Restrictions on sexual media content in HK & Macau
Fellas, we spend a lot of time reporting crackdowns and LE activity but it seems there is less talk about the more subtle noose tightening in HK and Macau over the last few months. I'm referring to media content of a sexual nature (both online and print) and (separately???) open racial discrimination (incl on good-ole sex141). Here are a few recent examples that popped to my attention. Coincidence it is all happening in the same couple of months....I doubt it. Do any of you have similar observations or insight into what forces / legislation is driving this to happen?
1. Local online newspaper such as AppleDaily and OrientalDaily appear to have dropped all adult content from their websites. Up until two months ago and for many years before then (almost since the dawn of the internet...like, back before 2000), these two HK newspapers provided extensive daily content and advertising for the major Macau KTVs and SNs. Basically they featured pictorials of newly-arrived working girls and spreads of various girls at each establishment. I've watched over the years as this content became increasingly censored and then, in September, it just disappeared completely from both sights and in it's place came wholesone family pix. WTF?
2. Other Macau SNs like East and Sanado that advertised on other sites (incl cn141) grew increasingly censored over the last years (does anyone remember the online advertising for these two SNs back in 2004-2008...WOW, fantastic!!!) and then also disappeared completely a few months ago.
3. The One Night Stand and Start Up! magazines featuring Macau SN and KTV girls disappeared from the racks of 18, Golden, Emperor and Rio within the last months. I assume anyone who visited these places in the past noticed the shelves of porn beside the lounges. Well, as of last month at 18 the mags were completely gone and management looked embarassed and wouldn't provide a straight answer when I asked what had happened that led to the mags being removed. Like #1 above, the shelves of mags have been a staple in the Macau SNs herein for many, many years now so everything disappearing in one fell swoop is quite surprising.
4. 141 site pix appear to be increasingly censored compared to the past and that's been a trend for years now (not to mention all the competing sites like best161 that were wiped off the internet completely and, IMHO, had much higher quality pix). First it went from real pix with nudity to photoshop some years back, then highly photoshopped pix so that the girls looked more like barbie doll versions of themselves. What legislation or political pressure is pressuring sex141 and other sites? There's nothing illegal about walk-ups under HK or SNs under Macau law and, so far as I know, there's no legal basis to restrict such online content in either jurisdiction. Is it Big Brother in Beijing who's making this happen in spite of such action not being supported by HK and Macau laws?
5. Popular content sites like sepai.cc have been completely purged in the last few month. Just taking sepai.cc as an example for anyone unfamiliar with it, this was one of the largest sites for nude pix of Chinese women...all of them above and professionally photographed. Again, there's no legal basis whatsoever for the authorities to shut down such sites right? In place of the previous content on such sites one now gets, you guessed it, wholesome pix of families playing on a sunny beach and the like. Huhhh?
These are just some of the examples I've noted along with a different but equally perplexing change at sex141 whereby there's a new category that differentiates girls on the site who "Serve Foreigners." WTF is that about....does one see sites in other countries that specify what type of customers a girl receives based on his race? What's next on sex141....will there be a category for girls who only provide service for someone who's waistline is less than a certain size or who's penis is under a certain length? What constitutes a foreigner anyway? Does this mean anyone who isn't East Asian, anyone who isn't 100% ethnically Chinese (so that someone who's father is Manchu is excluded?) or simply anyone who doesn't have a Hong Kong citizenship? If the latter and most narrow definition, then I guess Indians and Caucasians who are Hong Kong citizens are OK but not someone from Shenzhen or Shanghai?
WTF is going on with this website and online / print media throughout HK and Macau? More broadly, what's going on with HK and Macau as so-called "World Cities" segrating the scene by race, restricting "foreigners" (incl, of course, Mainlanders) from buying a home, etc.? Where will it end and what's the ultimate goal of those leading the drive? It seems not only contrary to the law but also racist....both hallmarks of initiatives that generally come from far to the north of the Pearl Delta, right? Is it the start of a campaign to purge "foreigners" and what's totally legal but deemed to be "immoral" content? Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to bode well for HK continuing to be the open and cosmopolitan that has made it such a unique city over the last century. Perhaps it's just osmosis and over the coming years the divide between HK and SZ will become increasingly narrow. That, I would speculate, is precisely what the powers-that-be who are in congress right now want to happen and what one sees in so many facets of life here (freedom of speech, media independence, national education, etc)...and right down to the little details of the scene which is the focus of this forum.
- Matsu
[ Last edited by matsumoto at 9-11-2012 23:03 ]
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