out.

In September 2015, a documentary about young gay Chinese called Mama Rainbow was taken down from all Chinese websites.

The Guardian, March 4, 2016

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