Chinese Olympic ski team requested a Norway public library to remove books | Hacker News Reader

Chinese Olympic ski team requested a Norway public library to remove books

norwaytoday.info

61 pointsdatashow16 comments

Something is fishy about this story. Why would a sports team in town for training care what is in the local library? Even if they went there, surely the team members would be well aware that drawing attention to a taboo subject has no personal upside.

The librarian they quoted doesn't actually say that anyone associated with the team brought it up, and speaking of that interview, where did the reporter get this story idea from in the first place? Seems more likely that someone else is showing some faux concern to attract attention.

Interesting point. Maybe a Chinese student living in the city has come across the books and thought the visit would be a good excuse to get the books to disappear.

Interestingly they'll probably moan about the city needing to be good hosts and cater to their guests' wishes, and maybe there'll be tantrum thrown about the Norwegians being rude and offensive...

The hubris of authoritarian states never ceases to amaze. I very much doubt Norway will comply with this, and they very well shouldn't.

It's not hubris, it's showboating for internal politics. Not only will Norway not comply with such a ridiculous request, the ridiculousness of the request is the whole point because "only a true believer could request something so ridiculous".

China trying to interfere with another country’s internal affairs. The irony.

A common and more effective technique (at least in US libraries for books deemed by some as "pornographic", "evolutionist", "offensive", etc.) is to check it out and never return it, or to hide it somewhere in the library.

> "They have said that if any of the Chinese skiers are caught with these books, they are afraid that they would risk being sent to labor camp or prison in China."

So don't go to the library and check out those exact books, then.

Reminds me of this: https://youtu.be/UwqV3NmD4ng?t=172

Highly doubtful of this being the actual words being spoken. Likely translated from incentivized reporting. Getting in trouble? Sure. labor camp? If they existed past 2015 they’re highly unlikely to exist in official language.

tldr; Norway library politely tells Chinese book banners to go fuck themselves.

Good. China's leaders need more push back in their overreach in censoring content around the world.

It's not always easy if large amounts of money is involved especially for small countries.

It's one thing to hold countries' feet over the fire over international conventions and other generally agreed upon conventions but this is basically international freedom of speech.

Imagine if Japan demanded that China take down books about Nanjin/Nanking when Japan was ascendant and China was weak...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com