The rollout of the coronavirus vaccine has beenaccompanied by the kind of corporate image campaign you typically associate with high-end consumer products, like aHollywood blockbuster orthe new iPhone. It's on the morning shows, being touted on celebrity Twitter accounts, and the news about it is uniformly glowing.

Just the other day, the guy who played Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" moviesgot the vaccine, and as on any media tour, the paparazzi were there for the dramatic moment when they stuck the needle in his arm.

"It's a very special day," the Gandalf actor told Reuters. "I feel euphoric. I would have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone. I feel very lucky to have had the vaccination."

A health care worker in Juneau, Alaska, also feelslucky. She got the vaccine two days ago. The woman had no history of allergies, but within minutes she developed a severe anaphylactic reaction to it and then had trouble breathing. She had to spend the night in the emergency room, but according to the doctor who treated her, she was "still enthusiastic that she got the vaccine and the benefits it would give her in the future."

SIR IAN MCKELLAN GETS 'PAINLESS' CORONAVIRUS VACCINE, ENCOURAGES EVERYONE TO DO THE SAMEFOR 'SOCIETY'

How are the rest of us supposed to respond to a marketing campaign like this? Well, nervously. Even if you're strongly supportive of vaccines -- and we are -- even if you recognize how many millions of lives have been saved over the past 50 years by vaccines --and we do -- it all seems a bit much. It's too slick. Better to treat Americans like adults, explain the benefits, be honest about the risks, and let the rest of us decide.

In this country, we control our own bodies. They're always telling us that. But now the rules have changed. On the question of the coronavirus vaccine, our leaders are definitely not pro-choice. Their view is, "Do what you're told and don't complain." No uncomfortable questions. Those aren't just suggestions, they'rerules, and Silicon Valley plans to enforce them.

Twitter hasannounced a new policy to censor any unauthorized inquiry about the vaccine or, as the company put it, "false or misleading narratives aboutCOVID-19 vaccinations." Among other things, Twitter is censoring any claim that this vaccine might be used to"control populations."

ALASKA HEALTH CARE WORKER SUFFERS ADVERSE REACTION AFTER COVID-19 VACCINE

So whatever you do, don't say this is social control. If you do, the richest, most powerful people in the world will act in perfect coordination to shut you down immediately. To repeat: There is no social control going on here, but if you suggest otherwise, Twitterwill censor you.

In addition, Facebook has now decided it must "build demand for vaccination in communities worldwide" by sharing "reassuring information" about getting the vaccine. Mark Zuckerberg was a tech tycoon. Now he's a professional marketer who gets to control the conversation about the product he's selling. Facebook has announced it will squelch "any misinformation" it sees about this vaccine.

None of this inspires confidence. Censorship will not convince a single person to take the coronavirus vaccine. In fact, it will have the opposite effect. If you wanted to roll out a national vaccination campaign, the first thing you would need after the vaccine itself is social trust. People have to believe that the authorities know what they're doing, otherwise they won't participate. Censorship is the enemy of social trust.

Once the population understands that you are holding back critical information, trust evaporates and people become suspicious. They start wondering if the vaccine is as safe and effective as you claim it is. Why do you have to lie about it? Why are you threatening us if we don't take it? If you want people to take your vaccine, they must trust your vaccine, and if you want them to trust it, you have to let them speak freely about it. That has always been true, but authorities have long been slow to grasp it.

FDA ADVISORY PANEL ENDORSES MODERNA VACCINE CANDIDATE

Smallpox was the first contagious disease controlled by a vaccine. It was a horrible disease, and forhundreds of years people were afraid of it, but they were also afraid of the vaccine. Like most vaccines, it could have significant side effects, including death. In the end, the smallpox vaccine turned out to be well worth it. It saved far more people than it hurt. But government officials couldn't be bothered to patiently explain that. So instead, they used force. Sound familiar?

Several American states made the smallpox vaccine mandatory in 1853. The British government did the same thing. The rules were simple: Take the vaccine and shut up. But a man called George Bamford was not on board. He didn't want his kids taking the smallpox vaccine and he had good reason for that: The smallpox vaccine had already killed one of his other children. The matterwent to court, but the courts didn't care. They offered Bamford a choice: Pay a steep fine or go to prison.

