The conversations are amazing
There’s a bunch of Chinese posts asking if the stuff about school shootings, fires, homelessness are exaggerated propaganda only to be told otherwise. It’s both hilarious and sad.
People of the US and China are both unsure of what to believe about the other, because both are so propagandized lol
Who told you that the people of China are propagandized, especially to hate other countries and peoples as much as the US does?
Friends of mine who have moved away from China. One of them had police at their door in China for social media posts that were friendly to Uyghurs (not even anything to do with the genocide, just general friendliness as a “we’re all Chinese” kind of message). Being taken to police stations for even slightly questioning the state narrative is terrifying.
Source: I heard it in a dream
Source: a friend of mine personally telling me what happened the last time he was in mainland China.
Woah I never recognized your username in the wild before. Thanks for giving us Lemmy. Huge fan.
No probs!
Scroll down, addressed this three times in this thread already.
You mean how both China, and the US propagandize their citizens? Yeah, I’m fully aware of that already. All states will do it, as a system of control over the working class, in order to continue to exploit them.
I mean, if controlling the people wasn’t the goal, whats the purpose of the oppression of a state?
Their access to news is controlled and for some topics all available news is what we’d call propaganda. Particularly anything about Japan or the Taiwan issue. Most people I know there realize this to an extent but without any other information do still believe the core idea even if skeptical of details.
But at the same time I’d argue there’s no such thing as a population that’s not propagandized. In the US the big news corporations only will present views favorable to their profitability and continued growth. Sure they disagree with eachother, but it’s still always a pro-business view. State news from Russia is (I’d argue rightly) not available on many US platforms to discourage it’s influence for example.
The US does NOT have a free press and is not at all interested in freedom and free speech. Notice that there are no socialists or leftists of any kind on any news channel or in political leadership positions.
This is just untrue. There is plenty of legal press in the US of any persuasion, from anarchist to fascist.
The major US news outlets are in bed with capitalists because that’s where the money is, but there are lots of smaller outlets with other views. In China all news outlets kowtow to the government because anything else is illegal.
Mostly agree with this take. I just wanted to add some nuance. I was talking to a friend about Gaza/Israel-protests in my country and said that the media doesn’t show everything. He then told a story about the protests that was supposedly not covered in the media. However, I had literally just read about that story in my newspaper.
Point is, there is some freedom of press (at least in my country) and the press is fairly pluralistic. However, to really find out what’s going on you need to read i.) several sources, and ii.) continue to focus on events after journalists took the effort to dig down. That’s a big ask for many people. And the stories that come out first tend to be most biased.
the stories that come out first tend to be most biased
I honestly think the concept of news is actually harmful, because it’s about reporting what happened, not about making the audience understand the subject. It puts a premium on getting the report out as quickly as possible, and favours the most shocking events and interpretations that draw people’s attention.
Ultimately most news are “empty calories” of information that mostly give an illusion of knowledge. “Explosion in Herptown, dozens wounded” does not meaningfully increase your understanding of the world, it mostly just makes you scared. It will take weeks until the cause and consequences of the explosion can be fully understood, and a lot of research to put that into perspective.
In China all news outlets kowtow to the government because anything else is illegal.
This is what our media tell us about their media. In every country the media kowtow to the government to some extent, but I’m not sure to exactly what extent they actually do in China, and I’m not going to take our media’s word for what that extent is.
If you do not know the extent of pressure asserted on Chinese media that is willful ignorance.
Of course “our media” (whatever you mean by that) is the only media that can report on it as Chinese media is heavily censored.
If you want to know the extent the information easy to find.
Here’s some of what Reporters Without Borders have to say
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the world’s largest prison for journalists, and its regime conducts a campaign of repression against journalism and the right to information worldwide.”
“The Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party sends a detailed notice to all media every day that includes editorial guidelines and censored topics.”
“Independent journalists and bloggers who dare to report “sensitive” information are often placed under surveillance, harassed, detained, and, in some cases, tortured.”
Source: https://rsf.org/en/country/china
This is from The Committee to Protect Journalists
“China has long ranked as one of the world’s worst jailers of journalists. Censorship makes the exact number of journalists jailed there notoriously difficult to determine, but Beijing’s media crackdown has widened in recent years”
Here’s Amnesty International
“Chinese authorities continued to severely curtail rights to freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly, including through the abusive application of laws often under the pretext of preserving national security.”
Source: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/
Ofc there is no such thing as an un-propagandized country. There are lobbyists and think tanks everywhere
School shootings is something uniquely american. Even México doesn’t have them and we have a decent amount of narcojuniors (rich sons of drug dealers) that would have plenty access to guns, the only time i remember a school shooting happening it was in a private school in Monterrey like 7 years ago, which is pretty much the most americanized part of México.
