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I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

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Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#101

Post by GekkePrutser »

bsder wrote: post #89
illuminati1911 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in China for few years. I haven't asked everyone I know, but based on my feeling most people don't like it. That being said, for most Chinese not liking the censorship is kind of like not liking a bad weather. You don't like it, but you accept it and move on. Also based on my experience, most white collars (or at least ones working for international companies) in China have either direct or indirect access…

> Despite having the unblocked access, I've noticed that only very few Chinese are interested in reading foreign news sources or using foreign social media/video platforms. To be fair, I assume language is also a barrier. I'm sure not going out of my way to learn Chinese to access Chinese language information sources. I would hardly expect the inverse.

But many Chinese speak English because they deal with international trade. So this doesn't really work the same both ways.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#102

Post by Gene_Parmesan »

leesalminen wrote: post #75
ericmay wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree that THE PEOPLE have a lot in common. Almost everyone all over the world just wants to enjoy life.

This is why the us vs them dichotomy is so important to those in power. Dividing us is the only thing that keeps them in power. Unfortunately there are so many values of “us” and “them” now that it’s obscured the only definition that really matters.

I agree 1000x. Noam Chomsky has a great quote about this from The Common Good:

"Now that ... workers are superfluous, what do you do with them? First of all, you have to make sure they don't notice that society is unfair and try to change that, and the best way to distract them is to get them to hate and fear one another."

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#103

Post by pca006132 »

hungryhobo wrote: post #100
kypro wrote: post #4

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 poss…

Am chinese National. Personally I think it's a double edged sword. It's basically protectionism but for information. On one hand censorship hinders internal transparency and makes it difficult to hold the government accountable. On the other hand information warfare is a thing, especially between geopolitical rivals, censorship is a cheap way to mitigate against them. For what it's worth, there are increasing voices…

But I see the GFW getting more advanced :)

And I think that it may be more justifiable if the censorship is also towards fake information and hate speech, but sadly this isn't quite true (check weibo or something). This is purely something political.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#104

Post by throwaway8581 »

saghm wrote: post #86
throwaway8581 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 50s and 60s. It was in full swing by the 70s. If I had to point to one iconic development, it would be the Warren court, and in particular its free speech cases. Those marked the decisive defeat of traditional conservatism, which never again was a powerful force in national politics (unless you count some elements of the Trump coalition) despite occasional lip service and token concessions by Reagan and Bush 43.…

> Though you could say it was the American Revolution that set things off and that it merely took America 250 years to go through the progression that the French Revolution traveled in a mere 5 years We're still quite a far way off from literally beheading people in the streets (and no, having your Twitter account banned is not even remotely comparable)

No need to cut heads off. It’s less messy and more palatable to take someone’s entire livelihood away. Any real threat to power comes from the middle class. Make it so their precarious status depends on loyalty to your ideology and you have all the control you need.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#105

Post by hungryhobo »

pca006132 wrote: post #103
hungryhobo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am chinese National. Personally I think it's a double edged sword. It's basically protectionism but for information. On one hand censorship hinders internal transparency and makes it difficult to hold the government accountable. On the other hand information warfare is a thing, especially between geopolitical rivals, censorship is a cheap way to mitigate against them. For what it's worth, there are increasing voices…

But I see the GFW getting more advanced :) And I think that it may be more justifiable if the censorship is also towards fake information and hate speech, but sadly this isn't quite true (check weibo or something). This is purely something political.

If we are just talking about GFW I actually think people will eventually realize the CCP got it right all along, data is the new oil, and other government are just too incompetent to protect it.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#106

Post by bordercases »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #97
bordercases wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does happiness mean harmony or does happiness mean expression? Therein lies the philosophical difference between the US and China.

How harmonious is a society if that harmony is forced upon it?

Harmonious!

FWIW China also has a culture that appreciates subterfuge/hidden efforts as a part of what it means to live skillfully in society. So the dissonance might not be as strong if you are high-trust on the surface, yet low-trust in the back.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#107

Post by aaomidi »

ehsankia wrote: post #35
aaomidi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To be fair, how well your country plays a big factor in how you view your countries policies. While life in China is far from perfect, China has been growing at a strong steady pace, and I'm sure people are much more likely to accept the way things are if things are getting better, whereas Iran has been stuck in a rut of sactions for a very long time, and especially once Iranian people compare themselves to the prosp…

Definitely true, not something that can be applied elsewhere.

There's also a silencing effect if you're in a good quality of life that you don't want to potentially risk that by being annoyed about some aspects of society.

I think that applies to China and it applies to Iran. And you can see it in other countries where they have no policy change, but due to outside reasons the quality of life decreases and people start demanding policy and regime change.

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#108

Post by hungryhobo »

chrischen wrote: post #38
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways, you're right, but Americans feel most strongly about the freedom of speech when it comes to specifically political speech, and I think the biggest difference is that I, as an American, can choose to say "I think our President of the United States is a fascist and a criminal and he should be arrested for his crimes" and I am in no way worried that the government will track me down and punish me in any ma…

If you speak freely, and it is not powerful enough to cause any consequences, then are you freely speaking at all? Sounds like a great way to make us feel like we have political power and that our speech has power, when in reality the moment our speech can disrupt the establishment it gets clamped down. One big difference here vs China is that the establishment is a bit more distributed. The people in power here are…

In western countries, speech is free, but the microphones are controlled tightly by a privileged few. Not saying china is better, but just different ways the political elites are controlling the masses

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#109

Post by themacguffinman »

bordercases wrote: post #59
themacguffinman wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, it's the peace of submission, the peace of silence, the worst kind of peace that hardly reflects any level of "happiness". It's quite disingenuous to compare Shenzhen to Hong Kong's molotovs. What's left unspoken, of course, is the fear of thinking, saying, and doing anything that disagrees with or simply embarrasses the state (like the Chinese doctor who alerted his community about this new virus that was spre…

Does happiness mean harmony or does happiness mean expression? Therein lies the philosophical difference between the US and China.

Harmony for whom? Dead & tortured dissidents, religious citizens, people who express truth to help their community against dangerous state sanctioned lies? The citizens for whom dissent is fatal and whose every communication & information source is controlled; those are the people who are proclaiming that they live in harmony?

This is philosophically absurd, like a murderer pleading innocence by killing everyone who dares accuse him. What immense harmony must have fallen in the court!

Re: I helped build ByteDance's censorship machine

#110

Post by themacguffinman »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #65
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways, you're right, but Americans feel most strongly about the freedom of speech when it comes to specifically political speech, and I think the biggest difference is that I, as an American, can choose to say "I think our President of the United States is a fascist and a criminal and he should be arrested for his crimes" and I am in no way worried that the government will track me down and punish me in any ma…

A Russian meets up with an American. "We have freedom of speech," the Russian says. "I can post that Russian elections are falsified on social media." "What's the big deal?" asks the American. "I too can write that Russian elections are falsified on social media." Original: https://youtu.be/gNXpa0M-UdY

Since when was it not possible or legal to write that American elections were falsified on social media? This joke itself seems to be based on the recent wave of loud & public accusations that the American elections are falsified. I guess Twitter/Facebook independently banned some of it, are those companies now considered to be the whole of social media?
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