4 ms·

Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship" but after some time it seems like the US is aiming for the very same thing. Classy.

mc32 10mo ago
I mean, they say it’s not censorship when it’s not the government doing it even when the government has embeds with “suggestions” ala facebook, twitter and reddit somewhere around 2020…
Gud 10mo ago
It’s more sinister than simple censorship. The point is brainwashing.
- xanthor 10mo ago
  How do you know that conclusion is not the product of brainwashing? MKULTRA is just what we know about with certainty.
  - Gud 10mo ago
    I am an open minded, well traveled man. I disagree with the powerful.
    - AnthonyMouse 10mo ago
      > I am an open minded, well traveled man. I disagree with the powerful. This kind of narrative is actually one of the more popular forms of propaganda. "We are the side of the revolutionaries. The status quo is wrong but only about the things we want to change and not the things we want to stay the same. Powerful people are our opponents." All politics is about opposing powerful people, because if they weren't powerful then it would be easy to defeat them. But there are different groups of powerful people, with different interests, and then it rather matters which ones you align yourself with on a given issue. And if it's always the same ones then you're doing partisanship rather than reasoning.
      - Gud 10mo ago
        I didn't say I was a revolutionary. I am observing the world.
        deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
  - steve1977 10mo ago
    Hard to tell for sure, but one data point might be that most people outside of the US probably come to the same conclusion.
- autoexec 10mo ago
  Censorship is just a form of brainwashing.
lenerdenator 10mo ago
Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society.
- pydry 10mo ago
  If a large outside power is intent on screwing with your populace I think the only way to really stop it is with diplomacy or a crackdown on free speech. Authoritarianism has been starting to become normalized because China and Russia are increasingly able to mess with our society in the same way our leaders always messed with theirs.
  - mistercheph 10mo ago
    True, true, so true. Actually when a large outside power is screwing with your populace you gotta crackdown on the whole constitution. Yep, that's the only solution i think, sign of the times, I guess!
    - iamnothere 10mo ago
      Unfortunately so. Niceties like civil rights and free elections were great before the rise of mortal enemies like Russia and China. Now we have to curtail those for a time to protect our democracy. Don’t worry, everything will return to normal one day. Pinky swear.
    - fogzen 10mo ago
      The U.S. government has not publicly presented any concrete evidence showing that TikTok has actually been used to influence US public opinion in line with CCP policy.
- palmotea 10mo ago
  > Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society. An interesting thought I read a couple days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-china-rupture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-chin...: > Finally, and most controversially, I suspect the same “if not America, then China” logic applies to political ordering as well. The United States under Trumpian conditions has allowed populism to come to power, bringing chaos and authoritarian behavior in its train. Recoil from that by all means — but recognize that it happened through democratic mechanisms, under freewheeling political conditions. > Meanwhile, the modes through which Europe and Canada have sought to suppress populism involve harsh restrictions on speech, elite collusion and other expression of managerial illiberalism. And what is China’s dictatorship if not managerial illiberalism in full flower? When European elites talk about China as a potentially more stable partner than the whipsawing United States, when they talk admiringly about its environmental goals and technocratic capacity, they aren’t defending a liberal alternative to Trumpian populism. They are letting the magnet of Chinese power draw them away from their own democratic traditions.
pessimizer 10mo ago
> Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship" It used to be marketed as that by "China evil" people. Western politicians have always seen this as an arms race. They claim infinite brutal censorship and suppression in China in order to claim that not having it here is a strategic disadvantage. Meanwhile, China's "social credit" is just like a US credit score, which in most countries is an illegal thing to do. This is completely bipartisan, both US parties take turns shitting on their two greatest enemies: the Bill of Rights and (almost completely defeated at this point) antitrust law. Those are painted as China's advantages: that they don't have to respect anyone's rights and that their government directly runs companies. 1) Neither of those things are true, and 2) they just ignore that China manufactures things and invests in infrastructure (which US politicians as individuals have no idea how to do because they are lawyers and marketers), and pretend that everything can be reduced to gamified finance and propaganda tricks. It's the "missile gap" again. The US pretended and marketed that Russia had an enormous amount of nuclear weapons in order to fool us into allowing US politicians to dedicate the economy to producing an enormous amount of nuclear weapons. The result, the child of the Oracle guy owns half the media, and uses it for explicitly political purposes that align with the administration (whichever it may be.)
- lukeschlather 10mo ago
  Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights. The Trump administration is determined to ignore every single amendment, but even a lot of the Republican party I don't really think wants this. People are genuinely worried about Chinese media control. But Trump obviously wants to control the media and censor things. I hope the right turns around. Assuming that everyone in politics is working in bad faith is how we become an authoritarian country like China. It is hard when the leadership is obviously working in bad faith and the entire Republican party deliberately chooses bad faith and lies over any reasonable alternatives.
  - direwolf20 10mo ago
    > Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights. I'd like to see evidence of that. A third of the country voted to burn the bill of rights, and another third voted they don't care but they'd be ok with it happening.
maest 9mo ago
A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink. "I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says. "Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them." The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."

mc32 10mo ago

I mean, they say it’s not censorship when it’s not the government doing it even when the government has embeds with “suggestions” ala facebook, twitter and reddit somewhere around 2020…

Gud 10mo ago

It’s more sinister than simple censorship. The point is brainwashing.

