5 ms·

Ah, so the Chinese company banning the person critical of Chinese brutality was entirely coincidental.

scarejunba 7y ago
Surely banning and then unbanning only triggers the Streisand effect. They would have left it banned if they wanted to do what you're saying.
- unityByFreedom 7y ago
  > They would have left it banned if they wanted to do what you're saying. Nah, they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. For critical content outside China, they minimize it via censorship when possible. Once the public becomes aware of censorship, they stop censoring. So in this case, there are probably still things being removed from TikTok that are critical of China, we just aren't aware of them because they aren't from this girl's account. As for this girl's account, they can probably artificially lower likes or something. The point of censorship is to do it without being caught.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    > Once the public becomes aware of censorship, they stop censoring. Not in my experience. The usual cycle on Weibo is that some sensitive news breaks, e.g. by eyewitnesses posting videos. This gathers attention until related hashtags start trending, at which point the Weibo censors notice it and remove the trending hashtags. Afterwards, you can still use a direct search to find posts about the event, but only if you already know about it. If you repeat the search, you'll notice search results disappearing or having their pictures removed. Some time later, the first post for searches about e.g. the time and location of the event will return some official statement, with the comment section disabled. Some other search terms will still turn up posts from the first wave of activity, but after a day or so those disappear as well. If the event is very sensitive, searches for it get blocked completely, even if awareness is high. For example, one study [0] found that among a sample of Beijing students who neither use VPN nor have a roommate who does, 56% answered a quiz on the Panama Papers correctly. If they had a VPN-using roommate, this increased to 78%. Nonetheless, when I search for "巴拿马文件" on Weibo, I get told there are no search results. [1] [0] http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fall/1984bravenewworld_draft.pdf http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fal... [1] https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%25E5%25B7%25B4%25E6%258B%25BF%25E9%25A9%25AC%25E6%2596%2587%25E4%25BB%25B6 https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%25E5%25B7%25B4%25E6%258B%25BF%25E...
    - unityByFreedom 7y ago
      Weibo is inside China. I said "For critical content outside China"
  - kerng 7y ago
    They typically arent removing, just making it not visible to a broad audience. In this case it became visible broadly, so this post is kind of the only choice they have to look somewhat independent. PR at its finest.
freeflight 7y ago
Just as coincidental as a US company banning a person for insulting the dear leader? [0] [0] http://pilerats.com/news/the-artist-who-gifted-us-that-nude-donald-trump-painting-has-been-banned-from-fb/ http://pilerats.com/news/the-artist-who-gifted-us-that-nude-...
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  Of course that was not done at the behest of the US Government. Criticism of the US, US politicians and Government officials is rampant on Western social media. The US Government doesn't try to censor this. Meanwhile, Chinese tech companies are beholden to the whims of China's CCP leaders. China's internet is completely controlled by the CCP. There is zero moral equivalence between the US Government and China.
  - baddox 7y ago
    Do you think it’s possible that the US government has enough control over public opinion/attention that they simply don’t need to explicitly censor in most cases? Who remembers PRISM? Did the government censor it? Or did we just conveniently forget?
    - CountSessine 7y ago
      Sorry; again, no equivalence.
    - Thorrez 7y ago
      I still see discussion of PRISM on HN. And of course if anyone forgets details, they can check the Wikipedia page. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=prism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      Anyone who would like to learn more about PRISM is welcome to search for it or look at (for example) the wikipedia page. Now, if someone in China would like to learn more about the massacre in Tiananmen Square, would they be easily able to visit (say) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protes... to read more about it?
Thorrez 7y ago
The article doesn't seem to say it's coincidental. The person previously made a video containing a picture of Osama bin Laden. There's probably a positive correlation between people who make videos containing pictures of Osama bin Laden and people who make videos critical of Chinese brutality. So if you ban everyone in the first group, you're likley to ban some people in the second group also.
- rumanator 7y ago
  > The person previously made a video containing a picture of Osama bin Laden. Does this mean it would be ok to ban all evening news programs?
  - pgeorgi 7y ago
    It may be a health improvement: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro...
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    I didn't say that at all. I never said it's ok to ban people who show a picture of Osama bin Laden, nor that evening news shows should be prevented from showing pictures of Osama bin Laden.
Angostura 7y ago
The moderator error may not have been coincidental. It was was corrected by a senior moderator and reinstated quickly.