I’m reminded of that ex Soviet joke about how they always knew the government was lying about their own countries but were shocked to learn it was telling the truth about america
Despite the unhappy circumstances, it’s kinda nice Chinese and Americans interacting on social media.
The fact this isn’t typically possible because of bans in China is not so nice. Neither is the fact the US is going down the same road instead of proper privacy laws.
But still, kinda nice
I mean the US is so scared shitless of socialist propaganda, or rather the political upheaval and loss of global dominance by capital that it would lead to, that it has literally bombed and invaded entire countries of civilians over it. Unless a country has any ability to fight back; in which case we do anything in our power to undermine that country’s political process by devastating it economically, conducting covert CIA operations, and funding fundamentalist religious groups.
I think China learned a lesson at some point and, in all fairness, it probably wouldn’t have been allowed to develop to this point if it was more welcoming of exchange with western media. (Well, that, and the fact they’ve funded their socialist project by providing cheap goods for western capitalists to increase their profit margins with)
If we don’t even trust China to define China’s truths, why should we trust America to do so? You’ve seen how much misinformation has damaged our political process. If the Chinese people are happy with their government, and data says over 90% of them are, who are we to say what is right for their country? If in fact they don’t trust their government, it should be left up to them to decide what to do with it and when. Just as we wouldn’t like it very much if China dictated to us what is right and wrong, even if it were to lift millions out of poverty like it did for the Chinese people.
America manipulates media too, arguably to a much greater extent. However, it’s more of a firehose method. Western media is fully allowed to lie, sensationalize, and manipulate truths with no other recourse than an “invisible hand” of a “free market” that is fully willing to gobble up misinformation and spit it back out between each other. For every keyword that is censored on its way from America to China, there’s a billion dollars waiting for any media outlet willing to propagate the capitalist narrative. Non- or anti-capitalist media does not have similar funding, for the very fact that those who are so invested in capitalism are not going to throw their money at outlets which undermine their profits. It’s also not like America doesn’t straight up censor things when it can do so covertly. At least China’s censorship is out in the open.
This is a whataboutism, to be sure, but look at the whole picture. It’s all the more reason for China to weed out information from the West that is regularly and systemically manipulated, in the ways I’ve just described, to undermine them.
It’s exactly the same situation as Israel carpet bombing all of Palestine and continuing to receive billions of dollars in support, only for the resistance fighters to be called terrorists, caged, and starved when they fire back a few rockets. It’s simply not comparable and the hypocrisy is stark.
There’s also the small matter of their language, the friction of which was highlighted when western journalists were quick to cry censorship because nothing came up when they searched “xi jinping” and “tianenmen” on red note. Of course, this was because it’s spelled 習近平 and 天安门 in China. This language barrier makes Chinese media very inaccessible to westerners, and vice versa, which isn’t really China’s problem as the Chinese language already gives them access to all 1.4 billion people they are responsible for. Like red note has been accessible all this time, it’s only now becoming popular in the West as a fuck you to the government for banning tik tok.
(Sorry this got to be so long, there’s a lot of background to cover here that tends to be obscure to the average American. I’m only just able to articulate it myself as I don’t tend to write things I can’t back up with evidence or reasoning. Happy to expand on anything I’ve glossed over for the sake of brevity.)
The social score thing isn’t really propaganda as much as it is idiots believing whatever they read. It started from what was essentially thinly veiled racism, and became “true” because people kept hearing it.
There were several “social credit systems” that were set up in various provinces. These were mainly attempts to aggregate public records from different departments into one searchable database. It mostly affected business owners since they have the largest public record footprint. The idea was you could look up who owns what business and how many code violations those businesses had.
This triculates into the american rumor mill and comes out as the “social credit score” meme which is fantasitcal projection from our own opaque credit system.
That’s generally how propaganda works, though.
Eh, there’s truth and lies on both sides. Coming from someone that lived in china for 4 years and was able to engage with Chinese primary news sources. But basic healthcare in china is faster and cheaper, but then again I went to get a wart removed and they prescribed me acorn paste that accelerated the growth of the wart. So win some lose some.
Everyone pretending Europe doesn’t exist? Most countries have most healthcare for “free” (mandatory healthcare taxes).
Not a single hospital I went to in that country had hand soap in the bathrooms, to give you an idea about the level of hygiene. But going for my yearly sinus infection was a breeze and I got antibiotics. Not a zpack but it cleared up the infection. And no appointments necessary. Breeze in and breeze out an hour later with what you need. And dirt dirt cheap, and on my visa I didn’t pay into the national health care system, so my cost was 100% out of pocket.
