Usually, they only censor the explicit content. But this is the first time that AI tools were used to directly alter the content of the original film.
By the way, the film has been withdrawn from a wide release in China after receiving too many complaints.
I know from previous discussions about this that the LGBTQ media censorship in China is sadly a real thing. Here’s the 2017 guidelines I looked at before: https://web.archive.org/web/20170630135640/http://www.cnsa.cn/2017/06/30/ARTI0Qg4cp7jtd1Z5o0RnfzM170630.shtml
Auto-translated portion in question:
(6) Rendering obscene pornography and vulgar low-level interest:
- Specifically show the plots of prostitution, whoring, prostitution,removed, masturbation, etc.;
- Show and display abnormal sexual relations and sexual behavior, such as incest, homosexuality, sexual perversion, sexual assault, sexual abuse and sexual violence;
- Show and promote unhealthy views and states of marriage and love, such as extramarital love, one-night stand, sexual freedom, wife swap, etc.;
On this topic it’s often very difficult to determine what’s real and what isn’t, given that you have western media or CIA cutouts distorting the narrative for their own purposes. I try to look into the published regulations directly, but for these 2017 guidelines it doesn’t seem to explicitly discuss gay marriage. Were there new guidelines published, or is this some kind of a new push? Or is this just a company that misinterpreted the guidelines and did the AI stuff out of misinformation or paranoia?
This Zhihu thread has the top comment listing out selected examples of what’s being censored in recent times to get a good idea of what kind of contents are being censored.
Or is this just a company that misinterpreted the guidelines and did the AI stuff out of misinformation or paranoia?
People didn’t even think the film would have a cinema release in China because of what you said, gay couple and body horror content. So when it was approved for a wide release, people were in fact quite surprised.
As I have explained to other users here, there are literally only two companies that deal with imported films in China, and the same two groups of people who have had to deal with the censorship bureau over the years for hundreds of foreign films. The idea that these companies don’t know exactly what has to be removed in order to pass the censorship just doesn’t pass the smell test.
The ridiculous part is that they thought it would be a good idea to use AI tool to alter the original content on screen to get around this issue and then show it on cinema. Read the Zhihu thread, usually it’s just cutting a few scenes here and there. This is something new, and ridiculous lol.
Apologies, because I can’t translate the page right now, but does that thread have any links to actual sources? As in, I’m curious to see the actual regulations that apply to this film. No offense, but it’s a little difficult to tell what’s real and what’s rumor from forum posts alone.
I used machine translation for you. Haven’t watched all of the shows mentioned, but a cursory glance seems accurate.
spoiler
The good news is that not a single terrifying scene from “Together” was cut, but AI face swapping is a uniquely Chinese horror that Western audiences can't fully grasp.
Let's examine other examples. During its mainland China release, Bohemian Rhapsody had all scenes hinting at Queen frontman Freddie Mercury's homosexuality edited out or muted.
In Game of Thrones Season 5, a scene depicting a male prostitute being stabbed to death for homosexuality was removed. Season 8 saw Yara's one-second kiss with Daenerys in Dorne deleted.
In The Two Cities 2, all lesbian subplots involving the female lead (a policewoman) were removed.
After the comic adaptation of Little Green and Little Blue became an animated series, all same-sex content was removed. (Thanks to @Wu Ming for the comment supplement)
In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, all emotional lines between Dumbledore and Grindelwald—such as “I fell in love with you”—were deleted, retaining only vague expressions like “We are brothers.”
After Friends launched on streaming platforms in 2022, all dialogue implying Carol's lesbianism was edited out.
In The Shape of Water, content depicting Giles facing workplace discrimination due to his sexuality was cut.
In Four-Wheel Brothers, Hijikata Rei—a boy who paints his nails and wears lipstick—was altered to a girl in mainland China.
In Alien: Covenant, a kiss between two male androids was cut.
In Soul, the romantic tension between the boss and scientist was altered to “brotherly love” (thanks to @博哥逍遥游 for the comment).
Call Me by Your Name was scheduled for the 2018 Beijing Film Festival but was pulled due to “technical reasons.”
Cloud Atlas was cut by 37 minutes, including same-sex kissing scenes.
Carol (limited release) had all same-sex intimate scenes removed.
In Love, Simon (Shanghai Film Festival screening), the protagonist's coming-out conversation with his mother and the bar scene were both cut.
TV series like “Queer as Folk,” independently uploaded by netizens to platforms like Bilibili and Youku, were entirely removed despite never being officially released in mainland China.
After “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won an Oscar, all mainland plot summaries replaced references to the protagonist's gay daughter with “daughter with Westernized lifestyle.”
During the 2019 Oscars rebroadcast, Chinese platforms replaced the subtitle “a gay man” in Malek's acceptance speech with “special group.”
