6 ms·

Doesn't the US broadcast regime change propaganda into the country via Radio Free Asia / Radio Free Liberty etc?

AzzieElbab 5y ago
Growing up in the USSR I used to listen to pirate radio - Voice of America, BBC, and likes. They never called for regime change. They broadcasted news, music, and interviews with Russian speaking dissidents like Solzhenitsyn.
the-dude 5y ago
Sometimes the US broadcasts bombs too.
cyb_ 5y ago
> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving the argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- foverzar 5y ago
  The idea of "whataboutism" and attempting to present it as something inherently wrong awfully seems like a convenient way to dismiss uncomfortable points of the discussion and turn it into yet another two minutes hate. Comparing how different agents deal with similar problems is not a thoughtcrime, you know. It is quite a healthy way of understanding how such problems arise and how to deal with them.
  - Jerrrry 5y ago
    whatboutism is whataboutism
    - pphysch 5y ago
      "Whataboutism" was popularized by Western propagandists at the height of the Cold War to deal with the uncomfortable reality that the USA and USSR, as modern empires competing for global economic/military/ideological domination, had far more in common than either would like to admit. Food for thought.
    - foverzar 5y ago
      So where exactly do you draw the line between "whataboutism" and asserting similarities?
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        Whataboutism is not "compare and contrast". It's "shut up" or at best "look at the wookie". Not every "let's look at what other countries do" is whataboutism. One-line "X does Y" almost always is. (Longer posts can also be, but the one-liner is a heavy signal.)
      - Tostino 5y ago
        If there are actual comparisons between them, it's much less likely to be "whataboutism".
        guerrilla 5y ago
        This doesn't answer the question, it's literally begging the question by assuming there aren't such similarities.
      - toomanyrichies 5y ago
        If someone wants to assert those similarities in a separate conversation, that's fine. Trying to derail an existing conversation about the actions of one country by mentioning actions of another country is a distraction at best, and arguing in bad faith at worst.
        avgcorrection 5y ago
- tehjoker 5y ago
  The American media is attempting to frame China as worth of fighting over Taiwan by demarcating it as exceptionally evil by demonstrating that it does things that no acceptable country would do. Unfortunately for that argument, usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    > usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior Actually, it's almost always the opposite. CCP requiring Chinese companies to hand over all user data unencrypted > USG occasionally sending NSLs to specific companies for information on specific persons. CCP stealing IP from the US, EU, Japan, and other countries > ???. CCP Operation Fox Hunt[1] > ???. CCP police threatening the family of a student in the US speaking about Tianamen Square[2] > ???. CCP hiring massive numbers of 50c posters to write hundreds of millions of social media posts under false aliases > USG operating Free Radio Asia with the explicit notice that it's controlled by the government. CCP restricting children to three hours of video games a week > USG preventing those under age 21 from smoking or drinking. CCP massacring unarmed students in Tiananmen Square with tanks > ???. CCP censoring all information about Tiananmen Square inside the Great Firewall > USG asking newspapers not to publish classified information. CCP operating a concentration camp in Xinjing with about a million people indefinitely in it for no reason other than their religion > USG holding a few thousand refugees in cages for a limited time until they can be returned to their country because they crossed the border illegally. CCP blackmailing various companies for stating that Taiwan is a separate country > ???. CCP invading Taiwan for holding the former rulers of the country that fled after a bunch of murderous revolutionaries overthrew the government and killed millions of people > USG invading Afghanistan to find a terrorist group that flew planes into our buildings and killed thousands. (note that in the first case, the perpetrators (or associates thereof) are doing the invasion, while in the second case, it's the victims). In almost every single case that China is doing something bad, America's equivalent is either far less bad or nonexistent. Even beyond that - no country is perfect (especially not the US), but when the USG (or governments of most other countries) does something bad, the citizens usually get angry about it, and the officials responsible either try to hide or eventually reverse course. With the CCP, the citizens defend it, and the officials claim that they're actually doing the right thing, deny that it exists at all (e.g. the Uyghur concentration camps), or counter with misinformation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_to_president_daniels_letter_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_...
- avgcorrection 5y ago
  It’s not a logical fallacy. It’s rhetorical tactic. Whataboutism is often used to generalize the subject, which isn’t a fallacy.
- trasz 5y ago
  It's not that, though. This is about showing that something that's being painted as a terrible abomination is, in fact, perfectly normal behaviour, and the whole story is essentially an exercise in double standards.
- LudwigNagasena 5y ago
  I never understood why it would be considered a fallacy.
creato 5y ago
Radio Free Asia/Liberty/etc. don't pretend to be someone else while they are broadcasting.
- foverzar 5y ago
  What exactly do you mean by "don't pretend to be somebody else"? They often operate under an umbrella of media projects that act as "local" news.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    https://www.rfa.org/about/info/mission.html https://www.rfa.org/about/info/mission.html Says right in their about page they are under a govt. mandate. The local language pages also have this information. > Radio Free Asia operates under a Congressional mandate to deliver uncensored, domestic news and information to China, Tibet, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, among other places in Asia with poor media environments and few, if any, free speech protections. All broadcasts are solely in local languages and dialects, which include Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, and Korean. Edit: A discussion like this wouldn't even happen inside China.
    - foverzar 5y ago
      Well one can argue that the Shanghai police was also quite transparent about it, given the following: > On May 21, a branch of the Shanghai police posted a notice online seeking bids from private contractors for what is known among Chinese officialdom as public opinion management.
      - Tostino 5y ago
        One would be disingenuous if they argued that.
      - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
        Don't you see the difference between that and posting a notice on the Facebook domain visible to all?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Growing up in the USSR I used to listen to pirate radio - Voice of America, BBC, and likes. They never called for regime change. They broadcasted news, music, and interviews with Russian speaking dissidents like Solzhenitsyn.

