China Bans Winnie The Pooh Over Memes

It looks like Winnie the Pooh has gotten his head stuck in the last honey jar--at least in China, that is.

Users on China's social media sites have reported issues with sharing images of Winnie the Pooh, the soft-spoken, yellow teddy bear who has spent the better part of a century teaching children about friendship and self control. Why are they depriving their people of everyone's pantless cartoon character? Memes.

According to the BBC, Chinese censors have blocked memes featuring Winnie the Pooh after several viral images began circulating online that suggested a resemblance between the bear and Chinese president Xi Jinping.

This isn't the first time that the Chinese government has singled out Winnie the Pooh. In 2013, a photograph of Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama went viral, causing the Chinese government to take action. The last thing they want is comparing two world leaders to two of the most popular and beloved cartoon characters in the world.

The following year, a photograph of Japanese President Shinzo Abe and Jinping shaking hands spurred comparisons to Eeyore and Pooh. If anything, Abe probably ended up on the wrong side of that comparison.

Trending on Weibo: Abe as Eeyore and Xi as a smug Pooh #APEC pic.twitter.com/lx53FzkVzu

— Deirdre Bosa (@dee_bosa) November 10, 2014

Winnie the Pooh is among the most frequent targets of the Chinese government's censorship. In 2015, a study by King-wa Fu at the University of Hong Kong showed that Pooh bear was one of the most frequently restricted images on Chinese social media.

While the ban mostly applied to Weibo, China's micro-blogging equivalent to Twitter, users report that their beloved bear has since returned to the site. This must make Christopher Robin, the residents of Hundred Acre Wood and fans of cute bears very happy.

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