The YouTube phenomenon Song of the Grass-Mud Horse (Cao Ni Ma), has been doing the rounds since January. It’s a jaunty little children’s tune, with some rather, well, crude punning lyrics, taking a swipe at ‘harmonisation’, the PRC’s polite term for ‘censorship’.
If you haven’t seen it before, it’s here. As I’ve said, it’s a bit rude.
Anway, today it emerges that China has blocked YouTube, with the state news agency citing ‘faked videos’ of police beating Tibetans in Lhasa last year.
Could the grass-mud horse have got the whole of YouTube shut down in China? And is the Tibet story made up, because to admit censoring a popular anti-censorship video would be, well, to admit that ‘harmony’ is a little more sinister than it sounds?
