4 ms·

The person you are replying to is Chinese and lives in China. Or at least their post history says so.

by graton 6y ago

perryizgr8 6y ago
Then their comment becomes even more suspect.
- pmachinery 6y ago
  Why do you believe simply being Chinese is "suspect"?
  - mantap 6y ago
    You can't really blame people for considering that. We know that China does participate in online misinformation (as does the UK and Russia to be fair). Additionally, people in China don't have a lot of freedom of speech to criticise the government. So unfortunately it does put a certain gloss on it when someone in mainland China writes something that the Chinese government would approve of. Because of the chilling effect, you start to wonder if you are only getting one half of the picture.
    - pmachinery 6y ago
      You aren't getting only one half of the picture, you're getting an additional half. Denouncing people who provide that other half as "suspect" is itself an attempt to ensure only one half of the picture is heard/accepted.
      - mantap 6y ago
        For someone in China to criticise the central government is for them to risk their liberty. It's not a good life to be dissident in China. Freedom of speech affects freedom of thought. If you can't say something then nobody else will hear it. And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it. So you have to imagine the missing comments from China, firstly the person who wanted to criticise the government but was too afraid to say it, and secondly the person who never had a chance to consider criticising the government because they live in a place where that criticism is taboo.
        rfoo 6y ago
        > For someone in China to criticise the central government is for them to risk their liberty. Only with enough publicity. For now, in order to summon something which can threaten your real life, you have to at least post the criticism on Twitter, and have several people "reporting" it by making it go viral. Posting on HN is far more below than that bar, yet people imagine this is what's happening in a "reversed FUD" way. > And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it. True, but mind you HN is blocked by GFW. So if a Chinese citizen appears here, it means he can read whatever he want, sans the language barrier. Surely he can't have high profile public debate with his peers, but I've seen really healthy talks about these topics on "underground" communities, usually on blocked messenger services e.g. Telegram. > So you have to imagine the missing comments from China There are real reasons why people may not prioritize freedom (not saying that I agree with this) and are happy to accept an alternative narrative about China. OP talked about his own observations of whats happening on their state-owned media, and the general reception of these contents, then made his prediction on what would happen if the U.S. ban TikTok, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me and pointed out a potential weakness of the CCP narrative. It is usually a mistake to dismiss these words and fill the blanks with your imagination.
- dang 6y ago
  HN has many users of Chinese descent living in the West. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for treating them like this. I'm certainly ashamed. (Edit: I didn't mean that they should be treated better because they live in the West. Obviously they should be treated better regardless of where they live. I mentioned HN's Chinese users who live in the West because they're an important part of China-related threads, which is not widely understood. Routinely they get accused of being communist shills, etc., when what they're actually doing is trying to bridge the gap between two worlds—an unenviable position as the gap grows. No one is required to agree with their views, but they absolutely should not be abused for this, and the HN users who do abuse them are behaving shamefully.) However hard we try, it seems impossible to get a large segment of the community to behave any better, and the slurs are getting worse as the geopolitical trend (and associated things like media coverage) continues. No, I'm not a secret communist supporter or any of the other silly things people come up with about this. Nor do I agree with the GP commenter; I've barely skimmed their posts. I simply want HN users to follow the site guidelines, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and not form xenophobic mobs. People have literally been hounded off this site by comments like these. Is that the kind of community you all want to be part of? I can't believe it is. It's the default collective outcome, though—not that any of you want that outcome, but it's the group ugliness that posts like this add up to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
hinkley 6y ago
How many times have we had to turn to the BBC or another news source for frank discussion of a situation in the US? You don’t always know what’s going on in your own back yard. The people who could tell you are too easy to get to.
enaaem 6y ago
Isn't hackernews blocked in China?
twat 6y ago
In reference to the comment two levels above this one, there is no better representation of HN than somebody who has no idea what they're talking about sounding absolutely convinced about themselves and then not only being wrong, but almost diametrically so.
- twat 6y ago
  It's so beautiful. Muaah delissimo!
crystaln 6y ago
Then they are in denial, more likely a brainwashed patriot. I lived in China for many years.