the-dude 5y ago

Sometimes the US broadcasts bombs too.

cyb_ 5y ago

> Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving the argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

foverzar 5y ago
The idea of "whataboutism" and attempting to present it as something inherently wrong awfully seems like a convenient way to dismiss uncomfortable points of the discussion and turn it into yet another two minutes hate. Comparing how different agents deal with similar problems is not a thoughtcrime, you know. It is quite a healthy way of understanding how such problems arise and how to deal with them.
- Jerrrry 5y ago
  whatboutism is whataboutism
  - pphysch 5y ago
    "Whataboutism" was popularized by Western propagandists at the height of the Cold War to deal with the uncomfortable reality that the USA and USSR, as modern empires competing for global economic/military/ideological domination, had far more in common than either would like to admit. Food for thought.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    So where exactly do you draw the line between "whataboutism" and asserting similarities?
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      Whataboutism is not "compare and contrast". It's "shut up" or at best "look at the wookie". Not every "let's look at what other countries do" is whataboutism. One-line "X does Y" almost always is. (Longer posts can also be, but the one-liner is a heavy signal.)
    - Tostino 5y ago
      If there are actual comparisons between them, it's much less likely to be "whataboutism".
      - guerrilla 5y ago
        This doesn't answer the question, it's literally begging the question by assuming there aren't such similarities.
    - toomanyrichies 5y ago
      If someone wants to assert those similarities in a separate conversation, that's fine. Trying to derail an existing conversation about the actions of one country by mentioning actions of another country is a distraction at best, and arguing in bad faith at worst.
      - avgcorrection 5y ago
tehjoker 5y ago
The American media is attempting to frame China as worth of fighting over Taiwan by demarcating it as exceptionally evil by demonstrating that it does things that no acceptable country would do. Unfortunately for that argument, usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior.
- throw10920 5y ago
  > usually the US is doing something more exceptional and extreme than the demonstrated behavior Actually, it's almost always the opposite. CCP requiring Chinese companies to hand over all user data unencrypted > USG occasionally sending NSLs to specific companies for information on specific persons. CCP stealing IP from the US, EU, Japan, and other countries > ???. CCP Operation Fox Hunt[1] > ???. CCP police threatening the family of a student in the US speaking about Tianamen Square[2] > ???. CCP hiring massive numbers of 50c posters to write hundreds of millions of social media posts under false aliases > USG operating Free Radio Asia with the explicit notice that it's controlled by the government. CCP restricting children to three hours of video games a week > USG preventing those under age 21 from smoking or drinking. CCP massacring unarmed students in Tiananmen Square with tanks > ???. CCP censoring all information about Tiananmen Square inside the Great Firewall > USG asking newspapers not to publish classified information. CCP operating a concentration camp in Xinjing with about a million people indefinitely in it for no reason other than their religion > USG holding a few thousand refugees in cages for a limited time until they can be returned to their country because they crossed the border illegally. CCP blackmailing various companies for stating that Taiwan is a separate country > ???. CCP invading Taiwan for holding the former rulers of the country that fled after a bunch of murderous revolutionaries overthrew the government and killed millions of people > USG invading Afghanistan to find a terrorist group that flew planes into our buildings and killed thousands. (note that in the first case, the perpetrators (or associates thereof) are doing the invasion, while in the second case, it's the victims). In almost every single case that China is doing something bad, America's equivalent is either far less bad or nonexistent. Even beyond that - no country is perfect (especially not the US), but when the USG (or governments of most other countries) does something bad, the citizens usually get angry about it, and the officials responsible either try to hide or eventually reverse course. With the CCP, the citizens defend it, and the officials claim that they're actually doing the right thing, deny that it exists at all (e.g. the Uyghur concentration camps), or counter with misinformation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt [2] https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_to_president_daniels_letter_and/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Purdue/comments/ri95tp/in_response_...
avgcorrection 5y ago
It’s not a logical fallacy. It’s rhetorical tactic. Whataboutism is often used to generalize the subject, which isn’t a fallacy.
trasz 5y ago
It's not that, though. This is about showing that something that's being painted as a terrible abomination is, in fact, perfectly normal behaviour, and the whole story is essentially an exercise in double standards.
LudwigNagasena 5y ago
I never understood why it would be considered a fallacy.

creato 5y ago

Radio Free Asia/Liberty/etc. don't pretend to be someone else while they are broadcasting.

foverzar 5y ago
What exactly do you mean by "don't pretend to be somebody else"? They often operate under an umbrella of media projects that act as "local" news.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  https://www.rfa.org/about/info/mission.html https://www.rfa.org/about/info/mission.html Says right in their about page they are under a govt. mandate. The local language pages also have this information. > Radio Free Asia operates under a Congressional mandate to deliver uncensored, domestic news and information to China, Tibet, North Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Burma, among other places in Asia with poor media environments and few, if any, free speech protections. All broadcasts are solely in local languages and dialects, which include Mandarin, Tibetan, Cantonese, Uyghur, Vietnamese, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, and Korean. Edit: A discussion like this wouldn't even happen inside China.
  - foverzar 5y ago
    Well one can argue that the Shanghai police was also quite transparent about it, given the following: > On May 21, a branch of the Shanghai police posted a notice online seeking bids from private contractors for what is known among Chinese officialdom as public opinion management.
    - Tostino 5y ago
      One would be disingenuous if they argued that.
    - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
      Don't you see the difference between that and posting a notice on the Facebook domain visible to all?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]