I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26192988

It would be interesting if someone from China could comment on censorship in China. Is there a fraction of people who agrees with it or is almost it universally disapproved of?

Some of these arguments for censorship made in this article sound eerily similar to how we justify censorship in the West.

> Our role was to make sure that low-level content moderators could find "harmful and dangerous content" as soon as possible.

Without context this could apply to any Western social media platform. Of course in the West its companies not politicians who call the shots, but the language to justify the actions is certainly similar.

I'm not trying to equate Western censorship to Chinese censorship, but in the West it's certainly fair to say many people are happy and even welcoming of censorship – is the same in China?

Not China, but in Iran, everyone fucking hates it.

Isn’t one of the problem the risk of retaliation towards family and friends in China? With speech and face recognition this can also be done for everyone commenting on China even in the West?

> It would be interesting if someone from China could comment on censorship in China. Is there a fraction of people who agrees with it or is almost it universally disapproved of?

In general people don't agree with it. However, for a lot of people, it's not actually on their radar.

The reality is most people in China are so engrossed in their work and day-to-day life that censorship isn't really actually an issue for them, and taking political action is not something that an average citizen would do considering the grave risks to your career.

Also, it's worth noting that most citizens prioritize safety over free speech. If changes in the law indirectly mean that there will be riots on the streets, most citizens would rather have whatever it takes to have no riots. That isn't to say people agree with censorship, but for what it's worth, people are happy that you can more or less walk around anywhere in China without much fear of your personal safety. Most people in Shenzhen were extremely happy they were in Shenzhen where you could walk around freely instead of "free" Hong Kong where you had to be in fear of idiot high school students throwing Molotov cocktails and beating up anyone who spoke Mandarin.