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Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

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Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#11

Post by throwaway2048 »

yogthos wrote: post #5

Exactly same thing can be said about US [1]. It really fascinates me how much focus there is on China when exact same things like suppression of political opinion and mass surveilance are happening in the West. I think it would be far more productive to focus on fixing shit here than to obsess about China as if everything was fine in the West. Meanwhile the West is still fueling the genocide in Yemen by the Saudis ma…

Censorship and avoidance of discussion of serious topics certainly is a thing in the american media, however it operates mostly on the basis of backscratching, co-opting and voluntary pushing of viewpoints by private media establishments.

Its not difficult to find dissenting voices on pretty much any topics you care to name, and calls for collective action too, and nobody does much (or in reality, can do much) to stop them, the real trick of American censorship and propaganda is these views are never seen in the major media sources the vast majority consume.

This is a vastly different model than how censorship in China operates, with different consequences, and different ways to oppose it.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#12

Post by nothingnewhere »

yogthos wrote: post #5

Exactly same thing can be said about US [1]. It really fascinates me how much focus there is on China when exact same things like suppression of political opinion and mass surveilance are happening in the West. I think it would be far more productive to focus on fixing shit here than to obsess about China as if everything was fine in the West. Meanwhile the West is still fueling the genocide in Yemen by the Saudis ma…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#13

Post by anovikov »

odiroot wrote: post #8
k__ wrote: post #7

Does this mean, two people can tell each other the government is shit, but 10 people can't get together and tell their collective opinion even if it was the opposite?

More or less that. My Chinese friends discuss the politics openly, sometimes even on WeChat. As long as you don't do it over group chats or in public no one would bother you. There was just this funny thing that the famous llama pic was automatically filtered even in 1-1 chats.

Why people keep using the system that censors stuff? Why not just completely switch to something else? Or it will become impossible to analyze then cos they won't look "Chinese" then, so maybe they actually in fact do it, just keep posting on WeChat something meaningless to please the Party?

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#14

Post by chewbacha »

This is why the first amendment of the US constitution had the notion freedom of assembly. Collective or mutual knowledge is important for a social body to protect itself from tyranny. Stephen Pinker [1] gave a talk and related this to the story of the emperors new cloths. The gist is that independently, everyone knew that the emperor was naked, but it wasn’t until it was publicly exclaimed by a child that the independent knowledge became mutual, thus making it socially OK for the population at large to say what they already knew.

Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes understand this and remove the ability to congregate openly on how the system works. They disappear dissidents and control the media. They essentially gaslight the citizenry in the hopes that independent suffering stays independent and never is discussed openly where it could incite rebellion.

[1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3-son3EJTrU

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#15

Post by tpolzer »

anovikov wrote: post #13
odiroot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More or less that. My Chinese friends discuss the politics openly, sometimes even on WeChat. As long as you don't do it over group chats or in public no one would bother you. There was just this funny thing that the famous llama pic was automatically filtered even in 1-1 chats.

Why people keep using the system that censors stuff? Why not just completely switch to something else? Or it will become impossible to analyze then cos they won't look "Chinese" then, so maybe they actually in fact do it, just keep posting on WeChat something meaningless to please the Party?

Anything else that gets too popular will be aggressively blocked unless they comply with the censorship/give out logs.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#16

Post by namelosw »

This is more accurate about the current state, people can talk about politic in person in normal volume in public like metro or mall, or just through Wechat as long as you don't affect collective.

A lot of People in person say bad words all the time. Everyone has their own point of view, far from brain-washed from some media.

There are also politic classes from middle school to college, and requires a high score for Master degree. Everyone hates it, no one really cares about what Marxism is, they just recite everything and play the game, and forget it immediately after the exam - just like how SF engineers play the brain teaser games.

