3 ms·

To be fair, a lot of it is fake news. So much crap is "reported" about China that a lot of often exaggerated and spun in a certain way. So I can definitely see

by tesasin 10y ago

To be fair, a lot of it is fake news. So much crap is "reported" about China that a lot of often exaggerated and spun in a certain way. So I can definitely see why the Chinese government wants to protect itself. I think Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" should be required watching to understand how real news can be spun to be positive or negative, e.g. 1 in 10 people die from this drug vs. 90% of people are saved with this medicine. That's what China is trying to protect itself against.

Waterluvian 10y ago
That and trying to pretend events like Tiananmen Square never happened.
justicezyx 10y ago
> To be fair, a lot of it is fake news. So much crap is "reported" about China that a lot of often exaggerated and spun in a certain way. This is just an excuse. The rich and powerful in any country wanted to control media. They need fake news and make them prominent. They certainly can eliminate them easily; just like they would to censor real news. But they do need them to become prominent so people can buy in that censorship is necessary.
- qb45 10y ago
  > This is just an excuse. Possibly, but in case this happens to be true it may be hard to convince them to give up on censoring Western media, right?
  - justicezyx 10y ago
    AFAIK, the censorship is driven by the fear that the western media's intention is to subvert the CCP ruling. Fake news were never a problem. Unless the fake news has the same effect. But in that case, it's not difficult to disapprove the claim anyway. China's Internet is full of junk and fake information. A while ago a poor young man's family spent their life's saving on hospital treatment that in reality does not help anything. Their belief comes from a seemingly legitimate source on Baidu Tieba. And just a few days ago, a patient believed that a doctor maliciously ignore his request to treat his daughter according to the fake "treatment" from some online search results. And stubbed the doctor 9 times, one of them pierced the doctor's heart. Such stuff are routinely ignored, why? Because they do not pose a threat to the government's ruling. Instead, they actually reinforce the fact that government control over media is needed, which obviously is a vote to their continued ruling. Another joke I learned recently perfectly explains this fact: In a community there is an abandoned car. The residents repeatedly ask the community manager to move it and no one did anything. Then one day someone painted "democracy, freedom" on the car, then the car disappeared next day...

by tesasin 10y ago

Waterluvian 10y ago

That and trying to pretend events like Tiananmen Square never happened.

justicezyx 10y ago

> To be fair, a lot of it is fake news. So much crap is "reported" about China that a lot of often exaggerated and spun in a certain way. This is just an excuse. The rich and powerful in any country wanted to control media. They need fake news and make them prominent. They certainly can eliminate them easily; just like they would to censor real news. But they do need them to become prominent so people can buy in that censorship is necessary.

qb45 10y ago
> This is just an excuse. Possibly, but in case this happens to be true it may be hard to convince them to give up on censoring Western media, right?
- justicezyx 10y ago
  AFAIK, the censorship is driven by the fear that the western media's intention is to subvert the CCP ruling. Fake news were never a problem. Unless the fake news has the same effect. But in that case, it's not difficult to disapprove the claim anyway. China's Internet is full of junk and fake information. A while ago a poor young man's family spent their life's saving on hospital treatment that in reality does not help anything. Their belief comes from a seemingly legitimate source on Baidu Tieba. And just a few days ago, a patient believed that a doctor maliciously ignore his request to treat his daughter according to the fake "treatment" from some online search results. And stubbed the doctor 9 times, one of them pierced the doctor's heart. Such stuff are routinely ignored, why? Because they do not pose a threat to the government's ruling. Instead, they actually reinforce the fact that government control over media is needed, which obviously is a vote to their continued ruling. Another joke I learned recently perfectly explains this fact: In a community there is an abandoned car. The residents repeatedly ask the community manager to move it and no one did anything. Then one day someone painted "democracy, freedom" on the car, then the car disappeared next day...