7 ms·

Reddit has changed ownership structure significant since these comments were made. It is highly unlikely that Tencent would be willing to see their $300 million

Reddit has changed ownership structure significant since these comments were made. It is highly unlikely that Tencent would be willing to see their $300 million investment from last year diluted at all [1]. Tencent is also one of the largest companies in China, essentially a State Owned Enterprise (SOE). Such a move would clearly privilege American users, who have been on Reddit significantly longer, than it would Chinese citizens. Keep in mind the telecom connections to add the internet to China were not made until 1994, and residential was not available even to Beijing until 1997. [1] - https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/amp/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/11/reddit-300-million/amp/

henriquez 6y ago
Reddit is basically a Chinese propaganda outlet at this point. If you watch the moderation strategy of the default subs it is plainly obvious. Anything that makes the Chinese Communist Party look bad on current issues gets memory holed quickly. Occasionally Tiananmen Square memes are allowed to filter up, since these are super edgy and also ceded ground.
- nojito 6y ago
  Hard to believe that when the COVID-19 subreddit is firmly promoted on the front of the website and the mobile app.
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    The retoric that china had 'better response' is strong there. Again, like tin square, that is public and more or less ceded ground. Even if that was not the case, why would they not want more control over the conversation?
    - yread 6y ago
      Better response (vs US) is basically a fact no?
      - throwaway1997 6y ago
        Better response would have been to not cover up the existence of a Coronavirus for months.
        henriquez 6y ago
        Or not allow outgoing international flights from Wuhan while restricting in-China travel from Wuhan.
        yread 6y ago
        Which country restricts their own citizens from travelling in a quarantine? It's always the foreigners who are not allowed to come in.
        henriquez 6y ago
        > Which country restricts their own citizens from travelling in a quarantine? China. They were literally locking Wuhan residents in their apartments, blocking off all roadways out of the city with military, but allowing Wuhan elites to jet-set all over the world (but not anywhere within China) _during the lockdown._
        lostmsu 6y ago
        Would u.s. lock their citizens in? I bet no (and it is bad)
        ehnto 6y ago
        From the outside looking over, I would say the US did the same. I am not from either country, but I can tell you that most of our cases came from American travelers, at the same time your president was saying there were few to no cases. That was months after the US got it's first recorded case. We got one case from Wuhan, and we got 29 from the US. I know it was not the general US opinion, and I was personally well aware of the state of things in the US from the word of other US citizens. But maybe it's good to know how the US projects out to other countries through it's ambassadors.
    - andrewzah 6y ago
      Pretty much every country has had a better response to covid-19 than the US. I think you're seeing what you want to see. There is plenty of anti-CCP/China sentiment on reddit.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  Bingo. Its one of their biggest infosec ops. The rest are 'power users' and moderaters selling influence to the highest bidder. Its actually quite insidious.
- rat9988 6y ago
  I see more anti-china sentiments there than in hacker news. And I see it on hacker news way too much in my opinion.
  - rukittenme 6y ago
    You see too much criticism of a fascist state that at every turn subverts human rights for its own benefit?
