Ridiculous Chinese censorship used AI to change the gay couple in Together (2025) to a heterosexual couple (hexbear.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by xiaohongshu@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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Usually, they only censor the explicit content. But this is the first time that AI tools were used to directly alter the content of the original film.

By the way, the film has been withdrawn from a wide release in China after receiving too many complaints.

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[-] xiaohongshu@hexbear.net 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Depends on your perspective. All import films are exclusively distributed by China Film Group (中影) and Huaxia Film Distribution Co (华影). Both are SOEs (China Film is state-owned, Huaxia is state-owned joint-stock enterprise) but are fairly autonomous. This film, Together, was licensed by China Film Group.’

Again I encourage you to read the link above (with machine translation) to understand the topic in more detail because a lot of what you’re writing is misinformation.

[-] Awoo@hexbear.net 23 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Again I encourage you to read the link above (with machine translation) to understand the topic in more detail

I did. The link is just a bunch of quotes of random things Chinese people are saying on social media (with no actual links to where they said them so I can't source anything or even trust that they're real). What exactly are you suggesting I take from a bunch of random people online complaining that the change happened? Why does a bunch of random Chinese social media posts prove what I have said is misinformation?

What exactly have I even said that is misinformation anyway? You know SOEs act independently of the state, or at least you should.

Your info isn't even correct anyway so why are you accusing me of misinformation? You're claiming that this film was actually released in this state. It was not released. It was due to be released on the 19th of September and they cancelled it on the 18th of September before the national release.

This is version of the film has in actual fact not been released.

I don't know where the original article you're linking to is getting its information from. Either it's some private screening, a leak, or it's totally and completely bullshit. The quality of the evidence makes me suspicious, some weird low quality photograph of a screen, maybe a theatre, is being compared to the western version with a photograph of it on a literal CRT? Who the fuck is using a CRT to watch a 2025 movie? The more I look at it the more questions I have about it. The fact nobody is citing any real sources in absolutely anything is pissing me off.

I'm getting more and more suspicious about whether this is even real. China Digital Times is based in Berkeley, CA. Who owns this shit?

Edit: From the wiki for this site's owner:

The website was started by Xiao Qiang of University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism in fall 2003. Xiao has asserted that Chinese internet users are using digital tools to create new autonomous forms of political expression and dissent, "changing the rules of the game between state and society".[4]

According to Freedom House, researchers at China Digital Times have reportedly identified over 800 filtered terms, including "Cultural Revolution" and "propaganda department".[5] The types of words, phrases and web addresses censored by the government include names of Chinese high-level leadership; protest and dissident movements; politically sensitive events, places and people; and foreign websites and organizations blocked at network level, along with pornography and other content.[6]

fidel-wut This site is owned by a Chinese dissident working in a US university to make anti China shit.