For the last few weeks I've been working with Chris Barkley @cmzhang42.bsky.social of @file770.bsky.social on a report about censorship in the 2023 Hugo Awards.
Leaked emails and files indicate authors and works deemed “not eligible” for the awards were removed due to political considerations. 1/3
Leaked emails and files indicate authors and works deemed “not eligible” for the awards were removed due to political considerations. 1/3
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This confirms my working hypothesis regarding what happened. I don’t know the exact legal loophole was used in declaring certain works ineligible, but I suspect it had to do with Code of Conduct.
As a German, the phrase vorauseilender Gehorsam/anticipatory obedience comes to mind with all this.
Men: omg its a V2 german rocket!1!1!1!1
Sounds like a ton of work went into investigating the matter. Thank you.
As to the revelations: Gah.
So they didn't bother to read the books or check your itinerary before using them to block people
i cringed so much reading the leaked emails. omg.
Just in case
I would be a little disturbed by the precedent of saying "Sorry, you can't have WorldCon."
We may need to have a standing Hugo committee.
Neil does great work, and he should be rewarded, just like any of the other potential nominees who were censored.
Agreed, but they were doing this because the event was in China. If it was in Belgium, for instance, nothing would have happened.
They were wrong. The organizers were wrong.
I recently finished the 3 body problem trilogy, which has hard themes for China's CCP to accept, but they did.
Letting the process play out, forcing CCP to deny nominations or awards, is the right path.
The US is also funding and supplying arms to mmultiple genocides.
You're here trying to red scare people who were not even involved in the censorship.
Thank you.
The dossiers really worry me. It's enough to make me wonder if that has happened in other years. The way that people seemed to fall into line...keep in mind, I've done peripheral work on Worldcons. Not heard a whisper of this. But someone should have objected. Why didn't they?
*if because unless you've gone and asked everyone who could possibly have censored things you can't be sure
The bigger issue is it was hosted in an authoritarian dictatorship
Still awful, and a sobering reminder that people's integrity isn't known until it is tested. If the Hugos are to continue, more checks and balances are needed.
This appears to be insiders who should know better.
In the actual voting round, enough of us voted for No Award for their categories that they got no awards.
Much debate then ensued.
May they be expelled from everything forever.
Gonna read it now, thank you for this.
https://scholars.org/contribution...
There's some surprise that the emails don't mention gov't pressure (which can either mean it was absent, subtle, or overt) but otherwise? After the disquals and evasion, who doubted it?
It's just that it was so blatantly clear that this is what they were doing.
It’s too long to copy paste but Diane Lacey, the whistleblower, thinks it’s a normal pattern. I’m not convinced.
Is it possible the numbers from the list that still had the slate were transposed onto the names purged from the slate and *that* explains the weird cliff thing?
https://file770.com/the-2023-hugo-awards-a-report-on-censorship-and-exclusion/
If the "official" censorship post is true, I'm still wondering about the final decisions.
But to have Americans and Canadians go right along with it? Inexcusable.
“Ironically, while the Western Hugo administrators appear to have taken these actions in an attempt to protect both the Hugos and Worldcon, the result has been the exact opposite. This controversy has deeply hurt fandom in both the Western world and in China.”
The amount of cases where corruption either started from or hijacked good intentions in the process was almost 100%.
Very few people intend to do wrong without an excuse for why they are doing it for something 'right'.
https://web.archive.org/web/20150506081738/https://sfawardswatch.com/?p=815#comments
Hard to get a public controversy out of that.