(Hong Kong) An episode of Simpson in which the American family visits Tiananmen Square in Beijing has been removed from the American online video platform Disney + in Hong Kong.
The absence of this episode raises fears that censorship will become the norm in the financial center, like that in force in neighboring mainland China.
Disney + launched in mid-November in Hong Kong, and particularly attentive viewers quickly noticed the absence of an episode of the Simpson devoted to China.
This is episode 12 of season 16, which first aired in 2005 and in which the American family travels to China in the hope of adopting a child.
During this visit, they went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where pro-democracy protests were suppressed in 1989.
In the cartoon, a sign reads “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened”, a satirical nod to the way Beijing is trying to erase the 1989 massacre from collective memory.
AFP checked out Disney + Hong Kong on Monday and episodes 11 and 13 were available, but not the 12.
It is not clear if it was Disney + who pulled the episode or if it was the authorities who ordered it to do so.
Asked by AFP, the American entertainment giant declined to comment, nor the Hong Kong government.
Hong Kong has long enjoyed significant artistic and political freedoms from the mainland.
But to end the massive pro-democracy protests that rocked the territory in 2019, Beijing last year imposed a national security law that made much of the dissent illegal.
In June, Hong Kong gave a censorship committee the power to ban any film that could constitute a threat to national security.
Last week, Beijing-appointed chief executive Carrie Lam pledged to “proactively fill the gaps” in the internet and pass a regulation on ” fake news “.
His comments reinforced fears that the internet in Hong Kong might be subject to the same censorship as in China, where major international social networks, Google and multiple Western media are not accessible, all blocked by the “big electronic wall ”erected by the censors of the regime.
Content that satirizes China is still available on other streaming platforms in Hong Kong.