Wow, I’m sure glad I don’t live in China. I could never live somewhere people aren’t allowed to think freely or live as individuals!!
Wow, I’m sure glad I don’t live in China. I could never live somewhere people aren’t allowed to think freely or live as individuals!!
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/media-censorship-china
I can confirm this due to the consults of many chinese users related to the Great Firewall, in a international forum. Although there is also censorship in the Western media, with a strong component of journalistic manipulation, here a journalist is fired by far if he does not report what is indicated by the interests of political officials in the direction. In China they are directly imprisoned. It is exactly the difference that I was referring to in my post, the difference of maintaining ignorance through media manipulation to guide us to the interests of the elite, and another of directly imposing iron control over personal freedoms with serious consequences for noncompliance. Both things are reprehensible and must be fought against, but the second is worse, especially if a country wants to call itself communist, where, however, it is only an elite that rules and without real sovereignty of the people, only typical of savage capitalism, but not in communism. In our society democracy is just a pretty poor label, just as Chinese communism is a similar label for the public.
China certainly has plenty of Internet censorship, and it’s far more overt (although not necessarily more strict) than Amerika’s censorship. There are very good reasons for this.
The article doesn’t mention Amerika’s various illegal attempts to influence China’s domestic policies through Western social media. Maybe that has something to do with the Chinese government’s decisions to ban Facebook, Google, etc.
It also doesn’t mention how Amerika uses their “human rights organizations” (Amnesty International, HRW, etc.) for regime change. There’s no discussion of the primarily Amerikan-sponsored attempts at colour revolution (typically called something like “advocating democratic reforms” – i.e. a transition to some form of liberalism, which I’d consider equivalent to advocating for a return to feudalism or chattel slavery in a capitalist society) or the various acts of terrorism funded by Amerika (e.g. in Xinjiang). Maybe it’s not completely irrational to deeply distrust Amerika and its cohorts. Maybe they’ve seen what’s happened to Taiwan after being manipulated by decades of imperialist propaganda. Maybe China learned from prior socialist experiments that it’s best to be on the safe side while constantly under thread from imperialist nations.
I also find it odd that you would use the Council on Foreign Relations as a source, considering that it’s a pro-imperialist think tank directed by various massive capitalists and Amerikan war criminals. Theoretically, even the most vile organization can tell the truth, but considering how heavily biased the article is and how many of the references are to anectodal “evidence”, I’d say it’s fair to be somewhat skeptical.
Is it ideal for China’s government to censor and track Internet use? In my opinion, no. Is it justified based on historical analysis? Absolutely.
I think that on one point we agree that the US is the last that can criticize others for human rights violations and lack of democracy, being the worst in this regard, except for Arab countries. But neither can we say that China is the panacea at this point, regardless of the article and also others, as I said, I am also guided by the complaints of Chinese users, looking for programs and apps to protect their privacy, which are inaccessible in China and only they can get them P2P from other countries.
Sure, I would personally feel uncomfortable with browsing the Internet without some trusted proxy, just like I do right now because of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. I would certainly like to be able to legally use Tor, for example, even if people who use it through bridges in China aren’t routinely punished. However, I also understand why the government decided to block domestic civilian connections to Western social media and other sites, even if it could be considered overkill, because they are constantly under threat from highly effective imperialist propaganda, and I understand why they would prioritize shielding their citizens from this. Any domestic privacy concerns should be dealt with by Chinese citizens, not outsiders, and I certainly wouldn’t denounce the Chinese revolution over something like this.
This is the point, which is better? Leave the Internet open, despite the fact that there may be imperialist propaganda? Or block it, but put up its own propaganda without the possibility of blocking it by the user? I think the first is better, leaving it up to the user to take the necessary measures to block propaganda in general, leaving free access to the necessary tools to do so.
That’s an individualist solution to a systemic problem, though. It’s not close to enough.
I disagree. I would much rather have pro-communist propaganda from China than pro-imperialist propaganda from Amerika, especially considering how effective the latter clearly is. Letting companies like Facebook interfere in your country’s internal politics has been shown to be a terrible idea. In the future, when all children in China have grown up being taught to critically analyze everything they read, an open Internet would pose less of a threat, but until that has happened, I consider it completely reasonable for China to protect their information space, just like they protect their physical borders.
