If you want to be the president of the most populated country on earth, you’re going to need a thick skin.

Or, you know, you could just ban Winnie the Pooh in the entire country because some memes are hurting your feelings.

Yes indeed, China isn’t known for its media freedom but this is next level stuff. Over to the Financial Times:

Posts including the Chinese name of the fictional bear were censored on Sina Weibo, ChinaTwitter-like platform, over the weekend, while a collection of animated gifs featuring the bear were removed from social messaging app WeChat.

While no official explanation was given, observers suggested the crackdown was related to previous comparisons of President Xi Jinping with the portly bear created by the English author AA Milne that went viral…

“Historically, two things have been not allowed: political organising and political action. But this year a third has been added to the list: talking about the president,” said Qiao Mu, assistant professor of media at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Shall we compare thee to Winnie the Pooh? Meetings with Barack Obama and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe below:

Sheesh, there is actually something there.

That being said, the censorship is worrying:

Attempts to post the Chinese characters for Winnie’s name on Weibo returned the message “content is illegal”, although some users appeared able to circumvent the block…

A photo of Mr Xi standing up through the roof of a parade car, next to a picture of Winnie the Pooh in a toy car, was named the “most censored image of 2015” by political consultancy Global Risk Insights.

Someone is a delicate snowflake, aren’t they?

What next, America banning the naartjie and the orange?

[sources:stuff&ft]