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It's actually a bad piece. Let me explain why. Given that Taibbi is writing in English, most of his audience has not directly experienced censorship in China,
by yorwba 5y ago
It's actually a bad piece. Let me explain why.
Given that Taibbi is writing in English, most of his audience has not directly experienced censorship in China, even though they might have experienced censorship in America.
So what he's doing is taking something people understand through experience (censorship in America) and drawing an analogy to something they don't understand, because they've never experienced it (censorship in China), in order to use that analogy to make an argument about the thing people already understand. That's the opposite of a good explanation, where you take something that people don't understand and illustrate it by analogy with something they do understand.
Since Taibbi wants to talk about censorship in America being bad to an audience already familiar with censorship in America, he should've cut the circuitous "censorship in America is like censorship in China, which is bad because (insert half-remembered news report here), therefore censorship in America is bad" because it is much less illuminating than "censorship in America includes censoring Matt Orfalea, which is bad, therefore censorship in America is bad."
A lot of reporting about China is like that, where a bunch of people who've never been to China use "China" as a symbol for "things we don't like about America."
Case in point, censorship in China isn't like censorship in America. Yes, in both cases removing a social media post requires the social media company in question to do the censoring. But Chinese companies do it because every time they try to censor less, the government steps in and shuts them down. https://www.whatsonweibo.com/tuber-app-that-promises-access-to-blocked-sites-in-china-is-now-blocked/ https://www.whatsonweibo.com/tuber-app-that-promises-access-... If the Chinese government were to be miraculously replaced tomorrow, the social media giants would stop censoring most content.
If the US government were to be replaced... Well, electing a Republican president didn't stop social media companies from censoring him, because their leaders and most of their employees thought that was the right thing to do. So combating censorship in America is much harder, because it would require replacing large parts of the technology landscape. And that doesn't seem to be realistic, since e.g. Parler is so dependent on being in the Apple store that they censor content just for Apple users: https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/apple-requires-particular-kind-of-content-censorship-to-reinstate-parler-on-app-store-interim-ceo-meckler https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/apple-requires-partic...
- amadeuspagel 5y ago> So what he's doing is taking something people understand through experience (censorship in America) and drawing an analogy to something they don't understand, because they've never experienced it (censorship in China), in order to use that analogy to make an argument about the thing people already understand. That's the opposite of a good explanation, where you take something that people don't understand and illustrate it by analogy with something they do understand. What experience would that be? The experience of being censored? The experience of censoring others? The experience of seeing stuff censored that you agree or disagree with? All these experiences bias people, making true understanding harder, which is why the analogy to the way censorship works in other countries is so useful. > Case in point, censorship in China isn't like censorship in America. Yes, in both cases removing a social media post requires the social media company in question to do the censoring. But Chinese companies do it because every time they try to censor less, the government steps in and shuts them down. https://www.whatsonweibo.com/tuber-app-that-promises-access-to-blocked-sites-in-china-is-now-blocked/ https://www.whatsonweibo.com/tuber-app-that-promises-access-... Your own link is an example of censorship by private companies in China - a social media platform and an app store.
- yorwba 5y ago> All these experiences bias people, making true understanding harder Do all experiences bias people in a way that makes true understanding harder? Meaning that true understanding can only exist in the absence of first-hand knowledge? Or is there a way to experience something in a way that furthers understanding? > which is why the analogy to the way censorship works in other countries is so useful. Is it useful? What is it that Americans understand about censorship in China that they can't understand about censorship in America? > Your own link is an example of censorship by private companies in China - a social media platform and an app store. Do you think those private companies made that decision without influence from the government? Admittedly, it's hard to get a direct statement from the government why something was taken down. E.g. when Zhao Lijian of the Foreign Ministry was asked about it, he just said that it wasn't a diplomatic issue, so he had no handle on the situation, and anyways the internet is managed according to law. http://by.china-embassy.org/chn/wjbzs/t1823326.htm http://by.china-embassy.org/chn/wjbzs/t1823326.htm