No, no. We aren’t joking.
April Fools’ Day has seriously been banned in China.
source: tumblr
“April Fools’ Day’ is not consistent with our cultural tradition, or socialist core values,” the state news agency Xinhua said in an announcement on Friday. “Hope nobody believes in rumors, makes rumors or spreads rumors.”
source: tumblr
Three years ago, China’s Communist party threatened to give severe punishment for online rumors. Threatening 3 years of jail time if anyone were to partake in ‘untrue’ posts, they spread their reach for online censorship.
source: tumblr
Linking April Fools’ Day and the pranks played to ‘spreading online rumors’, the statement rings true of punishment awaiting those who partake in the day!
Oooooohkay, China. You doing alright there?
This isn’t the first time China has shown their apparent problem with satire or humor. In 2012, when The Onion, a satirical newspaper, put up a piece stating North Korea’s leader at the time, Kim Jong Un, was the sexiest man alive, and the Communist Party Newspaper created a 55- page spread quoting The Onion on his “devastatingly handsome good looks“!
source: theonion
LOL China
source: pakistanigifworld
While it all may seem amusing that China seems to believe April Fools’ Day can have harmful effects on its people, this crackdown on liberty and freedom of speech may prove to be more limiting and infinitely worse in terms of what is yet to come for the country’s citizens.
Here’s to hoping this is an April Fools’ Day prank after all!
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