Winnie the Pooh censored in China
- Published
Winnie the Pooh has been censored on Chinese social media.
People who comment on the site Weibo with "Little Bear Winnie" - Pooh's Chinese name - are given an error message, while GIFs of the character have been removed from the app WeChat.
No official reason has been given, but the bear has frequently been compared to the country's president, Xi Jinping.
And there's an important Party conference coming up, with several top government jobs up for grabs.
Social media in China is heavily monitored and, although the companies that run it are private, they have to obey the Communist Party's wishes.
As such, there's a long list of banned phrases - ranging from the bizarre ("Little Bear Winnie"), to the even more bizarre ("Three Wristwatches" and "River Crab").
This isn't even the first time Winnie has fallen foul of the censors - it happened in 2013 and 2014 too.
But this is a crucial period for President Xi Jinping.
The Communist Party Congress this Autumn will be seen as a test of his grip on power, after he made many enemies in a widespread corruption crackdown.
What happens when you try to reference Winnie the Pooh on Weibo
The ban mainly applies to comments on Weibo, an social network similar to Facebook that's used by 340 million people a month.
In case you're wondering - that makes it more popular than Twitter.
Anyone who references Pooh gets a "comment failed" error message.
Similarly, when users search the site for "Xi Jinping Obama Winnie the Pooh", no results are found.
Instead they get a message that reads: "According to relevant laws and regulations, the result of 'Xi Jinping Obama Winnie the Pooh' is not shown."
"The result of 'Xi Jinping Obama Winnie the Pooh' is not shown"
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