this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
247 points (98.8% liked)
Fuck AI
4917 readers
1839 users here now
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Neat! I remember... I think it was World of Warcraft? I thought had to censor skulls/skeletons before releasing there. But if that wasn't the case then I'm happy to be informed!
Well, that's a ban in a specific context.
I suspect that something perceived as being for children will have skeletons/skulls removed for reason of not disturbing them. (How bad is it? When I was teaching here, on my first Halloween I played the movie Ghostbusters as a treat. People didn't realize it was a comedy and were terrified by it. These are students between 18-22.)
But there's no particular cultural or governmental ban on skeletons in general. There may be context-specific bans. (I'm not really in the video gaming scene so I don't know what happened with WoW directly.)
From my perspective it was cartoony enough that I never really thought of it as scary but if you aren't exposed to media like that often or it's not culturally prevalent I could see how it might be good to adjust it for broader appeal. That makes some sense. Thank you for humoring my curiosity and teaching me a bit!
No troubles!
Just as a general tip, though: don't trust press reports. On much of anything. There's a powerful incentive in modern 24-hour news cycles to establish a narrative quickly, ideally a simple one, and then ignore the facts thereafter. Hence it's "China bans skulls" (or time travel stories or ghost stories or) as a simplistic othering "THEM THAR FURNERS SHOOR IS FUNNAY!" approach, even ignoring the geopolitical motivation ("CHINA IS DUH DEBBIL!" in the USA or "THE WEST IS KUH-RAZY!" in China), so you tend to have to look past the headlines and even the bulk of the stories published to find the truth.
And in this case the truth is skulls and skeletons were removed because it was deemed they would disturb children. 🤷♀️ There are similar issues behind the "time travel is banned" myth or "ghost stories are banned" myth or even the ever-popular "Winnie the Pooh is banned" myth. A tiny kernel of truth wrapped in layers of wilful ignorance, narrative-building, and geopolitical skew.
That's exactly why I wanted to ask and why I'm appreciative you took the time to give your first hand experiences. Funnily enough, I've been trying to do that ever since I ended up playing an MMO that has only been launched in China. Was a very eye opening experience once I was able to handle the language barrier.