XHS is properly moderated, so US propaganda would be kicked off pretty fast in practice. This is precisely why the US starts malding whenever a platform that’s not controlled by a US company becomes popular.
They would have to be subtle, but it can be done. The easiest way is to start by posting travel vlogs of Western tourist sites like Paris. Pinkwashing would work pretty well. Muskposting would work pretty well too (netizens mostly like Musk unlike Western social media where Musk constantly makes a fascist ass out of himself). For example, there was a viral Bilibili of Musk being AIed into some Chinese court drama where he’s going to use Doge (or whatever the fuck that agency is called) to clean up the federal government, represented as corrupt eunuchs. I’ve seen Douyin that’s just people translating trailers of Hollywood slops into Chinese, so that’s another means of the US worming their way into the Chinese cultural sphere. The ultimate goal is to cultivate Westophilia within the userbase. Actual anticommunist and anti-CPC talking point would have to be done through other channels, but the point is to prime a userbase that worships the West and is more susceptible to further Western propaganda.
The problem is that the US was caught completely unprepared and outside of various libs thinking posting about Tibet would help somehow, they’ll just move to ban the site. Apparently, Trump is holding off on banning Tiktok, so the playbook might be to ban XHS but keep Tiktok (for now) so the Tiktokers would just go back to Tiktok, where they can be controlled and surveilled. Once XHS and any other potential Chinese social media sites has been taken care of, then they’ll move in on Tiktok.
I mean they could do those things, but what’s radicalizing people is realizing what the standard of living is like for a typical person in each country. An unprecedented thing happened here where millions of regular Americans started talking directly to people in China. Now both Americans and Chinese are clearly seeing what life is like on the other side. No amount of clever propaganda can compete with that.
Even if they ban XHS, which I expect they will, the damage has been done. There’s no putting toothpaste back in the tube now. And banning it will only radicalize people further because everyone will know exactly why it’s being banned. This is a monumental propaganda disaster for the US the like of which I haven’t seen during my lifetime.
The main problem is that anti-PRC propaganda tailored towards the West relies on latent Sinophobia and Westerners not having cultural contact with Chinese people, which completely fell apart since Chinese people in XHS are so welcoming. Notice that anti-PRC propaganda is very different when it’s tailored towards the Chinese diaspora living in the West, and a lot of that propaganda doesn’t fall apart even if you have cultural contact with Chinese people. Basically, the West got really really lazy in their propaganda that’s aimed at their non-Chinese domestic population, which completely falls apart once you watch a single video that takes place in China.
There’s probably some savvy zoomer/millennial ghoul who’s desperately trying to argue that XHS should be kept open with some intricate plan on how to subtly spread US propaganda, but the technologically illiterate boomers in charge are going to completely shit on that plan after a massive blunder that they themselves had caused.
Very much agree, the cartoonish portrayals of China immediately fall apart as soon as people start interacting. I’m really optimistic that by the time they’ll actually put any kind of plan into action there will be a critical mass of Americans who’ve become inoculated. Something like half the population is on TikTok, even if 10% of these people end up checking out XHS that’s gonna completely change public opinion of China going forward.
XHS is properly moderated, so US propaganda would be kicked off pretty fast in practice. This is precisely why the US starts malding whenever a platform that’s not controlled by a US company becomes popular.
They would have to be subtle, but it can be done. The easiest way is to start by posting travel vlogs of Western tourist sites like Paris. Pinkwashing would work pretty well. Muskposting would work pretty well too (netizens mostly like Musk unlike Western social media where Musk constantly makes a fascist ass out of himself). For example, there was a viral Bilibili of Musk being AIed into some Chinese court drama where he’s going to use Doge (or whatever the fuck that agency is called) to clean up the federal government, represented as corrupt eunuchs. I’ve seen Douyin that’s just people translating trailers of Hollywood slops into Chinese, so that’s another means of the US worming their way into the Chinese cultural sphere. The ultimate goal is to cultivate Westophilia within the userbase. Actual anticommunist and anti-CPC talking point would have to be done through other channels, but the point is to prime a userbase that worships the West and is more susceptible to further Western propaganda.
The problem is that the US was caught completely unprepared and outside of various libs thinking posting about Tibet would help somehow, they’ll just move to ban the site. Apparently, Trump is holding off on banning Tiktok, so the playbook might be to ban XHS but keep Tiktok (for now) so the Tiktokers would just go back to Tiktok, where they can be controlled and surveilled. Once XHS and any other potential Chinese social media sites has been taken care of, then they’ll move in on Tiktok.
I mean they could do those things, but what’s radicalizing people is realizing what the standard of living is like for a typical person in each country. An unprecedented thing happened here where millions of regular Americans started talking directly to people in China. Now both Americans and Chinese are clearly seeing what life is like on the other side. No amount of clever propaganda can compete with that.
Even if they ban XHS, which I expect they will, the damage has been done. There’s no putting toothpaste back in the tube now. And banning it will only radicalize people further because everyone will know exactly why it’s being banned. This is a monumental propaganda disaster for the US the like of which I haven’t seen during my lifetime.
The main problem is that anti-PRC propaganda tailored towards the West relies on latent Sinophobia and Westerners not having cultural contact with Chinese people, which completely fell apart since Chinese people in XHS are so welcoming. Notice that anti-PRC propaganda is very different when it’s tailored towards the Chinese diaspora living in the West, and a lot of that propaganda doesn’t fall apart even if you have cultural contact with Chinese people. Basically, the West got really really lazy in their propaganda that’s aimed at their non-Chinese domestic population, which completely falls apart once you watch a single video that takes place in China.
There’s probably some savvy zoomer/millennial ghoul who’s desperately trying to argue that XHS should be kept open with some intricate plan on how to subtly spread US propaganda, but the technologically illiterate boomers in charge are going to completely shit on that plan after a massive blunder that they themselves had caused.
Very much agree, the cartoonish portrayals of China immediately fall apart as soon as people start interacting. I’m really optimistic that by the time they’ll actually put any kind of plan into action there will be a critical mass of Americans who’ve become inoculated. Something like half the population is on TikTok, even if 10% of these people end up checking out XHS that’s gonna completely change public opinion of China going forward.