Features
Obscenity Update
China’s Ministry of Culture has released a list of 120 songs that it has decided promotes “obscenity or violence,” and has instructed all website administrators in the country to take the songs down.
According to the official Xinhua News Agency, the content in question “violates online cultural management regulations” and administrators who disregard the directive will be subject to “severe punishment.” Many of the songs are by well-known Chinese-language artists, such as Taiwanese singer Chan Csun Yuk and actor Stanley Huang.
Chang has two songs on the list, one about passing gas and another in which he urges “Taiwanese girls” to “take off their clothes.”
A large number of the songs are by hip-hop artists. One Beijing-based group, in3, has the distinction of landing 16 songs on the list, though the worst that can be said about the attitudes espoused is that they put down formal education.
However, many of the songs on the list are there because of the kind of language used. Predictably, once the list was released, users quickly sought out the songs and, according to Quartz, everybody in China is now downloading in3 songs.