You also think it's better to cover up events like Tiananmen Square? It seems like it's almost entirely forgotten even though it happened only 30 years ago. My country (US) doesn't have a great human rights track record either, but at least we're allowed to talk about it.
Exactly. No country has a perfect history but by confronting past mistakes you have a chance to learn from them and hopefully support laws or norms that prevent them from happening again.
Perhaps this only applies in countries that practice democracy, where the people's awareness has a chance of translating into representation. Otherwise it's only likely to create discontent with the inability to change things (and thus unrest).
Present day thinkers and reporters are given the same silent treatment on mainstream media which is obviously controlled by the narrow oligarchy which controls everything else. Same treatment is happening on youtube as China is doing; non-conforming perspectives are actively sought out and removed by censorious apparatchiks. Oh yeah, and now they're also sometimes denounced as "russian agents" as well -a pack of absurd, paranoid and Orwellian nonsense which makes anything the ChiComs say look like objective common sense.
The US engages in ritual denunciation of itself for slavery and killing off the Indians. Somehow our most excellent international adventures, ridiculous military provocations, poisoning of the food chain, extractive slave economics of the native population and colonial control of half the population of the world is A-OK. For all I know, China engages in ritual denunciation of its pre-Maoist self as well. That doesn't mean they're not carefully controlling the narrative now.
Name some, I'll get you copies on Amazon and you can yell about them here on HN.
You seem to be trying to conflate group think (which is a real thing) with censorship (also real, very different, and much worse). And that doesn't make much sense to me at all.
I mean, fine. Maybe "no one talks about" your particular favorite injustice. But you talk about it (you just did!) and can work to convince the rest of us about the truth of your opinions (like you're doing right now!).
In the PRC, you can't.
But it's not the same discussion . To make it relevant would be to ask :
Once China works the same way at the same scope (Somehow assuming they don't) Will they drop the censor ?
Again, US colleges definitely engage in ritual denunciations of the bad old days. So do the Chinese. US colleges engage in political indoctrination that talks about problematic issues in the modern US which the US regime wants changed. So do the Chinese.
The only real difference is the US doesn't have to be as brutal and obvious as the Chinese to police thought. It does occasionally look a lot like old Maoist struggle sessions, but somehow people never make that connection.
EDIT: As a matter of fact, we just had a Muslim congress-woman openly discuss goals to impeach our sitting president. Things work differently in a democracy with representatives than they do in an authoritarian dictatorship.
Let me give you a bit of obvious propaganda by people who really do run the country:
https://twitter.com/Raytheon/status/1021446302515847168
Perfect embodiment of ruling caste self regard ... we blow up brown people ... but at least we are real smart and we ain't sexist!
Yes, exactly. Because this isn't an authoritarian dictatorship. We have democracy. We vote in representatives. We discuss policies with peers and campaign for people who represent changes we want to see. That's the difference and that's what our free speech protects.
EDIT:
> Let me give you a bit of obvious propaganda by people who really do run the country
Are you being censored for speaking up against Raytheon though? Are you being stopped from electing politicians who would curtail their power or regulate them in some way?
Read and/or watch Manufacturing Consent. This is what Chomsky calls[1] the "standard model" of social democratic societies (the one that the technical class helping run society must be "deeply indoctrinated" to believe).
Problem is, if you look at whose interests are actually represented in our politics it's nothing but a pacifying fiction. His "alternate model" describes how the society actually functions, and... well... why spoil the video? :D
If I were and could get my message out (people are trying on youtube; they're being censored), well, no doubt my life would be worth girl scout cookies. I'd be unpersonned at the very least.
FWIIW yes, I am being stopped from voting for politicians who would make this state of affairs end. Just as effectively as Chinese people are.
Otherwise it sounds like you're talking vaguely about what I can only interpret as a conspiracy theory of some kind but I have no idea what point you're trying to make.
Which just goes to show you more or less why the Chinese guy above doesn't see anything wrong with how his country's regime polices content either.
Anyway, have some more ruling class propaganda: https://twitter.com/WokeCapital/status/1081583730018476032
>> Otherwise it sounds like you're talking vaguely about what I can only interpret as a conspiracy theory of some kind but I have no idea what point you're trying to make.
> There's a great Mitchell and Webb sketch called "are we the baddies" -google (or better yet, qwant) it. If you can't put yourself in their shoes, well, you'll never get it.
It would be helpful if you precisely specified which ideas you think are getting censored on youtube and could cause you to get "unpersonned" before you start throwing around vague insinuations like that. Otherwise what you say has very little credibility.
If you don't like the military contractors, protest them and vote for change instead of trying to use it to rationalize China's censorship campaign.
But do you think that there's a hidden branch of US government dictating which books are used or what words aren't allowed, carefully crafting this revised perception of our reality? Or is it just social effects that happen in all countries?
Meticulous and widespread censoring of phrases like "rubber duckies" just because it might remind people of Tiananmen Square or "Winnie the Pooh" just because people mocked Xi Jinping is another thing.
