No Joke. April Fools' Day Has Been Banned In China (washingtonpost.com) 83
Reader schwit1 quotes an article by Simon Denyer, who heads The Washington Post's China bureau: The ancient tradition of hoaxing and playing practical jokes on the first day of April has fallen victim to China's crackdown. Like democracy and free speech, it is a Western concept that simply isn't welcome here."'April Fools' Day' is not consistent with our cultural tradition, or socialist core values," state news agency Xinhua announced on social media Friday. "Hope nobody believes in rumors, makes rumors or spreads rumors." As part of a long-running effort to win control of the narrative on social media and deter dissent, China's Communist Party launched a campaign three years ago to criminalize the spreading of rumors. Xinhua's post suggests an April Fools' Day prank that mocked or undermined the Party could have potentially serious consequences.
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Donald Trump has already signaled his intentions to execute those who disagree with him
Calm yourself, CNN just reported that Donald Trump and his entire presidential campaign is the climax of a meticulously crafted and brilliantly planned April fools joke that has been 69 year in the making.
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OMG Ponies 10th anniversary not observed (Score:2, Funny)
/. treating it like "June Fourth Incident", must not acknowledge it happened
The Chinese are smarter than Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
They get how fucking stupid April 1 jokes are.
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Apropos: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Re:The Chinese are smarter than Americans (Score:4, Insightful)
April Fools jokers are assholes. We need a day dedicated to telling people to stop being an asshole.
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April Fools reminds people to skeptically evaluate what "official sources" tell them. It encourages people to question things. To not take them at face value. To wonder what the truth really is. Of course the government of China doesn't like that. It's the opposite of what they want. They want the public to blindly accept what the government or any other official source tells them, not to question it. Not on April 1, and not on any other day.
April Fools jokers are not assholes. They're fighting for
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Many of us are already at maximum skeptical. What we need now is a reason to trust anyone about anything.
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Genuine? (Score:2)
How do we know this isn't The Washington Post's 1st April article? Every newspaper I know of runs at least one.
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It sounds like China's sense of humor to me. Like, it is an April Fool's Joke, but the punchline is you get disappeared into an organ-harvesting van.
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Sadly the Brazilian newspapers are too dumb to make 1st April jokes. Or thinking on the other hand, they spend so much time trying to lie to us Brazilians all year long that we should not be able to see the difference when is April 1.
No dumb April Fools stories on Slashdot today (Score:2)
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I am actually rather enjoying the scores and UIDs in binary though. I think we should make it permanent.
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Or at least a user-settable option. "I was rated 101 Insightful!"
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Pfft, this coming from a 22 digit UID? I am such a young'un with a mere 20 digits! If I had bothered registering earlier I might even have a coveted sub 10 digit UID...
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there were plenty at work today, from people who shouldn't be making jokes.
Boss at weekly meeting: "and we're going home 5 hours early today....april fools!" .... NO. JUST NO. SHUT UP AND GET THIS STUPID MEETING OVER WITH.
That's what they need to ban: bad workplace April Fools "jokes".
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I have never thought of it that way. The government almost always seems to think what they're doing is moral and just. But, the word crackdown means tyranny or oppression to me. For better or worse, every law is reducing someone's liberties - such as the liberty to own slaves. (It's probably a good idea to have that law. Don't get me wrong.)
Anyhow, whenever I hear a government crackdown is going on - it usually means they're going trampling on someone's liberties or, worse, freedoms.
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Government, at it's best, is an intermediary to determine where one person's liberties end and another's begins. For example, I might insist that I have the liberty to take your property, but this infringes on your liberty to keep your own property. The government steps in and sets rules. It might limit some liberties but it's needed to ensure that society doesn't descend into anarchy.
When government goes too far, though, it begins restricting liberties in the name of preserving government power or to pr
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Government, at it's best, is an intermediary to determine where one person's liberties end and another's begins
It's about time someone said it.
People tend to forget that we are all government and that the crazies in power come and go. We as voter hardly practice our rights to fight decisions made at our government that we in majority disagree with. There is no doubt our officials are trying to pull the rug from under us on some issues but until it's significant enough that the majority feels oppressed, the majority will remain inactive on the issues.
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Yeah, governments bully people. That's why people like me advocate government bullying should only be used when absolutely necessary - a lot less than it is now.
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I concur which, oddly enough, gets me labeled as a ultra-conservative. I've yet to really figure that one out. I'm not even an anarchist, or even a minarchist. I'm actually pretty damned left on the spectrum and don't even mind reasonable taxation in return for reasonable services.
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Spotted the millenial. Your understanding of the term "crackdown" comes from recent pop-culture usage, although I can't blame you. The media has been using it that way (wrongly) for the past 5 or more years. But realize that the term "crackdown" means something very different to previous generations. It doesn't imply oppression at all -- rather just the opposite. It implies that the people being "cracked down upon" are truly guilty and deserving of the consequences. For example, "Jimmy's Mom finally cracked
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LMFAO
Umm... I'm 58. I think you can safely be ignored now. I should know better than to interact with ACs. Per capita, they're generally more stupid than the regular users. As such, you're dismissed. Have a nice day.
