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My cousin doesn't buy it when I tell him the United States has more aggressively censored media than China.

by jennyholzer 1y ago

jennyholzer 1y ago
we're 20 years into social media 1984 and Americans still want to believe that it's unimaginably worse in China.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  It seem by all account imaginably worse in China, particularly in Xinjiang. I might also call to attention the disappearance from western social media of a prominent Chinese maker. I'm also unaware of anyone in the US being sent to prison for political speech online.
  - buyucu 1y ago
    Julian Assange might disagree with that.
    - ch4s3 1y ago
      What exactly did he say online that got him accused of espionage? I seem to remember the issue being that he was accused of conspiring with Manning to release classified documents, and possibly gaining unauthorized access to congressional records via an exploit in the systems access controls. I don't like the idea of the US government hounding journalists who work with leakers, but Assange was always tiptoeing up to and possibly just past laws unrelated to speech. I not a simple and straightforward case and does not prove that the US is like China in terms of censorship. You can be jailed in China for simply talking about the Tienanmen Square massacre or implying Taiwanese sovereignty, nothing comparable happens in the US.
      - buyucu 1y ago
        When China throws people into prison, it's authoritarianism. When America does it, it's for FREEDOM!!!! This is you in a nutshell.
        computerthings 1y ago
        [dead]
        ch4s3 1y ago
        This is a really disingenuous comment. I have correctly pointed out that Assage, who was not a US person or residing in the US and not jailed int he US was credibly accused of illegally accessing government data. I have also noted that I do not like the US government prosecuting journalists, which is the opposite of what you are claiming that I am saying. This is wholly different from locking someone up for political speech. The US factually is not disappearing citizens for political speech.
        buyucu 1y ago
        It is exactly the same thing, it just happens that you like throwing people you dislike into jail. You are just a hypocrite.
vorpalhex 1y ago
That statement is still incorrect. China censors directly and heavily, eg "pooh bear" In the US you are still very much free to insult the president, etc but if you post things deemed to be pro-terrorist or against what the Government wants to promote on social media, it won't go anywhere. Firearms or vaping content during the Biden admin as an example. The current admin has heavily gutted the federal funding and workforce that backed these efforts and issued bulletins to private industry, but I suspect there is still pressure from pseudo-government "advocates".
- jennyholzer 1y ago
  [flagged]
- adamsb6 1y ago
  You can buy Winnie the Pooh merchandise in every mall in China. You can't use Winnie the Pooh as code to agitate against the government.
  - vorpalhex 1y ago
    But here "Winnie the Pooh" is just calling Xi a lazy authoritarian. That's an insult, not "agitat[ing] against the government"
pizzathyme 1y ago
My understanding was in the US, they can openly criticize the government You are saying that is inaccurate? Or you are talking about a different type of censorship?
- jennyholzer 1y ago
  speech is heavily, heavily restricted in the united states, in particular on American social media platforms. there are a massive number of subjects which cannot be spoken about on social media without risking massive deboosting and the blacklisting of your accounts. this censorship is directed by "former" CIA agents working at all major American social media companies. In other words, this is direct government censorship of private citizens' speech.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - ipython 1y ago
    What is “deboosting”? If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company? Can you share the topic contents that are subject to your accusations? If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship.
    - dkiebd 1y ago
      > If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company? That sounds cool as long as you forfeit your Section 230 rights since at that point you’re more of a newspaper than a social network. Yes, I know all social networks do this currently which is why they should all lose their Section 230 rights.
    - 1y ago
euleriancon 1y ago
The nature of Chinese censorship makes it difficult to provide hard numbers, but it really is worse. America's handling of censorship is certainly not the best, and it has gotten worse recently, but it is not on the level of China.
- antonymoose 1y ago
  At least the Chinese have the courtesy to be obvious about it. The American and European powers pretend we’re free and open societies while actively undermining public speech that it doesn’t like.
  - ambicapter 1y ago
    You think they're obvious about it intentionally?
    - rangestransform 1y ago
      I think they cultivate the image of having a panopticon to say to citizens "don't even try", but in reality the censors can't see everything
    - antonymoose 1y ago
      Isn’t that the entire point of their system, the social score lets you know exactly what’s going on?
      - adamsb6 1y ago
        Social scores aren't real.
      - aisosodndn 1y ago
        The social score is not real. That is western propaganda in action.
        euleriancon 1y ago
ipython 1y ago
Really? Who do you think douyin hires to perform content moderation for example? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714013 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714013 Also, don’t forget to obtain your icp license from the government before establishing a website in the mainland!
paxys 1y ago
And let me guess, you think the USA is currently more fascist than Nazi Germany?
- afroboy 1y ago
  Yes, read what they did to Muslims in middle east.
IncreasePosts 1y ago
So what you're saying is "my cousin has viewpoints grounded in reality"?
elteto 1y ago
And he's right, one shouldn't buy into crap.

