In China the CPC exercises strict control over what topics are allowed to trend on social media, so what appears to be "mob justice" is actually a carefully curated event. The state media chose to report on this rather than ignore it. The Cyberspace Administration chose to allow this outrage to gain momentum while topics that do not toe the party line are squashed.
You cannot really compare the kind of social media "mob justice" people speak of in the west to how things are managed on the Chinese internet.
Hide Taiwan emoji flag in Hong Kong: https://blog.emojipedia.org/apple-hides-taiwan-flag-in-hong-...
The other is an authoritarian government shutting down business ties based on one employee opinion.
How do people not see the difference in this? On twitter, people are to speak whatever they want and can choose to buy whatever they want.
In China. Not so much.
"Fight for Freedom, Stand with Palestine"
I wonder what the reaction would have been?
There lies in the difference. In Spain, it would be the people demanding it. In China, its the authoritative government that is not only demanding but also threatening.
Its not quite apples to apples.
People can be patriotic on this matter, but it still doesn't represent all the people.
Authoritarian governments do not
Do the Hong Hong people count?
How about Tibetan people? Or the sadly famous Uyghur?
And does Taiwan has a say as well?
Hongkong's takeover by the British has been a humiliation for China and the Chinese people, which has been provoking strong feelings on their part since well before the Communist Party was even founded.
That China must get Hongkong back is a highly consensual opinion among the Chinese. This was a policy of the Communist Party because that really is something that every Chinese strongly wanted.
There are elements of wanting independence for Hongkong in the current protests and of foreign interference (whether it is true or not, this is how it looks). This is an absolute red flag for Chinese. In fact if TVs were showing everything we are shown in the West the government would have to act more strongly against the protesters by popular demand.
The Chinese government may not be democratic but that does not mean that it can ignore public opinion or that its policies never align with what the people want.
Campaigning for democracy was always going to be a uphill struggle in Hongkong, but these violent protests (which can be qualified of 'riots') have been highly counterproductive.
Except, I'm just a one person boycott, since I don't have to agree with what my government tells me.
1.4 billion of those people are Chinese, and they can get outaged over whatever ridiculous shit they want.
I'm curious because I don't know how that information would spread in China or if it is talked about much.
when I was young, there was no GFW. I remembered that I visited lots of western medias about it to better understand it by two-sided stories. and I believe that I did better understand it.
I do use VPN as many of others when I am in China. It's a common thing.
"just"? Not being able to say something in public is like not being able to say it at all. What you just talk about with your friends or family is as relevant to the public sphere as your private thoughts are.
buddy, being so cynical is not really helpful for any constructive discussion. not mention that I was telling a fact not argument.
even in many democratic countries, in terms of political correctness, you don't want to talk about some subjects in public. Does it really mean not being able to say it at all?
Yes, and to the degree that happens, things disappear from the public sphere.
I'm German, and the Nazis are not a happy subject one wants to talk about, but being forbidden from talking about that would be so much worse. And while not everybody "wants to hear about it", there is no difference between "in public" or "in private" really, it what matters more who you talk to, or who overhears it. Neo-Nazis don't want to hear about the Holocaust, Antifa has no problem with it, for example.
The way Tiananmen is taboo in public discussion in China is an entirely different thing I would say, simply because it mainly comes from the CCP and repression, rather than the opinions of people. People may say they "don't feel the need" to talk about it, but if someone talked about it in public and wouldn't stop, they would be stopped, and people know that.
> Does it really mean not being able to say it at all?
Yes, for all practical purposes in context of what we're talking about. Maybe this will help explain:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/#CitPubSph
> For Arendt the public sphere comprises two distinct but interrelated dimensions. The first is the space of appearance, a space of political freedom and equality which comes into being whenever citizens act in concert through the medium of speech and persuasion. The second is the common world, a shared and public world of human artifacts, institutions and settings which separates us from nature and which provides a relatively permanent and durable context for our activities. Both dimensions are essential to the practice of citizenship, the former providing the spaces where it can flourish, the latter providing the stable background from which public spaces of action and deliberation can arise. For Arendt the reactivation of citizenship in the modern world depends upon both the recovery of a common, shared world and the creation of numerous spaces of appearance in which individuals can disclose their identities and establish relations of reciprocity and solidarity.
In China one might even say the CCP allows criticism, but tries to keep that public sphere non-existent, regardless of whether it is supportive or critical: https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-Censorship-China-...
But I agree that this also is a problem in the West, the public sphere isn't exactly healthy, though at least it still exists. A quote by Arendt I posted recently also applies here, both to China and the West: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21175000
And from "Origins of Totalitarianism":
> The deprivation of humans of their rights, the killing of the juridical person in them is just a precondition of their being totally controlled, for which even voluntary agreement is a hindrance.
What is voluntary can change, and this is not permitted with some things (or under totalitarianism, a lot of things, until history gets rewritten and then it's not permitted to not change them).
People in the West do that all the time, too: pretend like "that's just how the world is" and they are adapting to it, rather than, as they say that, acting in a way which, together with millions who act similarly, creates and continues the situation they claim to simply adapt to. We don't fear the secret police, we just don't want to be frowned on, we just don't want to lose sleep or our appetite. That's much worse, but two wrongs still don't make a right.
I don't think the CCP is "the villain" and the rest of the world free and saintly, at all, it's just that I can't make an exception just for the CCP and pretend 2+2 is 5 in their case. So while I mean all my "cynical" (I would call it blunt) words, don't take them as just aimed at the CCP (and people who may think they might not be sooo bad etc.)
>Its not of course always the correct information that is on the first results
That seems like it would pertain to any google search query tho. I don't think I ever just click a single link when I'm trying to find information about a subject.
Only in your own thoughts and dreams (for now). You're not allowed to outrage on Weibo or WeChat. Is this correct?
As we all know, VPN is very popular in China. It's just an easy job to access information out of Great Fire Wall.
thinking critically, could you be "brainwashed" by some degree when you assume more than 1 billion people got brainwashed?
And brainwashing does not start with the internet. education is a major source of brainwashing and do not discount mass media either which still shapes culture even in hyper connected countries like the US.
Brainwashing works, its not even a remotely disputable claim, we have had two large countries going thru major brainwashing efforts in the 20th century with the Third Reich and the Soviet Union and the results were very convincing in terms of how effective brainwashing can be. Not sure why you would discount brainwashing when China went thru the Cultural Revolution to basically make all dissident voices extinct or irrelevant.
How much of your belief that the Chinese are brainwashed people who's opinions should be ignored came from school and media?
If brainwashing really worked greatly like you said, Soviet Union would still exist now. It was their people who overthrew Soviet Union.
exactly because of China going through the disaster like Cultural Revolution, many people just don't believe these propaganda anymore.
my point was not there is no brainwash. it's everywhere including China and US. my point was in the era of Internet and the popular use of VPN in China, i don't think the brainwash really works greatly like you'd think.
i encourage you to find out the answer by yourself.
Today the Vatican is still a state. The Catholic church remains influential. The USSR has fallen and the Soviet system has been discredited.
The above article would not have been written if the CCP's objections were an effective way to silence western critics. It would not be unreasonable to expect a truly powerful entity to be unconcerned with criticisms from a basketball team's GM.
History will tell all.
The Russian federation still exists, is controlled by a former KGB operative from the Soviet Union, and is actively waging war in Europe while annexing parts of neighboring countries.
And the pope still has zero divisions to oppose that.
I'm offended by his backpedaling. That makes me right, right?
China really needs to get a grip and understand that with seven billion people in the world, not everyone is going to agree with everything it wants.