We have found ourselves in a strange new world now that our civilization has made it to the 21t century, and some of the technological advances that we’ve made have brought with them some wild new problems.
For instance, our world is now very much interconnected in ways that our grandparents wouldn’t even be able to imagine. With the internet, and tools like social media, people from the farthest-flung regions of this planet can communicate with literally anyone in a matter of moments.
And while this informational revolution is an undeniably powerful thing, the globalist reality is diluting the power of freedom in the global community.
One rather salient example of this is China’s influence over global culture, which has coerced otherwise free-speaking entities to eschew their rights to freedom of expression let they wish to miss out on the economic boom that only Beijing can provide.
Disney has pulled an episode of “The Simpsons” that includes a line about “forced labor camps” in China from its streaming platform in Hong Kong.
The episode — first shown in October last year and titled “One Angry Lisa” — features a scene in which Marge Simpson takes a virtual exercise bike class with an instructor in front of a virtual background of the Great Wall of China. The instructor says: “Behold the wonders of China. Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones, and romance.”
China’s use of forced labor and mass internment camps to control the Muslim Uyghur minority in the Xinjiang region culminated in a U.N. assessment that concluded Beijing’s actions may constitute crimes against humanity, although China rejects any claims of human rights violations in Xinjiang.
The issue has been ongoing.
This is the second time the platform has been accused of self-censorship in Hong Kong. In 2021, it reportedly dropped an episode of “The Simpsons” that made reference to Tiananmen Square, the scene of a brutal massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Beijing in 1989.
If the world continues to capitulate to China’s strict authoritarian demands, this will only embolden Beijing’s censorship, and drag the entire global culture backwards.
