2015-08-11
Hip-hop band Poorman records a song in Hohhot, China, Aug. 21, 2012.
AFP
China's decision to ban 120 songs from the country's tightly controlled Internet was met with contempt and ridicule by commentators and netizens on Tuesday, who warned that the ban could have the opposite effect to that intended by the ruling Chinese Communist Party.
China's ministry of culture on Monday released a blacklist of 120 songs that official media said "trumpet obscenity, violence, crime or harm social morality," ordering website administrators to take them down.
The content of the songs, which include hip-hop tracks "Beijing Hooligans," "Don't Want to Go to School," and "Suicide Diary," is "severely problematic," and violates the ministry's principles of online cultural regulation, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
"No unit or individual is allowed to provide [these songs]," the ministry said in a statement, warning that anyone who failed to comply with the take-down notice would face "severe punishment."
"Whatever you say about it, this is yet another curb on the freedom of expression, because songs are part of public opinion, a way of expressing yourself," Guangzhou-based writer Xu Lin told RFA on Tuesday.
"A government shouldn't try to control such things. This wouldn't happen in a free society."
Xu said there is "very little space" for Chinese people to express themselves nowadays.
"You can't do this, and you can't do that. This will definitely give rise to a public backlash," Xu said.
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He said the ban was more likely to boost the popularity of the songs, because people would follow their natural curiosity and seek them out in spite of the system of filters, blocks, and human censorship known collectively as China's Great Firewall.
Xu, who recorded a song in support of rights lawyer Xu Chunhe, said it was a shame his song hadn't made it into the blacklist.
Exiled Chinese political cartoonist "Perverted Chili Pepper" said the government is overstepping the mark with the song ban.
"I am very familiar with some of the songs on the list, some of which I like very much," he said. "Of course they are pretty rude."
"The Chinese government believes that they aren't in keeping with socialist values, not in keeping with this or that or the other," he said.
"I think that banning what is entertainment for ordinary people is trying to control too much," he said. "They think they can ban every single thing that might be harmful."