Inevitably, many people took George Bamford's side. In the United States and Great Britain, national anti-vaccination leagues formed. Tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest. People like Frederick Douglass supported them. Eventually, the British government ended its forced vaccination policy. The lesson was clear: If you want people to get vaccinated, you need to convince them to get vaccinated and you must do it with reason. Lying and force do not work.

Yet with our current leadership, you sometimes get the impression that lying and force are the whole point. If they can keep ordering you around like you're an animal, if they can censor you when you start asking hard questions, maybe you won't notice how totally incompetent they are.

MSNBC MEDICAL ANALYST: DON'T TRAVEL OR STOP WEARING MASKS UNTIL SUMMER, EVEN AFTER GETTING VACCINE

In this respect, the coronavirus vaccine is not merely a vaccine, it is the source of their power. This week onMSNBC, a noted medical expert called Dr. Vin Gupta explained that the point of the vaccine is not for you toresume your normal, productive, happy, unmasked life. That's what they promised us months ago. That's why so many of us are looking forward to the vaccine. But that's no longer true. They're now telling us that even with a vaccine, onethey're going to make you take, you're going to have to stay home alone with your face covered.

GUPTA: Just because you get vaccinated with that second dose does not mean you should be participating in things like traveling in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic or that you're liberated from masks. Everything still applies until all of us get the two-dose regimen ... Don't let your guard down just because you got vaccinated.

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To be clear, most Americans support vaccines. The track record for vaccines is better than for any other part of medicine. It's the basis of modern medicine. But it's people like Guptawho discredit vaccines, not the conspiracy theories. People like him create conspiracy theories because they're so clearly lying.

"Don't let your guard down"?What does that mean, exactly? States like Texas and Florida have let their guard down, relatively speaking. Those states allow people to eat in restaurants and see their families, and they still have fewer coronavirus deaths than New York State, a place where it's a crime to live a normal life. Texas and Florida have more people than New York does and a whole lot more freedom, yet New York has seen more people die from COVID-19.Explain that one.

This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening monologue on the Dec. 17, 2020 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."

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Tucker Carlson: Public confidence in the coronavirus vaccine won't be achieved by Big Tech censorship - Fox News

The City University of New York (CUNY) committee has passed a resolution that rebuked the censorship of a virtual event a few months ago that featured a documented Palestinian terrorist.

The resolution that the CUNY Professional Staff Congress (PSC) International Committee passed last week that bemoaned the video-conferencing platform Zoom, Facebook and YouTube removing a Sept. 23 event being promoted and live-streamed, respectively, on their platform called Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled.

Khaled played a critical role in two airplane hijackings as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), aU.S.-designatedterrorist organization. The Israeli Shin Betconsidersher part of the Jordanian command of the PFLP.

The resolution stated that social-media censorship went against the principle of academic freedom. In addition to the aforementioned platforms, the measure also blamed what it called a pressure campaign organized by the Anti-Defamation League, the Lawfare Project, StandWithUs and other groups.

In a statement, the Lawfare Project stated that this resolution was passed so that CUNY PSC could set up a committee and begin fundraising against our efforts to keep terrorists and Jew-hatred off campuses. In doing so, this fringe union has declared war on the Jewish community.

The post CUNY passes resolution rebuking censorship of virtual event with terrorist appeared first on JNS.org.

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CUNY passes resolution rebuking censorship of virtual event with terrorist - Cleveland Jewish News

TheCDT Censorship Digestis a monthly round-up of censored speech,propaganda developments, and rights defense in China, compiled and written by CDT Chinese editors. We have selected, translated, and adapted relevant and interesting portions of the digest for our English readers, and encourage you to read the full digest as originally posted at CDT Chinese.

In a 2018 interview, Historian Yu Yingshi noted that the capitalism conceived by Deng Xiaoping was nothing like the economic system long popular in the West. Dengs was a capitalism under complete control of the Party, roughly along the following model: The CCP becomes a huge capitalist collective, and all important companies are all so-called state enterprises. In fact, they are controlled by Party committees, and so should be called Party enterprises. Western commentators call Dengs model state capitalism, but this is inaccuratethey call it that because Westerners couldnt imagine something as strange as Party capitalism.