    - henriquez 6y ago
      It’s impressive how well the corporatist media has twisted popular opinion, making criticism of the Chinese Communist Party a matter of “woke” politics. These are the same liars who sold us the Iraq war and told us to buy property on interest-only loans in 2007. But now we celebrate perjurers like James Clapper and brand people who rightfully criticize a totalitarian regime as racists.
      - jakemauer 6y ago
        Somehow I am able to admonish both simultaneously.
    - pbk1 6y ago
      It's almost like people forget the US has no problem caging children at the border, that lynchings of black people are brushed off as self defense by our "justice" system, or that only a generation ago we detained Asian Americans in camps not that different from those in China..
      - rukittenme 6y ago
        Its almost as if people can live in countries other than China and the USA. But of course, you're right. All criticism of the Chinese state must be couched in the language of America's own failures. They're just like us after all. Maybe when they nuke Japan we will acknowledge our own sins rather than dare criticize our dear friends in the CCP.
nickysielicki 6y ago
Tencent owns a portion of reddit? BRB deleting my account. edit: done https://www.reddit.com/user/nsielicki https://www.reddit.com/user/nsielicki
boshalfoshal 6y ago
You know, on HN I at least expected some nuanced discussion about this idea more than typical Reddit threads, but even here it devolves into "Tencent has a stake in Reddit, everythings censored, China Bad." Think constructively here. I am not touting any of my points as facts that China isn't massively censoring Reddit media, but take these as you will. 1. Tencent's stake is only 10%. This is far less than other VC ownership, and it shows. Reddits board of directors are all placed by American VC firms, and of course the founders themselves [1]. The majority of Reddit's funding is from individual investors and AMERICAN VC funds. 2. Reddit is banned in China. If all these CCP posts get so many awards, which in turn provide (probably negligible) revenue for Reddit, it would make more sense to let all of them slide by instead of ban every single one of them. After all, these "revelations" never reach Chinese users anyway, because there are none. And honestly, can't you use Occam's razor here? I know I am being very generous here about the CCP/Tencent, but don't you think that when Tencent makes foreign investments... they do it so that they can... wait for it... extract more value from them? This is all supposition, but Tencent will likely not invest in companies like Reddit on the basis of "Oh, a free speech platform, we can get money from this AND stifle their free speech, which is a literal selling point of Reddit in the first place!" I'm going to assume here that Tencent's goal is to make money first. If this is the case, it is in their benefit to maintain the integrity of Reddit, lest it receive the (ultimately meaningless) "wrath" of their "politically aware" userbase. Do these ideas 100% disprove that Tencent somehow influences Reddit to censor anti china posts? No. Am I at least making an attempt to think critically about the situation instead of falling on my crutch of "China involvement --> bad?" I think I am. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US
- Lutger 6y ago
  I'm surprised by this too, and then again not really. The Trump strategy to blame China seems to work really well and fit right in with some of the knee-jerk reactions in the tech-world, which does have a strong libertarian tendency. Censorship is the devil of tech world, and invoking the image of our Satan does not lead to cool and rational thinking. The West tends to want an outside scapegoat these days because things are getting ugly in it's backyard, and China is fit for purpose.

