Is China censoring World Cup footage of maskless fans amid lockdown protests?

Of all the countries that failed to qualify for the World Cup, China is perhaps the most at stake in Qatar.

That’s because footage of huddled fans from around the world embracing and grimacing during the ups and downs of the sports drama has fueled the fires of massive anti-lockdown protests raging in several major Chinese cities.

China is one of the last major countries to stick to a zero-Covid policy that has imposed severe restrictions on tens of millions of people in response to a rapid but small increase in new cases.

Now claims are surfacing that state broadcasters are showing a censored feed of the football tournament to block scenes of maskless viewers.

One thing hasn’t been confirmed: Footage circulated on Twitter supposedly showing a “Chinese media” feed digitally blacking out people in the stands.

A popular account that first posted the video said, “They don’t want the Chinese to know that people in other countries have stopped wearing masks.”

The source of the blurry video has not been found, and screenshots from other feeds people in China have access to show no blurring effects.

The feed’s logo and banner design also doesn’t match that of the state-controlled main channel, although it may belong to a subsidiary.

However, credible direct comparisons from different feeds indicate that the Chinese state broadcaster avoided viewers whenever possible.

Mark Dreyer, an author who has done extensive research on the Chinese sports scene, posted several scenes from two games that demonstrate the difference.

In one example, there were several seconds of gameplay as the feed shown on the BBC – shared by many global broadcasters – was cut to footage of Canadian and Croatian fans singing for their teams.

China Central Television (CCTV), the government-controlled broadcaster seen by 1 billion people, instead covered a broad picture of the Canadian executive.

The finding was confirmed by Bill Birtles, ABC Australia’s East Asia correspondent, who has written a book on Chinese propaganda.

After Croatia scored the crucial equalizer in the 35th minute, Australia’s public broadcaster SBS paused with long close-ups of cheering fans.

Despite the match being stopped for over a minute, CCTV did not show any close-ups of cheering fans.

Instead, the camera focused on the players and officials, with isolated long-range spectators in the background.

The South China Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper critical of the Chinese government, reported that the same edit was seen in the CCTV footage of Japan v Costa Rica and Australia v Tunisia.

Explaining how the apparent censorship would work, Mr Dreyer said: “In Doha, where the director sees FIFA’s main host feed, there is a CCTV broadcast team of about 80 people. But you can also access additional cameras, such as B. the “ISO” camera on the team benches showing the coaches and substitutions.

“Because all matches in China are broadcast on a delay (usually 30 seconds), it’s easy to go from a close-up viewer’s photo to one of those other perspectives – and viewers at home wouldn’t be the wiser.

“Of course there will be times when you will still see shots coming from the crowd – wider shots, after a run of goals, when an open shot would be too jarring, etc – but there has been a significant reduction.”

The idea that most of the world has backed off from harsh measures is deeply embarrassing for the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) led by Xi Jinping.

Official statements and social media chatter suggest that the CCP is promoting the idea that the rest of the world is simply ruthless in dealing with a threat that is equally dangerous everywhere.

Widely reported comments on Chinese social media platforms strongly suggest that raucous World Cup scenes quickly became an eyesore.

It is possible that censorship was introduced in response, while it is believed that unmanipulated feeds were displayed online by web companies less easily controlled by censorship.

Some stills of bystanders without a mask have also appeared in articles on Chinese websites.

An open letter shared on the country’s WhatsApp equivalent last week attacked Mr Xi’s Covid policies, asking if China was “on the same planet” as Qatar before being removed by censorship on Tuesday.

Its low vaccination rate among the elderly has already caught it in a “catch-22” of need to encourage people to get bitten while avoiding any hint that its own past efforts have failed.

The government insists it saves lives as official new infection rates rose from hundreds a month to around 30,000 a day over the summer.

But the outbursts of anger on the streets and on social media suggest that despite the sacrifices they’ve made this year, many Chinese don’t believe the virus is spreading again.

Many seem angry that they now have to sacrifice even more because only 1 in 50,000 people contract the virus each day.

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