Radio Free Asia reported that
lmao
If this is even actually happening, I suspect it has more to do with China's pornography laws (which amount to a blanket ban on creating any such work) than homophobia.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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Article does indeed say
China last updated its laws on "digitally obscene" content in 2010.
Those regulations said the "production, reproduction, publication, trafficking, dissemination" of any obscene works that generate more than 5,000 clicks online, or that make profits of more than 5,000 yuan ($1,072), should be treated as a crime.
It's not immediately clear from the article if the works in question are 18+ or are just treated as obscene for being gay.
china's strict anti-porn laws have come up before, usually in the context of "distribution" being defined before the internet was widespread. idk anything about the alleged incident but if RFA is the only source then it's so distorted from what actually happened that we can have no idea.
This section caught my attention:
spoiler
On Chinese social media, people have accused police of "offshore fishing" — a phrase that refers to local police who have allegedly summoned suspects from other parts of the country for questioning for financial gain.
The phrase "offshore fishing" was censored last week on social media platforms in China, including Weibo and WeChat. [how do they confirm if specific words or phrases are actually banned? They don't specify in this article]
Haitang, the website popular with fans of boys love fiction, has also been suspended until July 8.
A spokesperson for Haitang said they were working on improving their services.
I will also note that they mention China's obscenity laws, but don't mention much about the content of the summoned authors' works, other than the homosexual nature of the content. I'm not a fan of obscenity laws as a concept, but the whole article frames the gay content as the focal point (calling it a "widespread crackdown on the 'boys love' genre in China," for example) when that may not even be what's causing the issue.
Sections like "the scale of action has been widespread, with estimates that at least 100 writers have been affected," also make me wonder, is this an exceptionally small genre? Because if it's really a genre-based crackdown, I'd think China would have considerably more than a few hundred people, even for the tiniest genre.
Again, I'm no supporter of obscenity laws, and I prize creative freedom in a society, but this seems like a re-framing of obscenity charges as an anti-gay crackdown.
ahhh ok more nuanced but still shit. personally I can't wait for China to shake off the rusty chains of social conservatism and adopt Cuba's family code or their own version of it.
plus it will fuck with the ACP nazbol types and technofeudalists that think China is some kind of model anti-woke hyper productive state
western outlet writing about china
don't make me tap the sign