My cousin doesn't buy it when I tell him the United States has more aggressively censored media than China.

jennyholzer 1y ago

we're 20 years into social media 1984 and Americans still want to believe that it's unimaginably worse in China.

ch4s3 1y ago
It seem by all account imaginably worse in China, particularly in Xinjiang. I might also call to attention the disappearance from western social media of a prominent Chinese maker. I'm also unaware of anyone in the US being sent to prison for political speech online.
- buyucu 1y ago
  Julian Assange might disagree with that.
  - ch4s3 1y ago
    What exactly did he say online that got him accused of espionage? I seem to remember the issue being that he was accused of conspiring with Manning to release classified documents, and possibly gaining unauthorized access to congressional records via an exploit in the systems access controls. I don't like the idea of the US government hounding journalists who work with leakers, but Assange was always tiptoeing up to and possibly just past laws unrelated to speech. I not a simple and straightforward case and does not prove that the US is like China in terms of censorship. You can be jailed in China for simply talking about the Tienanmen Square massacre or implying Taiwanese sovereignty, nothing comparable happens in the US.
    - buyucu 1y ago
      When China throws people into prison, it's authoritarianism. When America does it, it's for FREEDOM!!!! This is you in a nutshell.
      - computerthings 1y ago
        [dead]
      - ch4s3 1y ago
        This is a really disingenuous comment. I have correctly pointed out that Assage, who was not a US person or residing in the US and not jailed int he US was credibly accused of illegally accessing government data. I have also noted that I do not like the US government prosecuting journalists, which is the opposite of what you are claiming that I am saying. This is wholly different from locking someone up for political speech. The US factually is not disappearing citizens for political speech.
        buyucu 1y ago
        It is exactly the same thing, it just happens that you like throwing people you dislike into jail. You are just a hypocrite.

vorpalhex 1y ago

That statement is still incorrect. China censors directly and heavily, eg "pooh bear" In the US you are still very much free to insult the president, etc but if you post things deemed to be pro-terrorist or against what the Government wants to promote on social media, it won't go anywhere. Firearms or vaping content during the Biden admin as an example. The current admin has heavily gutted the federal funding and workforce that backed these efforts and issued bulletins to private industry, but I suspect there is still pressure from pseudo-government "advocates".

jennyholzer 1y ago
[flagged]
adamsb6 1y ago
You can buy Winnie the Pooh merchandise in every mall in China. You can't use Winnie the Pooh as code to agitate against the government.
- vorpalhex 1y ago
  But here "Winnie the Pooh" is just calling Xi a lazy authoritarian. That's an insult, not "agitat[ing] against the government"

pizzathyme 1y ago

My understanding was in the US, they can openly criticize the government You are saying that is inaccurate? Or you are talking about a different type of censorship?

jennyholzer 1y ago
speech is heavily, heavily restricted in the united states, in particular on American social media platforms. there are a massive number of subjects which cannot be spoken about on social media without risking massive deboosting and the blacklisting of your accounts. this censorship is directed by "former" CIA agents working at all major American social media companies. In other words, this is direct government censorship of private citizens' speech.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- ipython 1y ago
  What is “deboosting”? If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company? Can you share the topic contents that are subject to your accusations? If you’re able to share them here without fear of government reprisal then I would argue that’s not censorship.
  - dkiebd 1y ago
    > If I own a social media site wouldn’t you argue that I should be able to control what content I “boost” in the first place? Am I forced to compulsory “boost” your content? In which case wouldn’t that mean I am “censoring” the PoV of the social media company? That sounds cool as long as you forfeit your Section 230 rights since at that point you’re more of a newspaper than a social network. Yes, I know all social networks do this currently which is why they should all lose their Section 230 rights.
  - 1y ago

euleriancon 1y ago

The nature of Chinese censorship makes it difficult to provide hard numbers, but it really is worse. America's handling of censorship is certainly not the best, and it has gotten worse recently, but it is not on the level of China.

antonymoose 1y ago
At least the Chinese have the courtesy to be obvious about it. The American and European powers pretend we’re free and open societies while actively undermining public speech that it doesn’t like.
- ambicapter 1y ago
  You think they're obvious about it intentionally?
  - rangestransform 1y ago
    I think they cultivate the image of having a panopticon to say to citizens "don't even try", but in reality the censors can't see everything
  - antonymoose 1y ago
    Isn’t that the entire point of their system, the social score lets you know exactly what’s going on?
    - adamsb6 1y ago
      Social scores aren't real.
    - aisosodndn 1y ago
      The social score is not real. That is western propaganda in action.
      - euleriancon 1y ago

ipython 1y ago

Really? Who do you think douyin hires to perform content moderation for example? https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714013 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714013 Also, don’t forget to obtain your icp license from the government before establishing a website in the mainland!

paxys 1y ago

And let me guess, you think the USA is currently more fascist than Nazi Germany?

afroboy 1y ago
Yes, read what they did to Muslims in middle east.

IncreasePosts 1y ago

So what you're saying is "my cousin has viewpoints grounded in reality"?

elteto 1y ago

And he's right, one shouldn't buy into crap.