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such as the liberty to own slaves. (It's probably a good idea to have that law. Don't get me wrong
- except that ability to own slaves was the law in itself, the law started slavery [wikipedia.org].
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Umm... You know that there's more to history than America, right? It certainly predates the 1600s. I'm pretty sure we've been enslaving people for a lot longer than that. I'm gonna guess that we've been enslaving people since long before there was a concept of a central authority on a scale large enough to warrant calling it a lawful entity.
You're usually a bit sharper than this.
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I am precisely on point. You have had laws that were pro slavery. You had ' slave codes [wikipedia.org]' no less. Without these laws in the American Republic you couldn't justify slavery. Slavery in the USA was 'justified' by using the Bible no less, a Christian could not enslave a Christian, so all that had to be worked around.
Blacks in the America also owned property prior to 1600s, they also owned slaves, do you realise that? My point stands, you were saying that you needed laws to abolish slavery, I pointed out tha
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No, I'm pretty sure we've had slavery since Ogg was able to beat Ook into submission and then Ook gave half of his kill to Ogg to make sure Ogg didn't beat him any more. Of course, sometimes Ogg would still beat him, but that was just to prove a point and make sure Ook didn't forget who the boss was.
The laws that exist, those that prohibit slavery, take away Ogg's liberty to take the output of Ook's labor. They're an example of a good law but also a good example of how almost every law (I am unable to think
I'm actually envious of the chinese (Score:3)
... April fools.
Finally something I can agree with (Score:1)
No Joke. April Fools' Day Has Been Banned In China
Finally the Chinese government does something I can get behind. Kudos China, for getting rid of the single stupidest, most annoying, and non-productive non-holiday of the year. May others follow.
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No Joke. April Fools' Day Has Been Banned In China
Finally the Chinese government does something I can get behind. Kudos China, for getting rid of the single stupidest, most annoying, and non-productive non-holiday of the year. May others follow.
Yes, because we all want a government telling us when and where any attempt at humor is permitted.
Dr. Klahn is building an great army (Score:4, Funny)
His opposition to April Fool's Day is admirable. He has our gratitude.
Let's all give Dr. Klahn a big hand!
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KLAHN!!!
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They Weren't thinking about April Fools (Score:2)
From the article it appears they just want to suppress any form of social activism. April Fools' day is the last thing on their mind. Now if they have such a tradition then it could become an accidental collateral victim if it's done through a website, but who says such a tradition exists?
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No joke, should be banned everywhere. (Score:1)
I'm tired of a whole day wasted trying to figure out the better jokes as to avoid unnecessary work after the stupid 1st of April jokes. It's old, and it's not fun, it's childish this is what children do and it's fun. How the fuck did media and adults start doing these childish things? Her on after I will call all people I know who do 1st of april jokes for old-children as calling them retards would be degrading to retards.
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You should put a sign on your yard to keep the kids off while you enjoy your Metamucil.
Online april fools jokes are lame (Score:3)
Double standards (Score:5, Funny)
Xinhua announced on social media Friday
So they ban April Fools' Day but still celebrate Social Media Friday? What a country.
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Fourth is the array of annoying words they've added like 'doozy'.
What about "lookit"?
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I wish it was banned here too (Score:3)
China has the right idea.
"April Fool's Day" is an obnoxious tradition that I would not miss at all.
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It's one day a year to remind people to skeptically evaluate what they hear, especially in the news or on-line or wherever else people normally get their information. It makes an important point: it's much too easy to fool people with a plausible-sounding story when they aren't skeptical enough.
I can see why a controlling government like China's wouldn't like the idea of setting aside one day a year when people are expected and encouraged to question what is said. I do not understand why anybody would thi
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China has the right idea.
"April Fool's Day" is an obnoxious tradition that I would not miss at all.
Tell me, do you want the government to outlaw practical jokes in general, or only the practice of performing them a particular day? Maybe you'd like the government to outlaw other things you find annoying as well, such as spelling and grammar errors? You should also let your Congressman know which end of an egg you think should be legal to open.
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There ought to be a law against people who say: There ought to be a law! 8-)
Best lirpa loof ever! (Score:2)
Congrats Xinhua! Almost had us all believing that one! :-)
Mainland China: NO FUN ALLOWED, EVER! (Score:2)
SlashDot Banned on April Fools Day in China (Score:1)
So what they're saying is (Score:2)
Government conspiracy (Score:1)
The whole April Fools Day thing is a government conspiracy!
They used propaganda, to convince people, to persecute the people who celebrated new years day on the old calender, where it was on April First.
Discrimination against minoritys pushed by the government it's self! They could have caused a genocide!
Of course, it was the government of King Gregor. About the 11th century CE. (I think...) 8-)
But still...
You are all pauns of the King. Look up, thou sheep!
(look it up)