Check for yourself: Is China censoring fan celebrations at the World Cup? | Israel today

A heated discussion is taking place these days on social networks after a number of users compared FIFA's international broadcast to the one broadcast in China and discovered considerable differences between the two, especially when the cameras are facing the audience in the stadiums. Conspiracy or censorship? You decide.

Those who recognized the phenomenon believe that in Beijing they decided to limit close-ups of a crowd celebrating without masks and social distancing, this is due to the fact that China is following a policy of closures against the corona virus against the background of the new wave of morbidity in the People's Republic.

"I thought it was bullshit that the Chinese Broadcasting Corporation was censoring pictures of fans because of anger at home in light of the lockdowns, but it's true. The Chinese Broadcasting Corporation is avoiding close-ups of the crowd," states the reporter for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Bill Birtles from Taipei.

So I thought it was BS that China's govt broadcaster was censoring shots of fans at the World Cup due to lockdown anger back home.

But it's true.

Here are live feeds from SBS & CCTV (which has a 32 second delay).

As @DreyerChina explained, CCTV avoids crowd close ups: pic.twitter.com/wWui0cTdkC

— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) November 27, 2022

Here's the Canadian goal from the same match.

The int'l feed everyone else gets shows fans close up.

CCTV switches out those shots with feeds of coaches or wide shots.

Watched 2 games - very obvious.

It's imperfect though - one cheering fans shot snuck through in the replay: pic.twitter.com/yo7oVUJ2nU

— Bill Birtles (@billbirtles) November 27, 2022

The reporter presented a comparison between the international broadcast from Canada's last match against Croatia from yesterday (Sunday), when the cameras in Qatar are aimed at the celebrants, while in China they show close-ups of the coach, his staff or the players.

Another Twitter user, labored over the differences and found more substantial gaps after he decided to take his initiative to his side.

"Close-ups of Canadians and Croatians on the international broadcast were replaced (in China) with a single close-up of Canadian coach John Hardman on CCTV."

Meanwhile, several areas in China are under complete or partial lockdown, including Shanghai, the country's financial center.

This morning the protests against the policies of the local authorities continued with reports of citizens being arrested by the police, including a BBC reporter covering the event in Shanghai.

Some people still refuse to see this, so decided to track it.

Within a minute, there was this: close-up shots of Canadian and Croatian fans on BBC/international feed, replaced by a solo shot of Canadian coach John Herdman on CCTV.

pic.twitter.com/V3DZRjHrzk

— Mark Dreyer (@DreyerChina) November 27, 2022

Demonstrations in China against the Corona policy, photo: AFP

Since the fire that killed 10 people in a residential building in the city of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang last Thursday, the anger among the residents is intensifying.

Local residents claim that the lockdown that the area was under at the time of the accident prevented people from leaving the burning building, something that the local authorities reject.

The number of confirmed cases in the last day crossed the record since the beginning of the epidemic with 40,052 new infections, about 500 more than the day before.

were we wrong

We will fix it!

If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us