The kinda people joining Rednote right now are not the same kinda people who know alot about geopolitics, or honestly anything beyond their personal bubble. Yeah, they’re just gonna keep pretending Europe doesn’t exist.
Trying to dodge Chinese traditional medicine in Asian countries when you go to the doctor is such a pain in the ass.
I had to go to three different Japanese doctors before they would give me something other than herbal powder.
The wart had to grow so it could be killed
If you’d have left it @caboose2006@lemm.ee, it would’ve become a mighty oak. You Westerners are weak. Who wouldn’t want a mighty oak growing out their dick?
This is exactly what governments around the world are afraid of. Every government wants us to blindly accept that every citizen of the nation is profoundly evil and must be obedient to its government.
Russia wants its citizens to believe every single lie about itself and other nations. That everyone in Ukraine is a bloodthirsty Nazi, and Russia is liberating Crimea.
America wants its citizens to believe every single lie about itself and other nations. Every brown person is a terrorist waiting for its Manchurian candidate call sign to do a second 9/11, and that the economy is the greatest in the world.
No nation tells the entire truth, from lying from omission via national security, to straight up war time propaganda, to funding and owning news networks. From Radio Free Europe to Sputnik, a government will lie to your face and tell you its an unabridged raw truth.
The only way we could actually learn the “truth” (if there is such a one when anyone could be as brainwashed as their government wants them to be) is by directly talking to the citizens of each nation. The internet is a great equalizer, the only limit is language and translation. That’s why governments censor the internet, or even shut it down when it gets too much for a government to manage.
We all have more in common with the random citizens of China, Russia, Germany, Japan, South Korea, America, Mexico, Canada, Uganda, South Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Israel, Ukraine, Brazil… We have more in common with being human and being subjugated and redistricted in doing what makes us happy and free.
And the government and rich of each of those nations and beyond have more in common each other than to the citizens they try to control like dogs. They all disagree on why they do it, but the end result is the same. Status quo, monopoly on violence kept in place with whoever is at the top. The set dressing and costumes change, but the stage play goes on.
You and I have more in common than with the president or prime minister or dictator we are under. The only thing we share with the top 1% and our governments is the lanauge we share and the citizenship. I have friends around the world, and I have more in common with random geeks in Japan and China, than the leadership of my nation.
The governments want you to think that you have nothing to share and love with another human being outside the lines drawn in the sand by people out of touch with the people inside those lines.
But nowhere else on the planet invests as much money and effort into it as the US. $325 million a year on anti China propaganda alone:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1157/text
You never saw that mentioned in the media did you? There is a reason for that:
It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York, London and Paris.
The key role played by these agencies means Western media often report on the same topics, even using the same wording. In addition, governments, military and intelligence services use these global news agencies as multipliers to spread their messages around the world.
Google whataboutism
wow the level of cope in this thread (thankfully not that many tho) arguing over stats - which are probably made up anyway.
some people can’t handle that most humans just wanna be friends regardless of gov politics bs
some people can’t handle that most humans just wanna be friends regardless of gov politics bs
Yes exactly. There are lots of internet weirdos trying to spread culture war nonsense, but if you actually go outside every once in a while, you realize that most people just aren’t like that. I work in a restaurant that has a lot of ukrainian and russian visitors (migrants). At one point, a large group of russians came in for a birthday party, and they asked the owner to put on a playlist of russian music. Like, really cheesy russian pop. After some time, a girl from a smaller table of ukrainians calls me over and complains about the music. I relay it to the owner, and he asks them what they would rather listen to instead. They tell him, and he adds their songs on the queue. The rest of the evening was spent playing and dancing to russian and ukrainian and armenian songs (the owner is armenian, and there were some armenian guests too) and the atmosphere was just generally very chill. Not a single fuck was given about politics that evening.
Now if we could just get rid of all those power-hungry dicks who keep poisoning the human spirit, let it be with Capitalism, Maoism, Neoliberalism and whatnot…
Thing is, the concern about RedNote is completely valid. Even if you strip away any overarching US propaganda or whatever, we know that the CCP does really, really shitty things as well and take heavy, manipulative influence (yes yes, the US and its defacto Feudal Lords owning Meta etc. do so too).
I’m just angry people won’t take their time to look into this whole topic and go with more propaganda-resistant, federated alternatives. Not perfect, but better than a centralized service that can be influenced by either China or the US. Or Russia… or literally anyone. So that we can, in the end, just dance to some nice human music.
