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Loong's avatar

Another big news out of China today is the banning of all idol-style competition TV shows (e.g. 偶像練習生 or 青春有你), and the focus on idols but not singer competitions suggests the main objection is to the genderless aesthetics popular among today's teens. Along with the crackdown on video games or feminism, I think we can identify an overall theme of a misogynistic view over gender expression (athletes for example are highlighted in state media).

https://udn.com/news/story/7332/5716447

Zhao's case is particular since usually people know why an artist is cancelled before she was removed from platforms, but chances are we will know more in the coming months. I find the speculations around the Alibaba crackdown most likely. But as you said the Chinese system is a black box; often you can only test with different input and observe the output without knowing how it works within. It actually reminds one of Chinese Medicine or Deep Learning AI.

If I may make one final suggestion, reading Blue media in Taiwan is often a better way to keep up with authentic news coming out of China. Like you said it's hard to stomach pure propaganda, and we on the outside often have trouble identifying the coding or double speak anyways.

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Mark King's avatar

I got a lot out of this article, thank you! The points you discussed worked in unison to help organize my thoughts which were until then anything but. I explained all of it, but was rejected for too long of a comment. Rather than editing it into incomprehensibility, I though why not introduce your readers to the magic of decentralized storage, anyone can download my longwinded PDF here: https://link.us1.storjshare.io/jvf45nv4srbkkllqctmraaiwhxxa/taipology%2FTaipology%20comment%20too%20long___.pdf

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