My impression is that’s how it works. There’s never a clear definition from the government, so whoever’s doing the self-censoring has to guess (and err on the safe side).

Maybe the site of Worldcon is what should be "censored" (vetted and altered) by the organizers.

There's not really any organizers who could make that decision.

The organizers are just whoever won the vote to run the conference that year. There's no actual organization that persists from year to year.

That selection criterion means there is some continuity and persistent organization.

Otherwise I could announce a Worldcon unilaterally and no one would have the grounds to stop me.

The only standing committee is the Mark Protection Committee which has the power to enforce trademarks and nothing else. They couldn't do anything to change the location.

Surely they could refuse to endorse the event, retracting any right to the "Hugo Awards" brand. The event would have to use another name, which would highlight the schism. Obviously a dangerous game, as the committee would attract more scrutiny on its composition and role as ultimate owner of the brand, but probably worth considering as a nuclear option in case, say, "fans" vote for Saudi Arabia next year (yes, "fans" - I'm sure any semi-competent state actor can easily stuff ballots in polls like these...).

That's the equivalent of the "Mike Pence can make Donald Trump president" theory. They administer the trademark according to the rules laid out in the WSFS constitution; they don't decide who is allowed to use the trademark.

The Chengdu bid won the vote legitimately. They would have been massively overstepping their authority to try to prevent it. It's unlikely they could have even won a court case if they tried to prevent it.

Maybe there shouldn't be one one next year then. I know I plan to ignore them thereafter no matter what they do and I hardly think I'm the only one.

> Because the site of Worldcon is selected by members (i.e, sci-fi fans) of which China has _many_.

One could argue that when parties involved have so different population numbers, probably using the percentage of votes relative to a country population, instead of just number of votes would be a better solution.

China also has many CCP members, some of them are told to vote for China everywhere possible. It ends exactly like this every time. Remember the NBA scandal?

>the amateur self-appointed censors couldn't actually be bothered to figure out what disqualification criteria would be

...as opposed to professional government-appointed censors?

Good point. Besides, there is no detailed guidebook on censorship in China. Every organization (media, social media) has to guess what the gov wants to censor. As a result, every organization tends to overdo it. Because 1). you never know if you miss one target that should be censored and 2). What is OK today might not be OK tomorrow. Censorship in China is an art (or joke).

That sounds like a very effective way to eliminate the oblique protests so common in Soviet fiction.