Some media renders China like 1984 where everyone is intensively controlled is far from reality and oversimplify things. It's much easier to judge if it's like 1984.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#17

Post by tdb7893 »

yogthos wrote: post #5

Exactly same thing can be said about US [1]. It really fascinates me how much focus there is on China when exact same things like suppression of political opinion and mass surveilance are happening in the West. I think it would be far more productive to focus on fixing shit here than to obsess about China as if everything was fine in the West. Meanwhile the West is still fueling the genocide in Yemen by the Saudis ma…

The suppression of political opinion is very different in the US, I would even go as far as to say that a lot of the issues in the US are because of the robust political dissent (which is a good thing, most of the large social problems have been solved by large scale dissent movements). I honestly don't know why the US government isn't more concerned about the Saudis but a large amount of people in the US are and tried to get the government to have a more hard line with them and stop arms sales but it was vetoed by Trump.

I think the US is just a doormat right now on a international level and unwilling to come out on a decisive side (unless he somehow thinks it will help to get a trade deal).

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#18

Post by namelosw »

anovikov wrote: post #13
odiroot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More or less that. My Chinese friends discuss the politics openly, sometimes even on WeChat. As long as you don't do it over group chats or in public no one would bother you. There was just this funny thing that the famous llama pic was automatically filtered even in 1-1 chats.

Why people keep using the system that censors stuff? Why not just completely switch to something else? Or it will become impossible to analyze then cos they won't look "Chinese" then, so maybe they actually in fact do it, just keep posting on WeChat something meaningless to please the Party?

Except they can't, things like Instagram and WhatsApp are blocked and taken down from the AppStore. If there's new they would also be taken down.

Any forums or messing app alike must do ISP registration from the government, the cloud provider has to make sure they can take down any website or web service on demand.

Those websites without ISP registration has quite a change being blocked, and cannot use a lot of 3rd party integration like WeChat pay, etc.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#19

Post by roenxi »

cameronbrown wrote: post #6
roenxi wrote: post #4

Living in Australia, I've been exposed to both Hong Kong and mainlander Chinese people and I've developed an opinion. Australia really needs to start working harder to understand them than they do to understand us. In light of the recent disturbances in HK I read things like this paper with renewed interest. The views of the mainlanders on HK are fascinating in how alien they are in contrast to how the Australian pre…

Would you be able to elaborate more on your 2nd paragraph?

The one that stands out to me is a girl I know from Shenzhen. Very intelligent, very articulate and someone I've pigeonholed as rising-star-in-leadership-somewhere material.

She's basically maintaining what seems to me to be a fairly passionate cross between an attack on the protestors and a defense of Chinese national pride. The two main prongs are that the protestors are disruptive/the protests cause injury (citing some facts I don't consider controversial) and the risk of interference by Westerners in Chinese affairs.

What is noticeably missing, that I'd expect of someone of similar character but with an Australian upbringing, is any acknowledgement that individual liberty could possibly be important to anyone, in Hong Kong or otherwise. At the stereotypical level nothing there surprises me. At the emotional level it is jarring. I'm going to be unpacking what is just my general support for Hong Kong vs. my status as not a Chinese citizen vs. genuine cultural differences.

China is huge and has become powerful again. I'd like to be more informed about the lens they use to see this sort of situation. There are clearly substantially different opinions about what is happening. Even if it is simply getting an English translation of the CCP propaganda that would be helpful, because at the moment I just don't know what specifically to expect if I ask a mainlander what they think about the topic. Given how tied Australia and China are, that isn't ideal.

Re: Censorship in China Allows Govt Criticism but Silences Collective Expression [pdf]

#20

Post by Jordanpomeroy »

roenxi wrote: post #4

Living in Australia, I've been exposed to both Hong Kong and mainlander Chinese people and I've developed an opinion. Australia really needs to start working harder to understand them than they do to understand us. In light of the recent disturbances in HK I read things like this paper with renewed interest. The views of the mainlanders on HK are fascinating in how alien they are in contrast to how the Australian pre…

I had a fascinating conversation with a Korean friend. It is second hand, but some of his friends and colleagues live in HK. According to my friend, HKers in our generation (late 30s, early 40s) have a notion that the resistance is led by young people that have no Chinese identity. And this is offensive to many of them because they lived under British rule. Our generation had a culturally Chinese identity that and welcomed reunification, or at least had high hopes therein.
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