The Simpsons Episode Set in China’s Tiananmen Square Missing from Disney+ Hong Kong Platform

An episode of The Simpsons that shows the family visiting Beijing’s Tiananmen Square is missing from Disney+’s Hong Kong platform.

In the 12th episode of the 16th season, titled “Goo Goo Gai Pan” and first released in 2005, the Simpsons family travels to China looking to adopt a baby.

While in Beijing, they visit Tiananmen Square, where student-led pro-democracy protests were held for several months until the government issued a deadly crackdown in June 1989.

“On this site, in 1989, nothing happened,” reads a satirical sign in the episode, highlighting both the massacre and the country’s repeated attempts to purge references to it.

Disney+ went live in Hong Kong this month, prompting several viewers to notice that episode 12 of season 16 was missing from the platform.

“Basically, the whole story is for streaming companies to be more tailored to a Chinese audience and to not offend the Chinese government,” Kenny Ng, an associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University specializing in film censorship, told Bloomberg. “This is likely to continue in the future with more companies with financial interests in China.”

It is unclear if Disney+ excluded the episode or if the platform was ordered to remove it by authorities in Hong Kong — adding to concerns that mainland-style censorship is becoming the norm throughout the country.

Although Hong Kong had taken pride in its political and artistic freedoms compared to the restrictions set in mainland China, democracy protests that occurred between 2019 and 2020 have caused the city to crack down on censorship.

Hong Kong has since passed a film censorship law to “safeguard national security.” Under the law, censors can request that directors make certain edits to films before they are shown to the public. Violators may face punishments including fines up to $129,000 (HK$1 million) and three years in prison.