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Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

china-underground.com

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Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#311

Post by bdcravens »

supercanuck wrote: post #267
bdcravens wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only has that benefit because of investment, and that investment would have never come had it been a non-profit.

that's bullshit. It could be run similar to Wikipedia.

That's not what I'm saying. Their investors wouldn't tolerate that now, so the only way that reality could exist would be if they had never taken investment. Could a Reddit that never got into HN or never attracted investment, instead relying on grants and donations like Wikipedia, be what it is today? I'm not convinced.

Perhaps this could happen though, if they came up with a reasonable fund raiser to buy out that stake? $3B is all it takes :-)

https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/raiseit/

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#312

Post by perl4ever »

a1369209993 wrote: post #275
hopler wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more work I do, the more trash I generate. That doesn't make the trash the reason for my success, and doesn't earn the trash an honored central place at my table.

But it does mean that banning people for generating trash is a fucking terrible idea. If you aren't willing to bear the drawbacks of free speech then you aren't going to get the benefits of it either. Unfortunately, civil rights, like more concrete infrastructure, are a investment you can pillage in the short term and not see the consequences until later.

I think it's typical that the majority of a given public nuisance is created by a small segment of the people who contribute to the problem overall. So it seems logical to target that subset.

Everybody generates trash, but not everybody contributes equally to illegal dumping and littering.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#313

Post by pfisch »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #274
pfisch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Genocide requires intent. Kind of disrespectful to the dead to use them as pawns for an argument IMO.

There are a lot of instances of the Chinese government intentionally directing food away from famine stricken areas. There was clear intent to starve out populations and political opponents.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#315

Post by pfisch »

chillacy wrote: post #256
rplst8 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have not changed. Well, same wolf, new clothes made by sheep. They persecute religious groups, Muslim, Christian, and Buddhist alike. They control their laborers, harvest organs from prisoners, and they've been occupying Tibet since 1949 and actively pursue families that send their children to Buddhist schools.

I think these are separate issues (but totally valid), the great leap forward wasn't made to persecute minorities insofar as... well the result of a state planned economy. The parent is pointing out that the great leap forward wouldn't happen again because of a switch to capitalism. You're saying the persecution of minorities hasn't changed, which is a different topic. Capitalist economies can still persecute minorit…

You are too generous concerning the Great Leap Forward. It really wasn’t some unfortunate accident. There was clear intent to eliminate large swaths of the population of China.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#316

Post by luckylion »

chillacy wrote: post #259
luckylion wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The configuration of those permissible bits is exactly the difference between two cultures, no? Sure. And that can be changed in an instant. Just put "Tiananmen Square", "Tibet" etc on your black list and the site can operate the exact same way it does today. Most users won't even notice ("it's a site to share cat pictures, why would I talk about politics"), others will not care ("oh well, those guys probably deser…

Sure, laws can be changed relatively fast as well. But what's your pitch here? Is it that we're all just on a sliding scale of censorship? Or that we shouldn't censor at all and truly embody our ideal of "freedom of speech"?

My point is that reddit is set up to be run as an authoritarian system, by people who obviously believe in authoritarianism. Users who like reddit but are afraid of a company from an authoritarian state investing sounds silly to me. Similarly silly: when Google fans get scared about video cameras because it feels like surveillance.

My gut feeling is that it's a reaction to propaganda (for lack of a better word; I'm not suggesting that there's a concerted effort). China has been associated with a surveillance state, and mentioning China or large chinese companies will send people into a frenzy because they don't want a police state. That their favorite website runs on the same ideology, that they are constantly under surveillance by corporations and their own government: ignored.

As for "laws can be changed": that's why I'm a fan of only implementing things that you feel comfortable giving control over to your worst political enemy.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#317

Post by tozeur »

Novashi wrote: post #208
save_ferris wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just censorship in the traditional sense, Huffman changed someone else's content that was posted. What an insane and unbelievably poor decision by the CEO of a major company. Sure, the size of Huffman's change was small and limited in scope, but the injustice that it represented combined with the incredible lack of judgment by the Chief Executive rightfully rightfully caused a loud response. He absolutely s…

>but the injustice Let's chill out with the over-the-top rhetoric because few of us are paying customers of reddit and it's their database at the end of the day. Stop manufacturing outrage please

It’s justified outrage. I’m assuming you think because reddit is a “silly” website that it’s okay for this kind of behavior. But it’s really not, because there’s a lot of serious discussion that takes place and the CEO doing something like calls into question the integrity of the content.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#318

Post by chillacy »

pfisch wrote: post #315
chillacy wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think these are separate issues (but totally valid), the great leap forward wasn't made to persecute minorities insofar as... well the result of a state planned economy. The parent is pointing out that the great leap forward wouldn't happen again because of a switch to capitalism. You're saying the persecution of minorities hasn't changed, which is a different topic. Capitalist economies can still persecute minorit…

You are too generous concerning the Great Leap Forward. It really wasn’t some unfortunate accident. There was clear intent to eliminate large swaths of the population of China.

A reading of wikipedia seems to imply poor execution of a program designed to industrialize in a top-down C&C economy.

> Mao Zedong was so inspired by the slogan that China put forward its own objective: to catch up with and surpass the UK in 15 years.

> Comrade Khrushchev has told us, the Soviet Union 15 years later will surpass the United States of America. I can also say, 15 years later, we may catch up with or exceed the UK.[9]

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

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#319

Post by chillacy »

luckylion wrote: post #316
chillacy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, laws can be changed relatively fast as well. But what's your pitch here? Is it that we're all just on a sliding scale of censorship? Or that we shouldn't censor at all and truly embody our ideal of "freedom of speech"?

My point is that reddit is set up to be run as an authoritarian system, by people who obviously believe in authoritarianism. Users who like reddit but are afraid of a company from an authoritarian state investing sounds silly to me. Similarly silly: when Google fans get scared about video cameras because it feels like surveillance. My gut feeling is that it's a reaction to propaganda (for lack of a better word; I'm n…

Yea I hear you, the world would be a better place if laws were passed with that in mind.

I do think some degree of tooling will be necessary to screen content on a site like reddit to remain compliant with US laws. If that begins the slippery slope then I don't think there's an escape.

Re: Reddit's user uprising against China because Tencent will invest in the platform

#320

Post by nradov »

phamilton wrote: post #198
throwaway2048 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO asks underlings for access to production servers, for whatever reason. How many are going to say no?

Who would say yes? If the company is public, all of this is covered under SOX compliance or other regulations. If you're truly going to get fired by the CEO for not complying, better that than be the one thrown under the bus when the SEC (or other gov body) comes knocking.

SOX compliance is about financial systems, not about some random discussion forum.
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