The Eurovision Song Contest had its broadcast rights revoked by the EBU from Mango TV (2018) for censoring “rainbow flags/same-sex content.”
Previously, it was just censorship and muting. Now, AI face swapping has emerged—it must be said, technology has advanced.
The post right above the one replied to has a link to the minutes of a meeting on the regulations.
You mean what I posted?
I am way too inebriated for this struggle session so I’m just going to leave at at this:
I’m going to keep financially investing in China and laughing my way to the bank as the West collapses over the next 50 years
ridiculous chinese censorship
*looks inside*
*Private company (the producers of the movie in fact) makes decision to do extremely stupid and unnecessary thing for Chinese localisation*
*Media blames Chinese Government for thing the Chinese Government didn't ask for*
EDIT: Is this even real? I am suspicious - https://hexbear.net/comment/6521304
EDIT2: Yeah it's real but the blame still isn't China itself.
I'm starting to get a little suspicious of Xiaohongshu at this point, they seem to be so determined to prove that China isn't some utopia that they even go all in on western style anti-China propaganda efforts. If their goal is to get people to actually understand China properly, they're doing a terrible job with posts titled like this.
How is this anti-China propaganda? This is openly discussed on Chinese social media. The only reason I post is because Hexbear has a large queer community who care about this stuff.
The title is misleading and completely ignores the focus: that this is a ridiculous bit of censorship by a company, not "evil China" censoring things because they are evil. This is "Rainbow-washing" type of propaganda, the same we saw when Israel attacked Iran, or hell, when they attack Palestine, trying to get people with progressive politics to hate them and refuse to even consider critical support for them on the grounds of not passing a purity test. That may not be how you intended it, but that is how it has come across to me, the title you used is virtually identical to western propaganda against China, though they tend to use words like "Insidious" or "Authoritarian" not "Ridiculous".
The title is NOT misleading lol. This is literally being discussed on the social media. Here is a Zhihu thread (think Chinese quora, one of the most popular social media platforms, though very much lib coded) with hundreds of discussion comments.
It appears that it is you who have fallen for Western anti-China propaganda that somehow all Chinese people are mindless drones that support 100% the government does.
No, we discuss and complain about things on social media all the time lol. You just have to be careful with the key phrases you’re using.
What they appear to be saying, which you aren't addressing in this reply, is that this is the fault of a Chinese company and not the CPC directly, while the headline clearly implies that it's the fault of the CPC in a more direct sense, like they ordered this.
The censorship itself is a process.
If the semantic argument here is that the censorship bureau doesn’t do all the cutting by itself, then technically the government doesn’t censor anything at all. The government simply tells you what is and not acceptable. The party that submits the product for licensing and approval has to do all the alterations.
As I mentioned, there are only two film companies that are allowed to handle imported films, and have done so for at least two decades importing hundreds of foreign films over the years. So these people know what they’re doing. The ridiculous part here is how they thought it would be a good idea to buy the film distribution rights and use AI tool to alter the contents to get around the issue. People aren’t buying it this time lol.
I'm not saying that the bureau is not censoring something by preventing it from being screened in X form due to content, obviously that is censorship and I'm sure you could produce for me an endless list of things that they are absolutely to blame for censoring in a targeted manner on socially reactionary grounds. I guess I would say that it's semantically true that the headline is misleading in that it makes it sound like the CPC is responsible in a direct manner for AI being used to make the couple het, but that's not what I was talking about.
What I mean is that, while a number of the scenes being removed is commonplace, and sometimes there are other revisions like the one people made fun of at the end of Fight Club (which I think was clumsy but not a bad change, especially given that it was more faithful to the book!), something like this is anomalous -- which is why it's such a news story to begin with -- and it's not clear with the given information if it's because of the bureau blocking the film beyond the expected degree or because some shithead executive got a great idea for using AI to "streamline" their editing process to minimize back-and-forth with the bureau or something.
I'm of course glad that it has received some degree of popular pushback, because this shouldn't be tolerated in either case.
that is how it has come across to me
Why would you assume bad-faith posting here on hexbear though, especially from a long-standing user who is quite clearly better-informed on China than 99.999% of the website.
Looks like this site was funded in the past by the NED before DOGE got em. Hate to cite Wikipedia but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Digital_Times#Staff_and_operations
Capitalism will replace you with AI if they think it will make more sales, absolutely, that is also still an issue in China ofc. Very sad to see, would like to see such actions be followed by a swift response of the people's representatives. Also could you please specify who censored the movie in the title? When you just say a country that means the government mandates this I would assume.
They made it a trans love story
Banned? DM Wmill to appeal.
No anti-nautilism posts. See: Eco-fascism Primer
Slop posts go in c/slop. Don't post low-hanging fruit here.