There’s protests happening in China and people will show me an article from AP, Reuters or CNN and ask “What the fuck is happening in China??”

I understand the question is “what is actually happening that the media is hiding?”. But:

What’s happening is nothing worth mentioning. Stuff happens all the time.

The media emphasizes those small acts and gives them a voice, and we internalise this voice even if we don’t want to. They make mountains out of a molehill and we see that mountain too, even when we realise it can’t be a mountain.

This goes for things not relating to protests or China too. If it comes from western media, distrust it already. Assume bad faith. Distance yourself from it as much as possible.

  • INACTIVE ACCOUNT
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    251 year ago

    they be like: XI JIJNPING AND KIM JONG UN CAUGHT MAKING OUT BEHIND HOOTERS (REAL) (NOT CLICKBAIT)

    • @Munrock@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      I’ve already seen comments like “I haven’t seen anything like this since 1989!”

      In one statement they invoke Tiananmen and also pretend no comparable protests or riots happened in the US and Europe in the past 30 years 🙄

      • @knfrmity@lemmygrad.ml
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        101 year ago

        In some ways they’re right, although they don’t realize it. It seems that these protests are once again instigated and organized by western provocateurs, just like the violent events of 1989.

  • SovereignState
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    1 year ago

    I think about media rhetoric a lot, and the subversion of basic critical thinking skills in most readers/viewers. You make a good resonating point about the sort of “volume” they use when reporting on shit. Every protest, every fire, every arrest, every just-a-school-or-factory “concentration camp”, they’re all extremely loud about it. It’s suddenly incredibly urgent and needs to spread like wildfire ASAP. In the increasingly rare instance when it’s about something that actually happened, it still suddenly becomes the most important, most needs-to-be-shared story in the world even if it’s minor. It’s certainly a great tactic to keep your populace from focusing on criticizing its own government.

  • @Beat_da_Rich@lemmygrad.ml
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    161 year ago

    I have a lot of Chinese friends who support the protesters. As an American, it’s just not worth investing any signicant attention on my part except trying to piece out the truth from the propaganda. Chinese people have every right to protest their government. It’s their government. That does not fucking mean Westerners should get involved or feel like their opinion is actually worth anything. Because it’s not. It’s worth less than dirt.

    It’s maddening that in the US, cops can torture people to death on camera in broad daylight and all liberals can scream is “VOTE!!!” But if protests happen in another country that they’ve been propagandized to hate, they automatically turn into rabid imperialists that support regime change.

  • Marxism-Fennekinism
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    71 year ago

    There have been more anti-lockdown protests in the US than China. You know, the Karen I need a haircut and I can’t breathe through this mask protests?

  • @whoami@lemmygrad.ml
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    71 year ago

    yes, yes they do. Anti lockdown protests in North America? A sign of our inherit freedom. A tiny (probably US funded) protest in a massive Chinese city is a sign of just how authoritarian big bad evil China is.

    I know he’s not the best, but after reading Manufacturing Consent as a teenager, any media bullshit from mainstream US media is so easy to read through