henriquez 6y ago

Reddit is basically a Chinese propaganda outlet at this point. If you watch the moderation strategy of the default subs it is plainly obvious. Anything that makes the Chinese Communist Party look bad on current issues gets memory holed quickly. Occasionally Tiananmen Square memes are allowed to filter up, since these are super edgy and also ceded ground.

nojito 6y ago
Hard to believe that when the COVID-19 subreddit is firmly promoted on the front of the website and the mobile app.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  The retoric that china had 'better response' is strong there. Again, like tin square, that is public and more or less ceded ground. Even if that was not the case, why would they not want more control over the conversation?
  - yread 6y ago
    Better response (vs US) is basically a fact no?
    - throwaway1997 6y ago
      Better response would have been to not cover up the existence of a Coronavirus for months.
      - henriquez 6y ago
        Or not allow outgoing international flights from Wuhan while restricting in-China travel from Wuhan.
        yread 6y ago
        Which country restricts their own citizens from travelling in a quarantine? It's always the foreigners who are not allowed to come in.
        henriquez 6y ago
        > Which country restricts their own citizens from travelling in a quarantine? China. They were literally locking Wuhan residents in their apartments, blocking off all roadways out of the city with military, but allowing Wuhan elites to jet-set all over the world (but not anywhere within China) _during the lockdown._
        lostmsu 6y ago
        Would u.s. lock their citizens in? I bet no (and it is bad)
      - ehnto 6y ago
        From the outside looking over, I would say the US did the same. I am not from either country, but I can tell you that most of our cases came from American travelers, at the same time your president was saying there were few to no cases. That was months after the US got it's first recorded case. We got one case from Wuhan, and we got 29 from the US. I know it was not the general US opinion, and I was personally well aware of the state of things in the US from the word of other US citizens. But maybe it's good to know how the US projects out to other countries through it's ambassadors.
  - andrewzah 6y ago
    Pretty much every country has had a better response to covid-19 than the US. I think you're seeing what you want to see. There is plenty of anti-CCP/China sentiment on reddit.
anewdirection 6y ago
Bingo. Its one of their biggest infosec ops. The rest are 'power users' and moderaters selling influence to the highest bidder. Its actually quite insidious.
rat9988 6y ago
I see more anti-china sentiments there than in hacker news. And I see it on hacker news way too much in my opinion.
- rukittenme 6y ago
  You see too much criticism of a fascist state that at every turn subverts human rights for its own benefit?
  - henriquez 6y ago
    It’s impressive how well the corporatist media has twisted popular opinion, making criticism of the Chinese Communist Party a matter of “woke” politics. These are the same liars who sold us the Iraq war and told us to buy property on interest-only loans in 2007. But now we celebrate perjurers like James Clapper and brand people who rightfully criticize a totalitarian regime as racists.
    - jakemauer 6y ago
      Somehow I am able to admonish both simultaneously.
  - pbk1 6y ago
    It's almost like people forget the US has no problem caging children at the border, that lynchings of black people are brushed off as self defense by our "justice" system, or that only a generation ago we detained Asian Americans in camps not that different from those in China..
    - rukittenme 6y ago
      Its almost as if people can live in countries other than China and the USA. But of course, you're right. All criticism of the Chinese state must be couched in the language of America's own failures. They're just like us after all. Maybe when they nuke Japan we will acknowledge our own sins rather than dare criticize our dear friends in the CCP.

nickysielicki 6y ago

Tencent owns a portion of reddit? BRB deleting my account. edit: done https://www.reddit.com/user/nsielicki https://www.reddit.com/user/nsielicki

boshalfoshal 6y ago

You know, on HN I at least expected some nuanced discussion about this idea more than typical Reddit threads, but even here it devolves into "Tencent has a stake in Reddit, everythings censored, China Bad." Think constructively here. I am not touting any of my points as facts that China isn't massively censoring Reddit media, but take these as you will. 1. Tencent's stake is only 10%. This is far less than other VC ownership, and it shows. Reddits board of directors are all placed by American VC firms, and of course the founders themselves [1]. The majority of Reddit's funding is from individual investors and AMERICAN VC funds. 2. Reddit is banned in China. If all these CCP posts get so many awards, which in turn provide (probably negligible) revenue for Reddit, it would make more sense to let all of them slide by instead of ban every single one of them. After all, these "revelations" never reach Chinese users anyway, because there are none. And honestly, can't you use Occam's razor here? I know I am being very generous here about the CCP/Tencent, but don't you think that when Tencent makes foreign investments... they do it so that they can... wait for it... extract more value from them? This is all supposition, but Tencent will likely not invest in companies like Reddit on the basis of "Oh, a free speech platform, we can get money from this AND stifle their free speech, which is a literal selling point of Reddit in the first place!" I'm going to assume here that Tencent's goal is to make money first. If this is the case, it is in their benefit to maintain the integrity of Reddit, lest it receive the (ultimately meaningless) "wrath" of their "politically aware" userbase. Do these ideas 100% disprove that Tencent somehow influences Reddit to censor anti china posts? No. Am I at least making an attempt to think critically about the situation instead of falling on my crutch of "China involvement --> bad?" I think I am. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/0893288D:US

Lutger 6y ago
I'm surprised by this too, and then again not really. The Trump strategy to blame China seems to work really well and fit right in with some of the knee-jerk reactions in the tech-world, which does have a strong libertarian tendency. Censorship is the devil of tech world, and invoking the image of our Satan does not lead to cool and rational thinking. The West tends to want an outside scapegoat these days because things are getting ugly in it's backyard, and China is fit for purpose.