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It's not just WeChat. They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push
by sacks2k 6y ago
It's not just WeChat.
They own stakes in many american media companies and movie production houses. They use this influence to also change our Media and push pro-Chinese propaganda to the American public.
- hyperion2010 6y agoAre you now or have you ever been funded by a corporate front for the Chinese Communist Party?
- shasheene 6y agoDon't insinuate shilling (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). If you read that comment again with more care you'll see it's not at all whataboutism (the "What about America doing xyz" type comment that tries to suggest criticism is invalid because behavior elsewhere).
- JCharante 6y agoI took it as a reference to the famous quote/question "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"
- hyperion2010 6y agoAs JCharante mentions, this statement was offered as a modernization of historical reaction to similar events, not a commentary on the parent comment. In that context the interpretation my statement basically turns on whether you believe the McCarthy was right or not and whether a similar person would be right or not today.
- wolco 6y agoSuperhero movies and blockbusters movies (and tv shows like Picard) always feature a part asian young character. I guess it helps their worldwide sales. Makes it easier to see the influence.
- gervu 6y agoWow, one character from a region that makes up 60% of the world's population? How radical. Next you'll be telling me that I should be worried because they included a black character and a female character. If anything, the fact that anyone considers this at all notable should be a sign of just how racially biased casting is in most Western media. The world isn't nearly as white as it looks on your TV.
- softwarejosh 6y agoyeah i literally dont get why the guy brought up race, they should be bringing up shit like video game companies making their black characters white to sell to china. or how about the basic example of blizzards fumbling of the pro hong kong competition winner last year
- pmachinery 6y ago> i literally don't get why the guy brought up race They brought up race because they were replying to a racist conspiracy theory amounting to them running Hollywood and pushing their agenda. Hacker News is one of the few sites - others being Stormfront, Daily Stormer, 8chan - where that kind of shit still flies.
- wolco 6y agoThat opinion is more mainstream then you give it credit. It is backed up recently by the nba losses (2 billion reported) for letting a player give support to Hong kong. China has increased their power. Calling that notion racist discounts all of the different people who make up China's population. China is a country with people of many different colors, backgrounds and religions. Thinking of China as a single color is a little racist.
- Aperocky 6y agoCan you show an example of blatant Chinese propaganda from those production houses? One that are clearly separated from opinion? Or are we using propaganda and opinions interchangeably here
- shard972 6y agoNew top gun movie?
- throwaway122378 6y agoDon’t think of it like traditional old world propaganda that’s obviously promoting China. The propaganda can be anything that divides the country. Both are the same result as far as China’s concerned.
- Reelin 6y agoChina exerts significant influence over the production process if you want access. (https://fortune.com/2019/10/22/hollywood-china-coproduction-abominable https://fortune.com/2019/10/22/hollywood-china-coproduction-...) It's not a matter of "separated from opinion", but rather the cutting of certain scenes or modification of certain lines of dialog. They also effectively engage in various forms of product placement on a more nationalistic level.
- Markoff 6y agopropaganda meaning they are censoring content of movies, good luck shooting movie where Chinese will be shown as bad guys... it does not need to show them in good light, it's just better not show them at all, if you intended to use them as villains or show truth about them, that's good enough for them and anyway in recent years they tried to promote China in movies as cooperating nation helping world
- BelleOfTheBall 6y agoHow about the fact that a character in a Marvel movie, ostensibly an inoffensive family film, who was originally Tibetian, was changed to a white woman just so it could make money in China? I don't think Disney has any Chinese ownership, but it's pretty blatant that the industry is bending over backwards to not piss off China and get the box office returns there. Here's a whole article on it: https://www.cnet.com/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-china-and-you-probably-didnt-even-notice/ https://www.cnet.com/features/marvel-is-censoring-films-for-...
- drukenemo 6y agoI’ve been suspecting this for a long time but came across few evidence for it. I’ve seen Chinese funding of Hollywood movies, but it’s always through an American fund, etc. What kind of evidence have you found? To me, the fact that Hollywood would never attack communism, is a big one. Thousands of movies about nazism, zero about the Soviet union and their crimes. Even Cuba is very underrepresented in the industry. Yet differently from a regime that lasted two decades, we are talking about one that persists very well until today.
- izacus 6y agoUm, what are you talking about? There were whole decades of Hollywood having the Reds as the default villain. Everything up to 2000s when they were replaced by middle easterners.