Under Party capitalism, it isnt hard to understand the experiences that private entrepreneurs in China had this November. In his interview, Mr. Yu pointed out that in addition to Party enterprises, there are also private ventures or public-private partnershipsbut, in this capitalism, these are also directly under Party control. Occasionally, when an entrepreneur doesnt listen to the Party, repercussions follow. In such a system, not only entrepreneurs, but all who question the Party, may have to pay a price. However, Mr. Yu also pointed out in the interview: from a historical point of view, no regime that relies on violence can maintain power for long.

After spending four years in prison for his work chronicling protest across China, in June of this yearon the day after his 43rd birthdayLu Yuyu was released. Once free, he learned that since his arrest the space for dissent in China had almost completely disappeared. However, Lu decided not to be silent, and published a detailed account of his time in prison (translated in full by CDT). As November began, at China Change Cao Yaxue reminded readers of Lus story, ending on a quote perennially relevant in Xis China:

Im not a hero,he said. Nor am I one of those whove chosen to stay in China in order to continue the struggle. I worked on Not News because I liked it; I didnt leave China because as someone at the bottom rung of society, I didnt get the opportunity. I didnt capitulate because of the price I would pay for it. I want to live with dignity. [Source] [Chinese]

Through yet another month, the detention of rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong continued. After she issued a statement of support for Xu on his 100th day of hisdetention in late September, his girlfriendLi Qiaochu in November reflected on her 120 days under residential surveillance in a designated location earlier this year:

I was completely deprived, all who appeared in front of me did so to rebuke me, threaten me, or to educate me. This disciplinary system gives itself absolute power, and exercises that power to the maxim. It deprives people of vitality. It attempts to turn those that it supervises into obedient machines who live just to be interrogated constantly. [Chinese]

On November 26, Li tweeted that police had summoned her to a meeting.

Also in November, it was revealed that citizen journalist Zhang Zhan had been formally charged with picking quarrels and provoking trouble, and is looking at a likely five-year prison sentence. The former lawyer has been in detention since May, and is the fourth citizen journalist to be arrested for covering the coronavirus.

Chinas entrepreneurs are either committing a crime, or theyre on the road to commit a crime. This sentiment was expressed widely by Chinese netizens in online discussions about the difficult situation facing some of the nations high-profile entrepreneurs in November.

A notable example is that of Sun Dawu, a billionaire agricultural entrepreneur and outspoken political commentator who was arrested with over 20 family members and colleagueson November 10. Long praised by liberal intellectuals for his outside-the-box thinking about lending and poverty alleviation, Sun is no stranger to controversy and falling afoul of Party authorities. The words that late Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo wrote about Sun in 2003 still ring true today:

Authorities are discovering that peasant entrepreneurs like Sun Dawu are becoming more common, and especially the entrepreneurial conscience of Sun Dawu to despise money for power transactions and the courage to speak out. He has the economic resources and organizational capabilities, and also the perspective of fighting for farmers rights and aiding them in getting out of poverty. He calls for political reforms from the perspective of constitutional democracy, which poses a huge challenge to the current political system, and may make Sun a new type of political leader. So, it is necessary for authorities to use vague laws to bring him to heel, making Sun Dawu and his Dawu Group into victims of a country ruled by evil laws. [Chinese]

Online, an article signed by Lao Hou commented:

Unsurprisingly, the handling of Dawu Group began with the takeover of its hospital and school. This method of punishment fully explains that in the eyes of the local government the problem with Dawu Group isnt a criminal or an economic problem, but a political problem.

Dawu Group flaunts that it doesnt engage in bribery, meaning it never interacts or colludes with the government in private. Its involvement with social services has moved deeply into government jurisdiction, especially education, healthcare, and elderly carethe pillar industries of the regimewhich theyve turned into welfare projects. This undermines industrial policies, and also raises suspicion of a grassroots overtaking of the government. [Source]

In short, Lao Hou continues, Acting as a child of the Party is the only way for Dawu Group, just as its the only way for all private firms.

Another entrepreneur who this November was very publicly forced to be a child of the Party was Ant Groups Jack Ma. Xi Jinping reportedly personally decided to shut down the firms IPOwhich would have been the worlds largest offering to dateafter the entrepreneur gave a speech criticizing regulators in October.