The person you are replying to is Chinese and lives in China. Or at least their post history says so.

by graton 6y ago

The person you are replying to is Chinese and lives in China. Or at least their post history says so.

perryizgr8 6y ago

Then their comment becomes even more suspect.

pmachinery 6y ago
Why do you believe simply being Chinese is "suspect"?
- mantap 6y ago
  You can't really blame people for considering that. We know that China does participate in online misinformation (as does the UK and Russia to be fair). Additionally, people in China don't have a lot of freedom of speech to criticise the government. So unfortunately it does put a certain gloss on it when someone in mainland China writes something that the Chinese government would approve of. Because of the chilling effect, you start to wonder if you are only getting one half of the picture.
  - pmachinery 6y ago
    You aren't getting only one half of the picture, you're getting an additional half. Denouncing people who provide that other half as "suspect" is itself an attempt to ensure only one half of the picture is heard/accepted.
    - mantap 6y ago
      For someone in China to criticise the central government is for them to risk their liberty. It's not a good life to be dissident in China. Freedom of speech affects freedom of thought. If you can't say something then nobody else will hear it. And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it. So you have to imagine the missing comments from China, firstly the person who wanted to criticise the government but was too afraid to say it, and secondly the person who never had a chance to consider criticising the government because they live in a place where that criticism is taboo.
      - rfoo 6y ago
        > For someone in China to criticise the central government is for them to risk their liberty. Only with enough publicity. For now, in order to summon something which can threaten your real life, you have to at least post the criticism on Twitter, and have several people "reporting" it by making it go viral. Posting on HN is far more below than that bar, yet people imagine this is what's happening in a "reversed FUD" way. > And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it. True, but mind you HN is blocked by GFW. So if a Chinese citizen appears here, it means he can read whatever he want, sans the language barrier. Surely he can't have high profile public debate with his peers, but I've seen really healthy talks about these topics on "underground" communities, usually on blocked messenger services e.g. Telegram. > So you have to imagine the missing comments from China There are real reasons why people may not prioritize freedom (not saying that I agree with this) and are happy to accept an alternative narrative about China. OP talked about his own observations of whats happening on their state-owned media, and the general reception of these contents, then made his prediction on what would happen if the U.S. ban TikTok, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me and pointed out a potential weakness of the CCP narrative. It is usually a mistake to dismiss these words and fill the blanks with your imagination.
dang 6y ago
HN has many users of Chinese descent living in the West. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for treating them like this. I'm certainly ashamed. (Edit: I didn't mean that they should be treated better because they live in the West. Obviously they should be treated better regardless of where they live. I mentioned HN's Chinese users who live in the West because they're an important part of China-related threads, which is not widely understood. Routinely they get accused of being communist shills, etc., when what they're actually doing is trying to bridge the gap between two worlds—an unenviable position as the gap grows. No one is required to agree with their views, but they absolutely should not be abused for this, and the HN users who do abuse them are behaving shamefully.) However hard we try, it seems impossible to get a large segment of the community to behave any better, and the slurs are getting worse as the geopolitical trend (and associated things like media coverage) continues. No, I'm not a secret communist supporter or any of the other silly things people come up with about this. Nor do I agree with the GP commenter; I've barely skimmed their posts. I simply want HN users to follow the site guidelines, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and not form xenophobic mobs. People have literally been hounded off this site by comments like these. Is that the kind of community you all want to be part of? I can't believe it is. It's the default collective outcome, though—not that any of you want that outcome, but it's the group ugliness that posts like this add up to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

hinkley 6y ago

How many times have we had to turn to the BBC or another news source for frank discussion of a situation in the US? You don’t always know what’s going on in your own back yard. The people who could tell you are too easy to get to.

enaaem 6y ago

Isn't hackernews blocked in China?

twat 6y ago

In reference to the comment two levels above this one, there is no better representation of HN than somebody who has no idea what they're talking about sounding absolutely convinced about themselves and then not only being wrong, but almost diametrically so.

twat 6y ago
It's so beautiful. Muaah delissimo!

crystaln 6y ago

Then they are in denial, more likely a brainwashed patriot. I lived in China for many years.