- draugadrotten 6y agoAmerica was at war with the talibans: America had always been at war with the talibans. A large part of the political literature of five years was now completely obsolete. Reports and records of all kinds, newspapers, books, pamphlets, films, sound-tracks, photographs--all had to be rectified at lightning speed. Although no directive was ever issued, it was known that the chiefs of the Department intended that within one week no reference to the war with communism, or the alliance with the talibans, should remain in existence anywhere.
- vinay427 6y agoExcept that all of this material (movies and TV, news articles, reports) is still available. I don't see how this adapted quote is at all applicable. The whole point of the 1984 scenario was that people couldn't talk about the preceding period and no evidence supporting its existence could be found.
- Terr_ 6y agoI'll go a step further: Not only is the evidence and history of US-Taliban relations all still there, but the accused-1984 people weren't even denying the history exists. They were, at worst, just glossing over it. Let's suppose that there are five tiers on the spectrum of "good" to "1984": Acknowledge the history; Omit it; Contradict it, Erase it, Punish dissenters. Prior to 2016 most US politicians never went past Omit.
- xf1cf 6y agoYou can see the pro-chinese propaganda on this site alone. The number of people supporting Zoom, WHO, WeChat, etc is enough to conclude with near certainty this site as well is owned by the Chinese. Unfortunately this comment and mine will be downvoted to oblivion. But the truth is the Chinese war doctrine is to purchase land and acquire covenants. Look at Africa, Indonesia, and India. They are bought wholesale by China because they've been unable to pay their debt to the country. What you're speaking is truth. It's a shame this site will censor you. EDIT: Keep the downvotes coming. You're making my point. Tech is owned by the Chinese government. You either wake up now or you're fall asleep forever. I encourage everyone to look into Chinese business along the sea borders of India, Indonesia, and Africa. Their war doctrine is not obvious. It's critical people become aware of the sphere of influence. It is no coincidence so much information suppression has gone on the last 3 months...
- mads 6y agoIt is no coincidence, when Chinese companies decide to invest in western culture (and subsequently decide you cannot flash certain flags, show certain teddy bears or express your opinion on whether you think a city should be free or not), buy a hotel near a naval base or push cheap network equipment. The doctrine is commonly known as 3 warfares and was drawn up by officers in the Chinese military in the beginning of the 90'ies. The success of the officers behind the strategy have since moved on to become high ranking military officials, which should give you an idea about how their work was received within the Chinese government. Looking for classic cold war patterns is not going work with China.
- square_usual 6y agoI haven't seen anybody "support" WeChat on HN, and even Zoom has been catching a lot of flack here. More than that, though, your jump from the users of a site supposedly supporting certain products to the site itself being owned by the Chinese is hilariously absurd. Maybe you should actually think about what you're saying before the next time you yell "Wake up, sheeple!"
- system2 6y agoDownvotes don't mean censorship. You clearly made your point with complete freedom of speech. Agreeing with you is another thing.
- 88840-8855 6y agoPropaganda is propaganda. It does not surprise me and it is very obvious - even more obvious then the "USA SO HERO" and "WESTERN STUFF IS SO COOL" propaganda in movies.
- throwaway391003 6y agoHere's a really interesting article I read a while back that gave me some reconsideration for Western culture... I still don't know if I agree but it still gave me food for thought https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2020/04/what-i-learned-in-peace-corps-in-africa-kinship-collectivism-brings-public-defecation-laziness-corruption-infidelity.html https://www.eurocanadian.ca/2020/04/what-i-learned-in-peace-... A little excerpt: "As a twenty-one-year-old starting out in the Peace Corps, I loved Senegal. In fact, I was euphoric. I quickly made friends and had an adopted family. I relished the feeling of the brotherhood of man. People were open, willing to share their lives and, after they knew you, their innermost thoughts. The longer I lived there, the more I understood: it became blindingly obvious that the Senegalese are not the same as us. The truths we hold to be self-evident are not evident to the Senegalese. How could they be? Their reality is totally different. You can't understand anything in Senegal using American terms."
- itsmeamario 6y agoThe article was interesting but boy, did it take an unexpected turn at the end. I may agree with the article and the life in Senegal, but I definitely DON'T with the conclusion.
- fnordian_slip 6y agoHow was that turn unexpected? Didn't the part that said "Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a few decades later, liberals would be pushing the lie that Western civilization is no better than a third-world country. Or would teach two generations of our kids that loving your own culture and wanting to preserve it are racism." at the beginning clue you in? The author certainly doesn't try very hard to be subtle.
- 6y ago