Other private entrepreneurs deserve attention this November, including Li Huaiqing, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for subversion and other charges. Prior to his 2018 arrest and the freezing of his and his familys assets, the Chongqing native was the owner of a pawn company. He was arrested suddenly in January 2018 for alleged gang activity, then months later accused of fraud, subversion, and blackmail over writings and recordings he shared on social media.

[]

In early November, a week after the violent public death of the Tibetan woman Lhamo, womens rights activists mourned the domestic abuse victim. An essay by feminist activists Xiao Meili and Zhu Xixi explained that they launched this campaign for Lhamo not only in hopes that everyone will remember her, but also to remind ourselves that we have zero tolerance for domestic violence and the bullying of victims. Even more, we hope that the public sector and everyone in law enforcement will forever remember Lhamo, will remember that domestic violence isnt a domestic matter. Stop inaction! Punish Inaction!

However, before Lhamos tragedy had even concluded, shockingly lenient sentencing for the brutal torture and death of another young woman outraged the country in November. Fang Yangyang, a young Shandong woman, had been arranged to marry a man in 2016. Fang, who had reportedly been diagnosed with a mild mental condition, was beaten and detained by her husband and parents-in-law for years. She died last year highly malnourished. In January, a Yucheng, Shandong court found the three torturers guilty of abuse. The husbands sentence was suspended allowing him to walk that day. Marriage being an institution based on childhood, and Fangs inability to deliver a childpotentially due to her highly malnourished and distressed statewere deemed relevant.

In late November, Xiao Meili announced another campaign, initiating a petition to the Yucheng Court demanding a new fair trial, and zero tolerance for domestic violence. Violation among the most vulnerable groups is a stain on civilized society. Lets pledge to remember tragedies like those of Lhamo and Fang Yangyan, and hope those in power also wont forget them.

[]

As totalitarianism comes to define a system, those living in that system will discover that resistance has become a part of daily life. One such act of resistance that has come to define the era for Chinese netizens is scaling the wall, a daily occurrence for many with increasingly sharp penalties. In a CDT Guide in November, CDT Chinese editors looked back over recent years to show the steady criminalization of accessing information in China.

Denunciation and reporting peers is another feature that has come to define the era, as November readily showed. On American Thanksgiving, a dormitory manager at Harbin Institute of Technology was reported for handing out chocolate on the Western holiday, landing her in the middle of a firestorm. On WeChat, @ used the story to reflect on the trend:

That students conduct, if over-interpreted, is that of a closed and narrow-minded person with their eyes wide who is constantly differentiating between enemy and friend, constantly cutting, until in the end the good points in U.S.-China relations are less and less. Boycott Christmas because of Religious factors, boycott Valentines Day because it touches upon passion between men and women, boycott Thanksgiving because its Western. In the end, theres less and less left to boycott, and the act of resisting is less and less meaningful. Resistance becomes merely a habit of thoughtand thinking too continues to shrink. It is this that worries people. The most precious thing a young person can have is a kind and open heart, rather than eyes wide scanning for enemies. [Chinese]

On November 4, historian Shen Zhihua gave a lecture, which was also streamed live online, on the rise and fall of the Soviet model of socialism. An hour into the lecture, the stream was suddenly cut, reportedly due to malicious reportstip-offs, presumably from students, that the content challenged Party orthodoxy.

November 8 is Journalists Day in China, a holiday officially established by the Party and government in 2000. Between January 1 and November 30, 2020, about 200,000 journalists passed their Xi Jinping thought exams. China was in 2020 declared the worlds greatest jailor of journalists by the Committee to Protect Journalists for the second year in a row.

[]

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CDT Censorship Digest, November 2020: Forced to Be a Child of the Party - China Digital Times

Al Drago, Getty

On Thursday, amid a flurry of tweets and retweets, President Donald Trump stated his intent to veto the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), saying that doing so will make China very unhappy.

Trump has repeatedly railed against the bill, insisting in particular that his desired reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act be made part of it, on the grounds that it creates a serious threat to our National Security. Not to mention the renaming of military installations named for Confederate military leaders.

On Thursday he reiterated his objections, and changed his threats to a vow to veto the veto-proof bill, in a tweet that included a retweet of a Daily Caller article about Sen. Lindsey Graham.