I do not want propaganda of any kind, but information that corresponds to reality and does not try to manipulate us into believing that we live in an ideal and happy world, blocking any information that shows the contrary. Political propaganda is always undesirable, whether from the right or the left, especially when it replaces and blocks real information with propaganda. There is no freedom, nor human development with biased and manipulated information in an interested way, promoting the ignorance of the people, be it political or religious.
Do you believe that the Chinese government censors everything that’s negative about themselves, or pretend that China is a utopia? I have never been to China and cannot personally confirm it, but I have listened to several people who live there claim that there are lively debates on Chinese social media about domestic problems, and these are not censored unless they break any laws. Perhaps some of Lemmygrad’s Chinese users can confirm this (e.g. @Eat_Yo_Vegetables69@lemmygrad.ml). There’s no need for China to try to make Amerika (for example) look bad, unlike what Amerika does to China; they just need to show the truth. As far as I can tell, the average citizen of China seems to have a far more nuanced view of geopolitics than their counterparts in the imperial core.
Anything that is intended to sway someone’s opinion is propaganda. We are currently engaging in propaganda promoting two opposing viewpoints. It is practically impossible for a government to not engage in propaganda of some kind. This doesn’t mean that they should be trying to hide verifiable truth, and if they are, I disagree with that on a personal level; however, I also understand that it’s far more important to safeguard China’s internal security, and that this may require some actions that deviate from idealist thinking.
I’m not that active on mainland social media (or any other social media tbh…) but my partner’s mentioned material about current events, the cultural revolution and the failed colour revolution in 1989 are heavily regulated but not to the point that westerners will joke about “lul nothing happened in tinyman 1989 gabillion genocide” as the PRC has records/statements on these events.
This domestic incident caused a huge outroar recently for example and rightfully so because of how heinous it was. But usually when any incident like this occurs, you will have many accounts coming out and blaming the government and ‘authoritarian system’ like somehow such incidents would be fixed by transitioning to a US style system… yeah. Asian Boss is a bit iffy but you can tell by these comments that we’re not the brainwashed bots that Westerners may claim lol (Link 1, Link 2).
For the past few decades (roughly 80s to the 2010s) pro-western propaganda has been extremely prevalent which has produced a large amount of pro-western liberals, including those in the education sector. We’ve seen professors openly whitewash the crimes of imperial Japan to even some calling for the government to “fully denuclearize/disarm to rebuild trust with the USA”. This wave had been slowed somewhat after Xi took the reins and the US regime ramping up the anti-PRC bullshit beginning with the Obama regime’s shift to “rebalance Asia”. Trump’s rhetoric and the current situation helps a little to wake up quite a few from the dream of coexisting peacefully with the US.
Recent attempts to destroy the PRC have gone unmentioned in the west, such as this incident after the ‘Tunisian revolution’ in 2010/2011. This US official took to the streets to witness what he expected to be the beginning of an “Arab spring” situation but he was identified by citizens, leading to him running away after being questioned “why are you here, do you really want to destroy us that much?”.
From the perspective of someone who wants access to have fun and have ready access to all material this is terrible, because no freedom and all that. But take a look at the Urumuqi riots, the HK riots and every fucking time the west and its US masters has attempted to instigate the smallest fucking thing to light a powder keg and destroy a country and rob it of everything it has. Do we really want to repeat the tragedy of the USSR tenfold just because having access to youtube and porn is nice?
Seen a similar comment on the Russophobic subreddit before it was brigaded, that there was no better patriotic education than to have a Russian/Chinese user have a conversation with the average westerner on somewhere like Reddit. They may go in expecting friendly exchanges but after being subjected to all the brainrot and “you deserve to be exterminated” type of sentiment nowadays, it’s pretty hard to not be pushed away unless you’re a hardcore self-hater with delusions of destroying your own just for some pointless recognition.
To quote Mao “帝国主义亡我之心不死”, as long as any western imperialist exists, they’ll never give up on trying to destroy us.
To ask one of our members currently in the PRC, @arisu_magatoroido@lemmygrad.ml 同学你对这个有什么见解吗？可能我的资料有些过时呢。。。
Here in the US, journalists die if they stray too far from the narrative the government wants.
Are you quoting Council of Foreign Relations? ONONONONO AHAHAHAHAHA
Might as well quote your favourite news outlet, or some Fox News or CNN or Falun Gong outlet.