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Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

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Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#31

Post by epups »

auggierose wrote: post #6
epups wrote: post #5

Turns out China can pressure content on apps outside China as well, making the TikTok brouhaha even more pointless.

It demonstrates that Chinas influence is already too big, making TikTok regulation even more urgent.

Unfortunately things are not so simple. You can find satire of Xi Jinping on TikTok right now: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh?l..., but not on Midjourney anymore. So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#32

Post by Seattle3503 »

chrisdbanks wrote: post #27
fsloth wrote: post #12

> It turns out authoritarian power and capital markets can be scary effective. I don't think authoritarian systems are as dynamic and innovative as democratic ones, but a gigantic authoritarian regime can utilize external democracies for innovation and then leverage their market power to silence criticism both home and abroad. Creative tools that impede free speech are harbingers of Orwellian future. "Sorry, you are…

These new models could be the downfall of authoritarian regimes. These regimes rely on suppressing access to information but soon we'll have an LLM that can answer any questions about the world and fit on a USB stick that can be passed from person to person. No more great firewall of China.

Didn't we say the same thing about Wikipedia?

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#34

Post by throwaway29812 »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #16
threatofrain wrote: post #11

You can make satire on Biden and Putin, but for Xi Jingping: > We just want to minimize drama,” the company’s founder and CEO, David Holz, said last year in a post on the chat service Discord. “Political satire in china is pretty not-okay,” he added, and “the ability for people in China to use this tech is more important than your ability to generate satire.

Thats actually a pretty reasonable response. Its not endorsing the censorship, and it emphasises that not restricting certain generated content would hurt users. Unlike social media which stores and distributes, Midjourney is helping generate content, so people can still make satire through other mechanisms pretty easily - and since Midjourney isn't a distribution platform its not hurting users ability to distribute…

> emphasises that not restricting certain generated content would hurt users.

Being nice to person B threatening person A is not being nice to person A.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#35

Post by jacquesm »

epups wrote: post #31
auggierose wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It demonstrates that Chinas influence is already too big, making TikTok regulation even more urgent.

Unfortunately things are not so simple. You can find satire of Xi Jinping on TikTok right now: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh?l... , but not on Midjourney anymore. So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company.

> So, ironically, banning TikTok would suppress speech critical to the CCP more than banning Midjourney, a US company.

The ban would be outside of China. Speech critical of the CCP is only really effective if it reaches inside of China and banning TikTok outside of China would have a negligible effect on the other side of TGF.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#36

Post by bitcurious »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #7

I actually think having one person in the whole world you can't generate images of sends a much stronger political message than allowing people to make funny pictures of said person in puffer jackets.

It does. That message is “this person has power over you” and “this person is to be feared” while the alternative is “this person is to be mocked” because in mockery society reclaims power over dictators.

It’s not an accident that most dictators try to control political satire.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#37

Post by throwaway29812 »

epups wrote: post #5

Turns out China can pressure content on apps outside China as well, making the TikTok brouhaha even more pointless.

China can get data from TikTok whenever it wants, that's not quite the same as success campaigns for selective censorship.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#39

Post by HWR_14 »

chrisdbanks wrote: post #27
fsloth wrote: post #12

> It turns out authoritarian power and capital markets can be scary effective. I don't think authoritarian systems are as dynamic and innovative as democratic ones, but a gigantic authoritarian regime can utilize external democracies for innovation and then leverage their market power to silence criticism both home and abroad. Creative tools that impede free speech are harbingers of Orwellian future. "Sorry, you are…

These new models could be the downfall of authoritarian regimes. These regimes rely on suppressing access to information but soon we'll have an LLM that can answer any questions about the world and fit on a USB stick that can be passed from person to person. No more great firewall of China.

Propaganda has seemed pretty effective even with unfettered access to information, LLMs and free speech in the west.

Re: Midjourney CEO Silencing Satire About Xi Jinping

#40

Post by theodric »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #26
selcuka wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are not people. The CEO might have principles, but he cannot apply his own principles to the company. The only principle for a company is to maximise profit within the legal restrictions.

This comment sounds clever but makes no sense. The CEO can and must apply his principles to the company if he wants to consider himself moral under his own code. Just think it through; is he morally bound to actively pump out lies and propaganda if that increases profits?

Either you make money in China until the Chinese clone your tech and undercut you, or you don't make that money and they eventually clone and undercut anyway. Might as well enjoy the boost for a few months.

I don't like that we're self-censoring in the West in a way that furthers the ends and whims of authoritarian regimes, but hey, it's only business...

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