Graham was featured for remarks in an interview with Sean Hannity on Wednesday during which the Senator said that theres two threats to conservatism: mass mail-in voting unverified and social media companies unregulated, unable to be sued when they take down the content of conservatives.

The NDAA is a funding authorization bill. The $740 billion bill was passed by Congress last week, with veto-proof margins in both the House and the Senate. The bill was delayed by opponents, particularly Sen. Rand Paul, in an effort to push it back far enough that Congress could run out of time to override the veto before the end of the legislative session.

Congressional leaders have said they will cut their holiday short to deal with the veto should that become necessary. Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), outgoing senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters last week, We would be rightly and fairly criticized when we cant come back to deal with military pay.

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Trump Vows Veto of of Veto-Proof Military Spending Bill Over Tech Censorship of Conservatives - Mediaite

Many in the U.S. have spent 2020 debating the problems of content moderation on social media platforms, misinformation and disinformation, and the perceived censorship of political views. But globally, this issue has been in the spotlight for a decade.

This year is the tenth anniversary ofwhat became known as the"Arab Spring", inwhich activists and citizens across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) used social media to document the conditions in which they lived, to push for political change and social justice, and to draw the world's attention to their movement. For many, it was the first time they had seen howthe Internetcould have a role to play in pushing forhuman rights across the world. Emerging social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all basked in the reflected glory of press coverage that centered their part in the protests: often to the exclusion of those who were actually on the streets. The years afterthe uprisings failed to live up to the optimism of the time. Offline, the authoritarian backlash against the democratic protests has meant that many of those who fought for justice a decade ago, are still fighting now. And rather than help that fight, the platform policies and content moderation procedures of the tech giants now too often led to the silencing and erasure of critical voices from across the region. Arbitrary and non-transparent account suspension and removal of political and dissenting speech has become so frequent and systematic in the area that it cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents or the result of transitory errors in automated decision-making.

Along with dozens of other organizations, today EFF has signed an open letter to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube demanding the companies stop silencing critical voices in the MENA region. The letter asks for several concrete measures toensure that users across the region are treated fairly and are able to express themselves freely:

Content moderation policies are not only critical to ensuring robust political debate. They are key to expanding and protecting human rights. Ten years out from those powerful protests, it's clear that authoritarian and repressive regimes will do everything in their power to stop free and open expression. Platforms have an obligation to note and act on the effects content moderation has on oppressed communities, in MENA and elsewhere.

In 2012, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook, wrote

By giving people the power to share, we are starting to see people make their voices heard on a different scale from what has historically been possible. These voices will increase in number and volume. They cannot be ignored. Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few.

Instead, governments around the world have chosen authoritarianism, and platforms have contributed totherepression. It's time for that to end.

Read the full letter demanding that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube stop silencing critical voices from the Middle East and North Africa, reproduced below.

17 December 2020

Ten years ago today, 26-year old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest over injustice and state marginalization, igniting mass uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries across the Middle East and North Africa.

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring, we, the undersigned activists, journalists, and human rights organizations, have come together to voice our frustration and dismay at how platform policies and content moderation procedures all too often lead to the silencing and erasure of critical voices from marginalized and oppressed communities across the Middle East and North Africa.

The Arab Spring is historic for many reasons, and one of its outstanding legacies is how activists and citizens have used social media to push for political change and social justice, cementing the internet as an essential enabler of human rights in the digital age.

Social media companies boast of the role they play in connecting people. As Mark Zuckerberg famously wrote in his 2012 Founders Letter:

By giving people the power to share, we are starting to see people make their voices heard on a different scale from what has historically been possible. These voices will increase in number and volume. They cannot be ignored. Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few.

Zuckerbergs prediction was wrong. Instead, more governments around the world have chosen authoritarianism, and platforms have contributed to their repression by making deals with oppressive heads of state; opening doors to dictators; and censoring key activists, journalists, and other changemakers throughout the Middle East and North Africa, sometimes at the behest of other governments:

Examples such as these are far too numerous, and they contribute to the widely shared perception among activists and users in MENA and the Global South that these platforms do not care about them, and often fail to protect human rights defenders when concerns are raised.

