I found this interesting. I wanted to test it a bit so I set my username to LeninLives and got it reset due to breaking community guidelines. I also set my profile bio to the same. Also got removed. Apparently I’m now banned from setting a profile description or username now, permanently, and my username has been reset and my profile bio removed.
So that’s uh…neat. I had heard that they go out of their way to aggressively censor any political messaging and I guess referring to Lenin counts? I was surprised honestly I don’t even think Reddit would ban you for that.
Anyone have any insight into this? Anyone else have any weird experiences like this on XHS already?
If they put me in charge of the great fire wall any westerner posting anything political, but especially leftist stuff, on any Chinese social media would be assumed to be wreckers from Langley
XHS is not really the place for politics, think of it as Chinese Instagram and Pinterest.
It’s a shame because I’m not interested in Instagram or Pinterest at all, I’m more interested in a Lemmy/reddit type site but weibo is impossible to get in as someone from the US. Wechat connection won’t work, phone sms verification wont work, and the phone call verification is all in Chinese so I can’t understand it. :/
Mine got removed for referring to myself as a communist. My pfp is Castro though and they seem cool with that.
As for insight, XHS is generally considered in China as not a place for the discussion of domestic politics. So I imagine they limit discussion of communism especially by foreigners.
I have looked at xhs and see many Lenin and communism posts by domestic users so I do think its the case that they’re censoring anglos
they know westerners lack the fundamental education to be speaking about these topics so they ban us from posting cringe
its best for all of us
Probably for the best IMO
I have a lot of American communist in my feed though. Comrade Workware, Lady Izidar, just to name a few. Ive seen CPUSA posts and lots of Mao posting, USSR posting. It’s actually kind of annoying because I want to see more artist and they are plentiful and very talented!
I don’t see any modern Chinese political discourse thinking about it now.
I suppose to their credit, queer stuff is deemed apolitical.
I simply had ‘communist enjoyer’ in my bio and it got removed.
I wonder, is it from referring to Lenin, or the political misinformation that Lenin is alive? I’ve seen people with Lenin in their usernames
I think you can’t put any political stuff in bios. They wouldn’t let me put “Marxist-Leninist” (in Chinese) on mine. Posts are a different story though, some may get caught by moderation but then a lot of them won’t. I’ve certainly seen my fair share of commie posting
I’ve had comments deleted that were simply saying that in the US tax law encourages capital accumulation and discourages wage labor.
It’d be nice to have some kind of explanation as to why they were removed, I want to make sure I’m abiding by their rules.
Moderation on Chinese social media is patchy and it’s going to depend on your luck a lot of the time. If someone doesn’t like what you have to say and believe it to be infringing on the rules, there’s not much you can do about it. Most people either self-censor or use slangs or homophone substitutes to bypass automated censorship filters.
Discussions about sensitive topics won’t be easily translatable to English because people write in pinyin initials or homophones and you almost have to be native Chinese speaker to be able to read them.
I’ve seen tons of political talking including praising of Lenin, I have been included in a lot of political discussion and haven’t had any messages deleted yet. Including calling Musk a fascist and other similarly inflammatory things about reactionaries.
I mean… you downloaded an app that has rules that are very clear, like no politics, distributed by a society that highly values following the rules and social cohesion and you are surprised that they removed your politically charged name and bio which is obvious rule breaking behavior? You really think this is weird?
It does not have a “no politics” rule, not sure where you got that from?
I’ve been using it for a while, you’re right I was just told that. However I never seen politics discussed and there is a really strong community for like personal, polite conversation and support for things like arts and crafts and cooking. Until the wave of Americans started joining I never saw anything political at all literally ever and all of a sudden it became flooded it with Americans asking questions about China. The point stands is that you’re going into another space with norms, one of which one used to be no non Chinese politics being mentioned literally ever, and experienced their known moderation. This doesn’t seem weird to me, this seems in line. If I were a moderator I wouldn’t really believe you were there in good faith since you are American and you had previously heard they go out of their way to aggressively censor any political messaging and still chose a political figure for a name. My name on XHS is related to cats.
This is the insight, just because something isn’t specifically spelled out on the rules doesn’t mean it isn’t allowed. The thing that is prioritized above all else is Harmony. If you get moderated like this, not even banned, just take the L and move on.
Gotta be because Lenin is not alive and that’s misinformation or something, politics are not disallowed on XHS.
Eh my hammer and sickle pfp also got removed. There’s prolly something about no politics allowed in the pfp and bio
Communism is my entire identity
Huh weird, mine has Stalin in it and while it got paused for review it was approved
go full momo
Is Momo like anon?
Yes
This is the way
If XHS lets me change my username again I will 100%
I have no experience with political censorship on there, but I can confirm that they have no tolerance for weeb removed.
Oh yea that happen to me, they removed my description for having the word communist and the pfp for being a picture of clodsire
But after that i made a paint drawing of a turtle they were cool with that