Well tbf, even though it’s strictly banned in China there are still some cases of it happening in rural areas.
Circle jerking about China is as ridiculous as circle jerking about the US. We’ve been here before with US vs USSR, but this time everyone has a megaphone and an IQ that can be measured with a ruler.
I mean isn’t this more "circle jerking " about dismantling state propaganda? Interacting with those you were told are your enemy?
Besides, people should always celebrate the positives, and look towards them as something that is possible in their country too.
And as an fyi: when we were here before, the workers revolution in Russia was new. The achievements were so profound that workers in North America began demanding similar concessions from our governments. There was a real threat of overthrowing the existing power structures. And what happened? Weekends, literacy, healthcare, just generally improved living conditions. To dismiss cultural exchange as circle jerking is to ignore history and the power that comes with knowing things are better elsewhere, and that you can have that too.
Sorry for being pedantic, but those foldable work rulers are exactly 2 m long (at least in MetricLandia), which is, incidentally, the span of IQ values (0-200).
So yeah, it literally can be mapped one-to-one to a (common type of) ruler.
This is a common ruler where you live?
In my country we have rulers with 12 in/ ~30cm as the most common. We also have “yardstick” which is more often a meter stick now. But no foldable rulers.
Yup. There are like 3 types of rulers: normal (a stick), foldable (this) and those retractable metallic strips.
Sticks are usually either 15 or 30 cm, while the foldables are literally always 2m.
The coils are the most ubiquitous, but I orefer the foldavles for most things since they tend to fall undet their own weight when measuring longer distances. These sre either 2 or 5 m I think.
We have the coils too, except we call it a measuring tape.
We also have have a flexible soft version used for measuring human proportions for clothing, but it’s called a “tape measure” for some reason.
I wish we had the foldable kind, that sounds useful.
Ironically the 2m folding rulers are called “inch-stick” in German
You keep on coping there little buddy. What’s happening is that regular people from both countries are now talking directly to each other, and finding out what life is actually like.
what was preventing them from doing it before?
Lack of will on the part of Americans to engage on Chinese platforms like Xiaohongshu. The looming TikTok ban is what pushed people over the edge.
tiktok is chinese tho so where were all the chinese users?
TikTok is a Chinese built platform, but it’s built strictly for users outside of China. The Chinese version of TikTok is Douyin. You could’ve googled this yourself in the time it took you to write this comment.
Why? Tiktok is availabe in multiple countries with completely different language, culture and laws so why not China? Why have a different version of the app specifically for china?
I’m curious, what does this line of questioning have to do with my original comment?
Wow those sure are some thoughts you managed to have. Big boys and girl and gems usually like to talk to each other and listen. You should try it. Use your words. What is your critique of the USSR and why do you perceive “realising we’ve been propagandised about china” as being akin to a circle of people masturbating?
As a Polish person, if you say anything good about USSR without acknowledging it was shit stealing, people murdering, generation destroying piece of shit, I’d like to invite you to talk to some of the old people who remember, read diarys or fucking analysis.
Do you know they even decimated our fucking cuisine?
Sorry if you weren’t implying anything positive about USSR, I have short fuse here.
It’s honestly very wholesome to see this kind of interaction. On top of cute moments like Chinese users telling the new US users that they are their “spies,” seeing a lot of blatant myth dispelling surrounding the PRC is great to help tear down the Red Scare.
I was told that I was a spy in RL. Why would a European person learn Chinese? Clearly spy.
Lmao
They could, but they dont want to.
The ban discussion originated during the 2020 election when Trump didn’t like the information being spread there as he thought it aligned more with left wing policies. So he wanted it banned. People kept pushing the “it’s bad for kids” bullshit to keep it rolling until it finally went into effect. The Democrats didn’t try to stop it, and the people voted back in the person who wanted it banned. So effectively, they did vote for it in a way.
Trump wanted the ban when he was in office, Biden actually did the ban when he was in office.
Who could I have voted for to keep it from being banned?
Votes:
R- 186 FOR 25 AGAINST
D- 174 FOR 33 AGAINST
A veto is over road by 2/3 vote in Congress… Meaning NO president could have vetod it. So yes I place it on the person who started the process and all of those who voted for it in the house/ Senate.
Clearly meaning that Biden did not “do the ban” But don’t let facts get in the way of a good story
It’s really weird to act like Biden didn’t want the ban and was some hapless third party to all this when before they even had the vote he was saying he’d sign it.