Arbitrary and non-transparent account suspension and removal of political and dissenting speech has become so frequent and systematic that they cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents or the result of transitory errors in automated decision-making.

While Facebook and Twitter can be swift in responding to public outcry from activists or private advocacy by human rights organizations (particularly in the United States and Europe), in most cases responses to advocates in the MENA region leave much to be desired. End-users are frequently not informed of which rule they violated, and are not provided a means to appeal to a human moderator.

Remedy and redress should not be a privilege reserved for those who have access to power or can make their voices heard. The status quo cannot continue.

The MENA region has one of the worlds worst records on freedom of expression, and social media remains critical for helping people connect, organize, and document human rights violations and abuses.

We urge you to not be complicit in censorship and erasure of oppressed communities narratives and histories, and we ask you to implement the following measures to ensure that users across the region are treated fairly and are able to express themselves freely:

Signed,

Access NowArabic Network for Human Rights Information ANHRIArticle 19Association for Progressive Communications APCAssociation Tunisienne de Prvention PositiveAvaaz Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)The Computational Propaganda ProjectDaaarb News websiteEgyptian Initiative for Personal RightsElectronic Frontier FoundationEuro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor Global VoicesGulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR)Hossam el-Hamalawy, journalist and member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists OrganizationHumena for Human Rights and Civic Engagement IFEXIlam- Media Center For Arab Palestinians In IsraelImpACT International for Human Rights PoliciesInitiative Mawjoudin pour lgalitIraqi Network for Social Media - INSMnetworkI WATCH Organisation (Transparency International Tunisia)Khaled Elbalshy - Daaarb website - Editor in ChiefMahmoud Ghazayel, IndependentMarlena Wisniak, European Center for Not-for-Profit LawMasaar Technology and Law CommunityMichael Karanicolas, Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and InformationMohamed Suliman, Internet activistMy.Kali magazine Middle East and North AfricaPalestine Digital Rights Coalition (PDRC) The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy Pen IraqQuds News NetworkRanking Digital Rights Rima Sghaier, Independent Sada Social CenterSkyline International for Human RightsSMEXSyrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)The Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)TaraazTemi Lasade-Anderson, Digital ActionWITNESSVigilance Association for Democracy and the Civic State Tunisia7amleh The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media

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A Decade After the Arab Spring, Platforms Have Turned Their Backs on Critical Voices in the Middle East and North Africa - EFF

A horror game called Devotion was set to release on CD Projekt Reds digital storefront GOG. However, the plan had to be cancelled due to Chinese censorship. In fear of facing retribution from the Chinese government, GOG cancelled its plans to host the game on its storefront as the game had some controversial content.

Reuters

Players in the game found content that referred to Xi Jinping, the president of China, as a Winnie-the-Pooh moron. Its no news that the Chinese president and the CCP are quite sensitive to the cartoon bear as any images of the bear have been banned on Chinese social media. Winnie the pooh has been used as a comparison by memers which has been notoriously referenced by other personalities such as John Oliver and recent movies like Christopher Robin.

The game has been produced by Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games who have been at the centre of censorship controversy ever since the game was released. This is not the first time the Chinese Government has flexed its blanket power to dictate censorship in games, movies and other forms of popular media. PUBG Mobile, the popular battle-royale game made by the Chinese company Tencent Games was also found censoring what people could say in the game as well.

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Apps like TikTok have also blocked accounts of users in the past who have previously made content that talks about Chinas controversial detention camps.

Last year, Activision Blizzard banned a Hong Kong-based player from a professional tournament known as Blitzchung for his statement during a post-match interview, Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time. Tencent Holdings was the real reason behind Ng being stripped of his winnings and being banned from competing as the company owns 10% of Activision Blizzard.

In the case of Devotion, it seems like GOG and other platforms do not want to sell the game to avoid backlash from the Chinese government. Both storefronts operate in China and in order to appease the Chinese government and maintain their presence in a major market, companies often avoid taking risks with controversial games. The simplest solution to this problem is not selling the game in the Chinese region, however GOG chose to remove it from the worldwide store altogether. Heres how the world reacted to GOGs decision to give in to Chinese censorship:

Photo: Red Candle Games (Main Image)

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China Bullied Yet Another Company To Remove A Game From Its Store And Heres How The World Reacted - MensXP.com