Tuesday, September 6, 2011

China Bans Beyonce and Kanye West

Beyoncé's track is one of a hundred on a new list of banned songs released by the Chinese Ministry of Culture on Friday.

Beyoncé's Run the World, VMAs, Best Choreography, winner, has been banned in China.

Beyoncé wasn't the only VMA winner to have a song banned; Katy Perry had E.T banned, her collaboration with Kanye West which won Best Collaboration and Best Special Effects. Perry's Last Friday Night was also banned.



China has been regulating music on the internet and beyond for the past couple of years. With the communist government involved in everything that the citizens do, it’s only the next step in the process for the Ministry of Culture department to be involved with what goes on musically with their people.

The Chinese Ministry says that these bans are not related to content, but instead reflect a clamp down on internet music providers who are providing access to songs not submitted to the government for review or censorship. In a statement the Ministry said: "Our targets this time are online music products that we have not registered or reviewed. They don't necessarily contain illegal content."



Weibo, a Chinese alternative to Twitter (as Twitter is banned in China), has been in a flurry over the bans. One user, KeyboardChan, summed things up nicely "The most ridiculous pick has got to be Backstreet Boy's 'I Want It That Way' from 1999. I have been singing it at karaoke for 12 years - have I been a cultural terrorist for that long?"

China Bans Beyonce and Kanye West Music

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