xanthor 10mo ago
How do you know that conclusion is not the product of brainwashing? MKULTRA is just what we know about with certainty.
- Gud 10mo ago
  I am an open minded, well traveled man. I disagree with the powerful.
  - AnthonyMouse 10mo ago
    > I am an open minded, well traveled man. I disagree with the powerful. This kind of narrative is actually one of the more popular forms of propaganda. "We are the side of the revolutionaries. The status quo is wrong but only about the things we want to change and not the things we want to stay the same. Powerful people are our opponents." All politics is about opposing powerful people, because if they weren't powerful then it would be easy to defeat them. But there are different groups of powerful people, with different interests, and then it rather matters which ones you align yourself with on a given issue. And if it's always the same ones then you're doing partisanship rather than reasoning.
    - Gud 10mo ago
      I didn't say I was a revolutionary. I am observing the world.
      - deleted 10mo ago
        [deleted]
- steve1977 10mo ago
  Hard to tell for sure, but one data point might be that most people outside of the US probably come to the same conclusion.
autoexec 10mo ago
Censorship is just a form of brainwashing.

lenerdenator 10mo ago

Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society.

pydry 10mo ago
If a large outside power is intent on screwing with your populace I think the only way to really stop it is with diplomacy or a crackdown on free speech. Authoritarianism has been starting to become normalized because China and Russia are increasingly able to mess with our society in the same way our leaders always messed with theirs.
- mistercheph 10mo ago
  True, true, so true. Actually when a large outside power is screwing with your populace you gotta crackdown on the whole constitution. Yep, that's the only solution i think, sign of the times, I guess!
  - iamnothere 10mo ago
    Unfortunately so. Niceties like civil rights and free elections were great before the rise of mortal enemies like Russia and China. Now we have to curtail those for a time to protect our democracy. Don’t worry, everything will return to normal one day. Pinky swear.
  - fogzen 10mo ago
    The U.S. government has not publicly presented any concrete evidence showing that TikTok has actually been used to influence US public opinion in line with CCP policy.
palmotea 10mo ago
> Case-in-point of why we shouldn't have approached China like we did over the last few decades. It normalized totalitarianism in some segments of Western society. An interesting thought I read a couple days ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-china-rupture.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/opinion/trump-carney-chin...: > Finally, and most controversially, I suspect the same “if not America, then China” logic applies to political ordering as well. The United States under Trumpian conditions has allowed populism to come to power, bringing chaos and authoritarian behavior in its train. Recoil from that by all means — but recognize that it happened through democratic mechanisms, under freewheeling political conditions. > Meanwhile, the modes through which Europe and Canada have sought to suppress populism involve harsh restrictions on speech, elite collusion and other expression of managerial illiberalism. And what is China’s dictatorship if not managerial illiberalism in full flower? When European elites talk about China as a potentially more stable partner than the whipsawing United States, when they talk admiringly about its environmental goals and technocratic capacity, they aren’t defending a liberal alternative to Trumpian populism. They are letting the magnet of Chinese power draw them away from their own democratic traditions.

pessimizer 10mo ago

> Which used to be seen as "Ew, China has their own version? Crazy censorship" It used to be marketed as that by "China evil" people. Western politicians have always seen this as an arms race. They claim infinite brutal censorship and suppression in China in order to claim that not having it here is a strategic disadvantage. Meanwhile, China's "social credit" is just like a US credit score, which in most countries is an illegal thing to do. This is completely bipartisan, both US parties take turns shitting on their two greatest enemies: the Bill of Rights and (almost completely defeated at this point) antitrust law. Those are painted as China's advantages: that they don't have to respect anyone's rights and that their government directly runs companies. 1) Neither of those things are true, and 2) they just ignore that China manufactures things and invests in infrastructure (which US politicians as individuals have no idea how to do because they are lawyers and marketers), and pretend that everything can be reduced to gamified finance and propaganda tricks. It's the "missile gap" again. The US pretended and marketed that Russia had an enormous amount of nuclear weapons in order to fool us into allowing US politicians to dedicate the economy to producing an enormous amount of nuclear weapons. The result, the child of the Oracle guy owns half the media, and uses it for explicitly political purposes that align with the administration (whichever it may be.)

lukeschlather 10mo ago
Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights. The Trump administration is determined to ignore every single amendment, but even a lot of the Republican party I don't really think wants this. People are genuinely worried about Chinese media control. But Trump obviously wants to control the media and censor things. I hope the right turns around. Assuming that everyone in politics is working in bad faith is how we become an authoritarian country like China. It is hard when the leadership is obviously working in bad faith and the entire Republican party deliberately chooses bad faith and lies over any reasonable alternatives.
- direwolf20 10mo ago
  > Most of the country is genuinely committed to the bill of rights. I'd like to see evidence of that. A third of the country voted to burn the bill of rights, and another third voted they don't care but they'd be ok with it happening.

maest 9mo ago

A KGB spy and a CIA agent meet up in a bar for a friendly drink. "I have to admit, I'm always so impressed by Soviet propaganda. You really know how to get people worked up," the CIA agent says. "Thank you," the KGB says. "We do our best but truly, it's nothing compared to American propaganda. Your people believe everything your state media tells them." The CIA agent drops his drink in shock and disgust. "Thank you friend, but you must be confused... There's no propaganda in America."