Music as a threat to national security: The Chinese Ministry of Culture wants to ban all songs from karaoke bars that violate established guidelines. Local operators should check their offer independently.
According to media reports, the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism wants to ban all songs from karaoke bars that endanger “national unity”. Local owners are called upon to report illegal content.
More than 50,000 karaoke places in China
All songs that endanger national unity and security, violate the state’s religious policy and glorify profanity, gambling and violence should be placed on this “black list”. The law is reported to go into effect on October 1st.
The rules are intended to “promote basic socialist values and preserve national cultural and ideological security,” the US broadcaster CNN quotes the ministry as saying.
The individual restaurants should check their repertoire for violations. There are more than 50,000 karaoke bars and restaurants in the country. Since there are more than 100,000 songs to choose from in some of them, the government also sees the providers of the content as being responsible. According to a report by the British Guardian, the Ministry wants to encourage providers to provide the bars with “healthy and edifying” music.
Similar grades in 2015
According to the BBC, this is not the first time the Ministry of Culture has censored music. In 2015, 120 songs landed on a “black list” that “violate profanity, violence, crime or social morality”. Among them were songs like “Beijing Hooligans”, “Suicide Diary” and “Don’t want to go to school”. According to CNN, the title “Fart” was banned at the time – the text: “There are some people in the world who like to fart while they do nothing”.
Censorship is ubiquitous in China. Content that Beijing perceives as a threat to social unity is regularly removed from social platforms.
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