NetEase Shares Fall After Nationalist Backlash in China Over Winnie the Pooh Post (ft.com) 30
Shares in NetEase dropped on Monday morning after the Chinese gaming company fell foul of China's censors over a social media post that was suspected of alluding to Winnie the Pooh, a popular way to derisively refer to President Xi Jinping. From a report: The company said over the weekend that it would delay the Asian release of the blockbuster game Diablo Immortal, sending its Hong Kong-listed shares down 9 per cent in the morning to HK$137 before they slightly pared losses by midday. Diablo Immortal, an online multiplayer action game developed by NetEase and Activision Blizzard, had been scheduled to launch in China on June 23. But on Sunday, Diablo Immortal said the release date would be pushed back to "optimise the gaming experience."
The delay came as a screenshot circulated online of a post published by the game's official account on Weibo, the popular Chinese microblogging site, dated May 22 that read: "Why hasn't the bear stepped down." The remark was interpreted as a reference to China's President Xi Jinping, who is often illustrated as Disney's Winnie the Pooh. The cartoon bear has been blacklisted by censors in China for years.
The delay came as a screenshot circulated online of a post published by the game's official account on Weibo, the popular Chinese microblogging site, dated May 22 that read: "Why hasn't the bear stepped down." The remark was interpreted as a reference to China's President Xi Jinping, who is often illustrated as Disney's Winnie the Pooh. The cartoon bear has been blacklisted by censors in China for years.
Everybody sucks here (Score:5, Insightful)
Xi, Activision-Blizzard, Netease, there are no heroes in this story.
Do I root for the overly sensitive semi-fascist dictator who is offended by a cartoon bear? Or do I root for the once great company that is now a barren shell of its former self trying to sell me a wallet draining pay2win shit-fest trying to rope people in based on nostalgia vibes from years past?
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One hardly needs a political reason to determine that crap game concepts, are in fact crap.
And I don't really recall China executing a semi-lockdown. I doubt China does either.
Re:Everybody sucks here (Score:4)
Xi needs a sense of humor transplant. He should have adopted Winnie the Pooh as his personal mascot.
This campaign against WtP is the strongest evidence Xi isn't especially competent. Probably feels threatened by Eeyore, too.
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Xi needs a sense of humor transplant. He should have adopted Winnie the Pooh as his personal mascot.
This campaign against WtP is the strongest evidence Xi isn't especially competent. Probably feels threatened by Eeyore, too.
Why should he? Eeyore [guim.co.uk] is retired [wikipedia.org].
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He's still around, though not Prime Minister now. Japan has a long tradition of hidden people pulling the strings of the people ostensibly in power.
However the current Prime Minister does appear to be something of a wild card, maybe even a joker. I don't see Xi as having much tolerance for jesters...
Re: Everybody overreacts here (Score:2)
Nobody down mod'd the post. The sockpuppet account can only post at -1 so there is no way to mod it down any lower. You could see that for yourself if you bothered to click on the Score link.
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Imagine being so butt hurt (Score:5, Insightful)
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He's not a president (Score:2)
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That's a real stretch.
I mean, yes, in the sense that "elected" technically means chosen and given that "President" is the Chinese Communist Party's official English-language translation of his title, in that sense he was "elected" to be "President". If I start my own company and appoint myself to be the company leader and give myself the job title "Ruler of the World", can I say that I was elected Ruler of the World? There may be a sense in which it's techni
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There has never in the entire history of China been a public election in the usual modern sense of that term
The definition of president doesn't require a popular vote. It just requires them to be elected. US president is voted in by the electoral college. Their president is elected by the National People's Conference. I fail to see how this is different in terms of whether they should be considered a president. I mean, sure, functional differences exist. For example, there is a popular vote in the US that does affect how the electoral will probably vote. There are also the prelims and all that. But, there is noth
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No, it doesn't. But the comment I replied to didn't just say that he "was" President; it claimed that he was "elected" President. Which implies an election. And comparing the Chinese communist National People's Congress to the US electoral college is dishonest in the extreme. No one who is arguing in good faith would ever make such an absurd comparison.
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No one who is arguing in good faith would ever make such an absurd comparison.
Sounds like something someone would say when they cannot defend their side of the argument. He was in fact elected president by the NPC. Full stop. That is a point of a fact. Anything else is irrelevant. The fact that you cannot stand the minimal level of comparison to how the US president isn't actually elected by popular vote is your own problem, not mine. I didn't equate the quality or nature of the bodies in question, but the fact that neither are technically a popular vote.
Standard issue despot (Score:5, Informative)
Standard issue thin skinned despot.
Not that it matters (Score:2)
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It is unlikely that "they" (the company) did this intentionally. This almost certainly was the action of a rogue (or disgruntled) employee.
As we've seen happen before - I'm betting this happened because the company didn't keep tight enough control over its official social media account credentials.
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It may have been a veiled reference to Putin; the timing is very suggestive of this, as Putin has been taking enormous amounts of egg on his face lately over the whole Ukraine debacle. (The phrase "the bear" has an incredibly long history in Russian culture, and Slavic cultures in general, going back *at least* to when the capital was in Kiev, if not earlier. Using it to refer to the Russian leader is obvious and not without precedent.) This is probably the most obv
There's a far bigger "Bear" out there. (Score:2)
It could have been a reference to Russia (Long known as the Bear), and indicating that it should stop invading Ukraine (stepping down is a term used to indicating backing from a conflict.).
Of course, we only have third or fourth hand knowledge of what actually happened and it's relevant context, so it's just speculation on our part either way.
(And I never put it past censors to go beyond their borders and attack thi
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Even with first-hand knowledge of the content of such a social media post ... seems kind of tenuous.
Oh Bother! (Score:2)
Re: Oh Bother! (Score:2)
This is nothing. Wait until The Berenstain Bears bruhaha.
Guess America isn't the only kookie and krazy (Score:2)
Wow that storybook stuffed bear really put a giant bee in China's bonnet.