No matter how many mistakes are made in the US, we have that as a bedrock. There is a fundamental difference between the US and China in this regard.
There are about 6.6 million American Indians in the US today.
A quick Google came back with words and phrases banned by the US government. It's federal employee who are ordered not to use the words and phrases not individuals, but chilling nonetheless.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/cdc-g...
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/aug/07/usda-cli...
That sounds more like a branding guideline for employees than censorship of a topic. But, as you said, this doesn't apply to normal citizens and presumably is done so that the spokespeople seem like they're on the same page.
It's not censorship, it's just stupid leadership and it's from ephemeral positions that our democracy can be used to reverse by putting people with sane policies in place.
From my perspective as an American, I view the free exchange of ideas to be the bedrock upon which all other human rights depend. A government deciding which ideas their citizens can express is simply beyond the pale and indicative of evil and corruption.
On the other hand, people in US enjoy freedom to exchange ideas on whatever they want, except politically incorrect topics in public.
So basically in both cases, people are just hiding what they truly know/think in their minds instead of speaking them out.
I'll let that speak for itself on "which is worse". I find these cases where modern, educated westerners are afraid to draw the obvious, self evident conclusion sad. You know which is worse, but you actually think someone else who disagrees is worthy of respect. They aren't. They are brainwashed.
Until people wake up from this silly idea that there are infinite interpretations of reality that are all equal, this weak kind of statements will continue.
Roseanne Barr didn't get arrested, imprisoned, or executed. The CCP fears and hates it's own people. I walked through an Ai Wei Wei exhibit 2 years ago. I was awestruck and moved to silence by his amazing work. Along with the aforementioned Nobel Laureate, these are individuals that are gifts to the human race. But their mere opinions threaten the CCP, and the last I heard, Weiwei had his studio burned and had been intermittently imprisoned. An amazing, once in a generation artist..... And you have the audacity to act as if there is an equivalency here.
Wow.
I do personally think that their system is worse in terms of magnitude of consequences, and that ours is worse in that its rules are completely arbitrary and unwritten.
Yes, that's why we have government and law in an attempt to protect you from things like that.
So the fact that some other government or law is intentionally doing that to other people doesn't seem like a rationalizing argument to me.
You cannot with any seriousness compare the de-normalisation of certain opinions, as it happened in the US in the past few decades, with the systematic, brutal, ubiquitous repression and censorship happening in China right now. China is one of the most un-free countries on earth in nearly every measure. Claiming that, eh sure, it is one way to do things and in the west they fire you if you say you hate niggers, so this is two flavours of pretty much the same thing, claiming this is the kind of gaslighting and propaganda that regimes such as China and Russia are trying to push on the West.
Sorry if it is too personal, but if you don't mind, I would like to know if you have actually visited China.
In my opinion, only people who have actual experience living in China are qualified to make such statements.
I went to a good school in Beijing, and after arriving in the US, I realized they were teaching us basically propaganda in our Chinese, History, and Poli Sci classes. They even managed to sneak propaganda into our chemistry class, it’s nuts!
If what happened to pewdiepie isn't "systematic, brutal, ubiquitous repression and censorship", I am not sure what it is. That's effectively what happened to Bi Fujian, after he was caught bad-mouthing Mo Zedong [1].
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2015/04/08/asia/china-tv-star-curse/inde...
I can, and do, publicly express politically incorrect (and sometimes downright incorrect) opinions in public. That's why Twitter exists. The only thing stopping you is cultural norms (should you choose to accept and fear them).
If you have any kind of serious career in any field this isn't quite true.
You might be lucky enough to work mostly in a like-minded industry, so you're safe, but not otherwise.
The 'wrong opinion' is suicide in some places: journalism, entertainment etc..
Edit: Seems like I have crossed the line on HN. Moderators, feel free to moderate this comment. And apologies for unintentionally starting this long and boring thread.
The point is that we are free to do so without fear of retaliation from the government. People are free to argue with each other and determine for themselves where to draw the lines.
Can you say the same? Of course not. You are a victim of a government that fears it's own people. The fact that you accept this as normal and ok is a consequence of Maoist brainwashing. If a government can control what you say, they by extension control what you think. You're a slave. And you're descendingt your master.
You can run your own site, tattoo is on your face, say it to your friends... As long as you aren't directly inciting violence against others. That's really the only thing that's outright censored (genuine hate speech).
But criticizing the government, laws, society, anything really, is totally legal and in fact constitutionally protected. Just don't hurt or threaten other people.
> Edit: Seems like I have crossed the line on HN. Moderators, feel free to moderate this comment.
Did you get an actual warning or are you trying to make a point about censorship?
May I ask, if it's ok, why do you do this?
If you need evidence, just look at Trump’s tweet feed.
Whereas, do you know about the famine in the great leap forward? And it is widely known?