Surely banning and then unbanning only triggers the Streisand effect. They would have left it banned if they wanted to do what you're saying.

unityByFreedom 7y ago
> They would have left it banned if they wanted to do what you're saying. Nah, they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. For critical content outside China, they minimize it via censorship when possible. Once the public becomes aware of censorship, they stop censoring. So in this case, there are probably still things being removed from TikTok that are critical of China, we just aren't aware of them because they aren't from this girl's account. As for this girl's account, they can probably artificially lower likes or something. The point of censorship is to do it without being caught.
- yorwba 7y ago
  > Once the public becomes aware of censorship, they stop censoring. Not in my experience. The usual cycle on Weibo is that some sensitive news breaks, e.g. by eyewitnesses posting videos. This gathers attention until related hashtags start trending, at which point the Weibo censors notice it and remove the trending hashtags. Afterwards, you can still use a direct search to find posts about the event, but only if you already know about it. If you repeat the search, you'll notice search results disappearing or having their pictures removed. Some time later, the first post for searches about e.g. the time and location of the event will return some official statement, with the comment section disabled. Some other search terms will still turn up posts from the first wave of activity, but after a day or so those disappear as well. If the event is very sensitive, searches for it get blocked completely, even if awareness is high. For example, one study [0] found that among a sample of Beijing students who neither use VPN nor have a roommate who does, 56% answered a quiz on the Panama Papers correctly. If they had a VPN-using roommate, this increased to 78%. Nonetheless, when I search for "巴拿马文件" on Weibo, I get told there are no search results. [1] [0] http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fall/1984bravenewworld_draft.pdf http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fal... [1] https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%25E5%25B7%25B4%25E6%258B%25BF%25E9%25A9%25AC%25E6%2596%2587%25E4%25BB%25B6 https://s.weibo.com/weibo/%25E5%25B7%25B4%25E6%258B%25BF%25E...
  - unityByFreedom 7y ago
    Weibo is inside China. I said "For critical content outside China"
- kerng 7y ago
  They typically arent removing, just making it not visible to a broad audience. In this case it became visible broadly, so this post is kind of the only choice they have to look somewhat independent. PR at its finest.

freeflight 7y ago

Just as coincidental as a US company banning a person for insulting the dear leader? [0] [0] http://pilerats.com/news/the-artist-who-gifted-us-that-nude-donald-trump-painting-has-been-banned-from-fb/ http://pilerats.com/news/the-artist-who-gifted-us-that-nude-...

corporate_shi11 7y ago
Of course that was not done at the behest of the US Government. Criticism of the US, US politicians and Government officials is rampant on Western social media. The US Government doesn't try to censor this. Meanwhile, Chinese tech companies are beholden to the whims of China's CCP leaders. China's internet is completely controlled by the CCP. There is zero moral equivalence between the US Government and China.
- baddox 7y ago
  Do you think it’s possible that the US government has enough control over public opinion/attention that they simply don’t need to explicitly censor in most cases? Who remembers PRISM? Did the government censor it? Or did we just conveniently forget?
  - CountSessine 7y ago
    Sorry; again, no equivalence.
  - Thorrez 7y ago
    I still see discussion of PRISM on HN. And of course if anyone forgets details, they can check the Wikipedia page. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=prism&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    Anyone who would like to learn more about PRISM is welcome to search for it or look at (for example) the wikipedia page. Now, if someone in China would like to learn more about the massacre in Tiananmen Square, would they be easily able to visit (say) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protes... to read more about it?

Thorrez 7y ago

The article doesn't seem to say it's coincidental. The person previously made a video containing a picture of Osama bin Laden. There's probably a positive correlation between people who make videos containing pictures of Osama bin Laden and people who make videos critical of Chinese brutality. So if you ban everyone in the first group, you're likley to ban some people in the second group also.

rumanator 7y ago
> The person previously made a video containing a picture of Osama bin Laden. Does this mean it would be ok to ban all evening news programs?
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  It may be a health improvement: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-ro...
- Thorrez 7y ago
  I didn't say that at all. I never said it's ok to ban people who show a picture of Osama bin Laden, nor that evening news shows should be prevented from showing pictures of Osama bin Laden.

Angostura 7y ago

The moderator error may not have been coincidental. It was was corrected by a senior moderator and reinstated quickly.