The Chinese government is going to great pains to remove maskless World Cup crowds from its domestic broadcasts of the soccer tournament.
China Central Television, the state-owned broadcaster, is airing games on a 30-second delay so it can scrub most of the crowd shots that show nary a mask in sight and would challenge the government’s zero-COVID policies, according to Fortune Magazine.
The censors are spotlighting images of players, managers and team benches to avoid any alternatives to the Chinese Communist Party’s totalitarian approach to handling the coronavirus.
Fortune did say some close-up shots are still making it into Chinese broadcasts.