The Simpsons cartoon episode from The Walt Disney Company’s streaming service in Hong Kong has been taken down because it made mention of “forced labor camps” in China.
On the Hong Kong version of the US company’s Disney Plus streaming service, the episode One Angry Lisa, which debuted in October on television, is not accessible.
On Wednesday, the exact time the episode was taken off Disney’s streaming service for Hong Kong connections was unknown, but the episode was still accessible elsewhere, according to news organizations. Growing censorship worries in the city are the reason for the cartoon’s removal.
In the deleted episode, Marge Simpson, a Simpsons character, participates in a virtual spin class with an instructor who stands in front of a computerized image of the Great Wall of China and says, “Behold the wonders of China. Bitcoin mines, forced labour camps where children make smartphones.”
The Hong Kong government said it does not comment on decisions made by specific enterprises, while Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is the second time the Hong Kong-based streaming service has removed a Simpsons episode that parodied China.
In the episode that was previously impacted, the Simpsons visited Tiananmen Square in Beijing, the scene of the killing of pro-democracy demonstrators in 1989, and discovered a sign that said, “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened.”
The Simpsons episode on Tiananmen Square had, according to the US publication Hollywood Reporter, “suffered precisely the kind of censorship it was written to criticize,” at the time.
In China, the subject of forced labor is delicate.
Years ago, Western governments and campaigners accused China of holding tens of thousands of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in detention centers in the western region of Xinjiang. China has denied claims that it engages in forced labor, saying that the camps are educational facilities created to impart Mandarin Chinese and practical skills.
Beijing has been tightening its influence over Hong Kong as well; the city implemented censorship regulations in 2021 that forbade broadcasts that would violate a comprehensive national security statute that China had imposed on the city.
Since then, censors have demanded that filmmakers make edits to their works and have forbidden the screening of others.
In mainland China, it is already normal practice to censor Western television shows and movies, with censors often removing sequences or outright banning content that they believe violates standards set by the Chinese Communist Party.