Bills don’t get an automatic veto override if enough people vote yes, and an override doesn’t make him sign it. He signed it because he wanted to, and in doing so he put the Democrat brand on it. He could have made them hold another vote to actually override his veto and make it clear that he didn’t want this, he could have spoken out against it in any way before the bill was passed and on his desk, but he didn’t, and now that it’s wildly unpopular for some reason the entire DNC is just:
When did I say Biden didn’t want the ban? I said the Democrats wanted it too and showed they voted for it? Do you only absorb information you want to absorb?
Congratulations, you fell for their 2 party stick
Don’t change the subject, since the ban discussion originated in 2020 who could I have voted for to stop it from happening?
Everyone on my ballot, both republican and democrat all support the ban
Change the subject? You just said Biden could have vetod it and I gave you the facts that he could not have done shit about it. What mental gymnastics is that shit. Also congress who made it impossible to override is voted in every 2 years. So being that there have been 2 votes for Congress since 2020 that you ask of, you could have voted to replace the entire house twice since then.
you could have voted to replace the entire house twice since then.
Replace with who? Everyone on my ballot was for the ban
(edit: also I never said Biden could have vetoed it, I just said that he did the ban, because he signed it and has been publicly in favor of it)
Everyone on your ballot was for the ban and they were people trying to represent you. Either that means you have an opinion differing from the majority of the population in your area, or the people in your area need to find new candidates. I know in my area I am vastly different than what the majority wants. Shit, every person at my work wanted the ban. Coworker was yelling about how much he hates anyone against Trump and that he’s glad they are banning Tik Tok. He listens to far right propaganda on the radio daily that’s anti trans, anti immigrants, and I hear them claiming that all of the positions he is filling are their by merit, and that none of the positions Democrats fill are their by merit, just sponsorship. It’s a broken 2 party system. (Yes, The broken part was redundant)
That’s how democracy works though, either you agree with the majority, tolerate the majority opinion, or you have to work to change the majority opinion, or leave.
I think what many of us are overlooking is that the representatives on average are almost 60, over 60 in the Senate. 60 years olds in average don’t care what 20 year olds want, they think they know what’s best for the 20 year olds future, applying information that may have been valid 30 years ago. Their kids are older than 20, and they already disagree with their opinions.
We need to get the average Congress member age down to 40, senators 45 and force all members older than 65 to retire and take on advisory roles only. A 65 year old does not remember working paycheck to paycheck and what the struggles of everyday Americans are. They only care about how to grow their investments. If their car breaks down, they have enough money to get another, rent a car until its fixed, or simply schedule rides without fear of true disaster. The percentage of Americans that if their car breaks down will lose their jobs, apartments, not be able to afford food, and become homeless which is becoming illegal as well is increasing day after day.
The majority of Americans can not simply take a bus to work, nor walk there. A new car is outrageously out of reach for many people, and used car prices aren’t cheap either.
I wanted to join a rugby team to get more exercise and get in better shape. The sole reason I decided not to was because if I get injured, say break an arm… I would lose my job. And that’s before I say I couldn’t afford the medical bills to go to the doctor anyways.
A 60+ year old Congress member will just call the youth overweight and lazy… but shit. At 35 I know ive worked harder than many I know, but the risk aversion I take to avoid ruin is real. There is no community pool around here, I could never afford one of my own. No sidewalks, and there will be ice everywhere for another month or so… so I’m not going to try bike riding and go over ice on 2 wheels. I should be trying to find more hiking trails… that’s about all I might be able to find that is risk adverse exercise around here.
I get what you mean about the candidates for Congress, it seems they aren’t any great ones. We need to figure out a way to change that.
imagine making social media so bad your own citizens actively procure your biggest rival’s networks.
Imagine allowing citizens to be so free that they can go to your biggest rival’s social media to read narratives favouring them, get influenced by rival propaganda, and then shit you on your percieved weak points.
How does the US ban on TikTok thatbmakes people switch to rednote now fit this description?
It’s never too late to discard your patriotism to a state that doesn’t give a fuck about you. You don’t owe it your allegiance, be it Burgerland or India or whichever shitty capitalist state.
Patritoism?
I suppose it is easy to be patriotic to a state which hides even publicly known events from its plebs.Try to get opinion of the Chinese on RedNote about Uyguirs and Teinman Square. I’ll wait.
Lol, that’s the worst attempts at spelling Tienanmen Square and Uyghurs I’ve seen yet, and I’ve seen a lot.
I always thought social credit thing is just in memes
The unexpected propaganda win for the PRC too lol. Anyone who might have been doubting the benefits of the dictatorship of the proletariat will now have first hand evidence that life is absolutely not better in capitalism