I was talking to one chinese student who maintained that there was no censorship in china. She was surprised to learn that I, a foreigner, could not make a wechat account for my business. And she is well educated, has travelled abroad, etc
There is a term and a meme for it on Chinese internet. You can Google-translate these pages that explain the term:
> Whereas, do you know about the famine in the great leap forward? And it is widely known?
Yes, the famine is widely known. It's not considered secret at all.
However, it is attributed to the weather, not to the government.
Every culture is going to have taboos and forbidden things. The important questions are who enforces them and why.
> On the other hand, people in US enjoy freedom to exchange ideas on whatever they want, except politically incorrect topics in public.
People in the US enjoy the freedom to exchange almost all ideas in public, including politically incorrect topics. For some extreme examples, look at the "Dark Enlightenment" folks and racists like Richard Spencer. However, many people choose to not use that freedom because they wouldn't enjoy the experience of other people using their freedoms to personally reject them or to tell them that their ideas are stupid, wrong, bad, etc.
That situation is only superficially comparable to Chinese censorship, and that comparison ignores the very important and fundamental differences.
Let me classify politically (potentially sensitive/incorrect) topics into 2 classes: 1) concerning concrete specific claims of history or what is happening or happened, 2) abstract discussion of properties of systems, designing "utopias", expressing general complaints and identifying their root/radix/fundamental causes in the design of society, and concluding radical/fundamental proposals of what should change etc... without naming nor insinuating specific politicians/leaders etc...
Are subjects in the second class also taboo/censored in China? All the examples in these articles about chinese censorship relate to specific individuals or events, and not to ideology/normative/prescriptive statements of what humans may or may not desire/expect/demand from a system.
For example would it be taboo or censored in China to discuss the following idea:
No one created the world/China, so we are all equal co-owners of the world/China. Everybody and every company rents their locations (farmland, buildings, ...) The highest rent bidder becomes the accepted renter. And the sum of all rented is divided equally among all humans/citizens. This could happen in a decentralized fashion (I hate the term blockchain), using OpenStreetMap etc. Nobody is forced to live here or there, so there is freedom, and there is equal rights. If you get a job you can thus rent an above average place, Without a job you can afford an average place and food, and if you rent a small unwanted shack for a few years you have the budget to start your own enterprise, or perhaps party all life long if you are otherwise OK with your shack...
Would this be considered taboo? Parasitism? Irrespective of our religion, no human created the sun (and the edible chemical energy it generates in plants), the earth, ... and all systems worldwide take claim of these resources, in order to make the puny little individual feel guilty about being born and having needs...
or would it be the freedom part that would be considered offensive: that beijing can no longer dictate who does what work and lives where?
EDIT: also consider Joseph Brodsky [0], everybody calls the USSR "communism", but he was accused of parasitism, so I am inclined that the idea of Provably Affordable Average Rent, i.e. we don't even need taxation to insure everyone has the right to roughly the average food, average housing, average minerals etc.. the rent that is spent is redistributed as "basic income", so by definition you get the average rent. I am inclined the idea is taboo in both the West and the East, and would have been in the USSR as well...
This is not true; there are many common instances of this happening, Every Single Day.
That said, even in 'private' Chinese have all sorts of highly relevant information filtered.
Such as the activities, possibly illegal, of their leaders.
My perspective is that there's such an incredible difference in degree as to be a difference in kind. Politically incorrect speech in the US may get you socially ostracized, but not literally jailed. And occasionally some people actually do it (look at any self-proclaimed Nazi or the Westboro Baptist Church). And criticizing the government or governance in the US is not politically incorrect; it's rather in vogue these days.
Hell when I was working in China (left in 2016), I didn't care that much and still doesn't. Money is good and the benefits are awesome.
I suspect kids in China would care about 1989 like kids in the USA in 1989 cared about the Kent state massacre: not very much, it was a long time ago right? But then that begs the question why the CPC bothers to censor it, perhaps they just don’t want to chance an open discussion about it since many of those people are still alive.
You have to remember that the people on HN from China or Chinese is not representative of the average person in China. My cousin was born and raised in China in a tier 2 city. He now works in a tier 2 city making 30K RMB/month which is extremely good pay. He has travelled abroad many times and reads western books/culture.
I was born in China and left at 16. Educated in Canada and went back at 26 and worked for 14 years there before I left. When I was there I was working in major IT companies in a tier 1 city.
You have to think about Hu's The Harmonious Society Idea (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonious_Society) and part of the 'Stability At All Cost' ideal. The censorship is for the average person in China.
Kent state and Tiannamen are hardly comparable.
Tiannamen could have ballooned into a full on revolution, there were many killed, imprisoned indefinitely with arbitrary trials, hurt, families threatened, careers stomped out etc..
To add:
Kent State was a spontaneous situation, violence broke out at a student sit in, with thousands of students potentially overwhelming a small number of state troopers, some of whom foolishly shot into the crowd.
Fundamentally not comparable.
I don't think that is the only view about what happened at Kent State, but it is really beside my point.
Are you sure you are just talking about China? You are intentionally misinterpreting apathy as "brainwashed".