this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2025
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When they find out the extent of the censorship they mind very much. But that's the problem, the censorship is so deep and so good that the vast majority of the Chinese never find out how extensive it is, because it's not just your WeChat, it's ALL MEDIA. The Chinese don't have access to over 90% of the internet, so they never find out what's out there or know what information they're missing.
And you're just trading one dystopian nightmare for another. Saying one is better than the other is like saying having a foot cut off is better than losing a kidney. There is nuance, they're both bad.
Have you considered it's actually the other way around?
The problem is the censorship is so deep and so good that the vast majority of westerners never find out how extensive it is, because it’s not just your nazi.world, it’s ALL MEDIA.
Yes. But like I said, I lived there for years. True, the western media gets a lot of things wrong. But china is heavily censored, there's no way around that reality.
we usually call it "propaganda". the media has the means and resources to tell the truth.
Yes, and if you're getting a 100% Rosey picture of China and the CCP guess what? It's just different propaganda. There's good and bad things about China. For me bad things outweighed the good.
i never claimed to have a 100% rosey picture of china.
its just that its miles better than the alternative championed by nations that haven't stopped dropping bombs and economically coercing everyone else for at least a couple hundred years.
So you've never lived there?
does living in a given country has to do with having a "rosey picture of it", or somehow with not coercing other countries?
So no. So it's impossible for you to really make an accurate comparison. So your opinion here is literally worthless.
many trump supporters are born and raised in the US. they seem to have a pretty rosey picture of their own past too, i wonder if they can accurately tell whats going on in their own country? 🤔
i guess lets base our opinions of cuba by what gusanos or liberals have to say about it....
i noticed you are the angry dude i just responded to on the other thread, so goodbye and have a nice day.
Angry? Me thinks he projects too much. I lived there. I base my opinion on first hand experience. So the fact that you haven't means your basing your experience on something that somebody else WANTS you to think. You're an actual sheep.
Are you seriously trying to say that western relations are more censored than china's? One of those countries has locked off Internet. The other does not.
If you're implying that there is no substantial amount of censorship in the west you're kidding yourself. e.g. RT/TASS, Genocide in Palestine, Leftists/Communist thought, Removing TikTok is in the talks, etc. come to mind. Not like only one side is locking off their internet.
Also, not wanting western Nazi (social) media platforms is just self defense.
I'm saying the censorship is not even close to the same degree. Communists and leftists are not censored. If they were, I wouldn't encounter them in main stream social medias.
Removing tic tok is not censorship lmfao.
If it was only banning the platforms, I would agree.
As a lib it definitely seems that way. There may be even too much amirte?
Id argue trying to remove a main stream platform with a flatter algorithm that allows for counter hegemonic content to go viral is a form of censorship, but in that case China blocking Western social Media isn't either
I like how you skipped the censoring of TASS/RT
Yes, there is censorship. But the information is there if you search for it. The fact that you're typing the words "genocide in Palestine" and I am reading those words pretty clearly demonstrates that the level of censorship in the west is no where near the level of censorship in China. If the CCPs position is "Israel has a right to defend itself" you would never even know there's a conflict in Gaza.
Goes for China too if you use a VPN
I guess you never heard of shadow banning before. That never happens in the west right?
Most Chinese don't have access to a VPN. Do you need a VPN to access that information? The fact that there is an extra step to access the information means that china is more censored by default. There's also the fact that at certain times of year all consumer VPNs are blocked (June 4th is one of those dates, oddly enough)
Yes, I've heard of shadow banning. The censorship in China is still worse. I'm not saying censorship doesn't happen in the west. I am saying it is much more widespread, oppressive, and complete in China. No amount of you crying is going to change that fact.
Being subject of western imperialism tends to do that. The US uses various think thanks and it's media landscape to produce narratives with the intend to destabilize the countries like e.g. China. Also any state goes into censorship when it's hegemony is threatened. Also chinese people on average seem way more informed about current events than the average European or American
Chinese people seem way more informed about current events? 🤣🤣🤣😂🤣😂. That's gonna be a no from me dog. Clearly you've never talked to the average Chinese person. There are vast swathes of current events and information they've never even heard about. They're well informed about the topics that make it past the censors, for sure. My god you're just as misinformed as everyone else. The only difference is your misinformation is "china good" misinformation. Which is sad, there are a lot of things to point at in china that are legitimate "China good". Like fast, cheap/free and effective healthcare. The best in the world high speed rail. The closest to a meritocratic education system I've seen or heard of. Virtually zero homelessness. But when it comes to censorship, nah, they're wayyyyy worse. Yeah, the west can be better than china then some things. It's okay buddy, you can be objective you know
Cope. I guess you had a different experience when you were there. I got asked about NATO, Russia/Ukraine, Iran/Israel, US Tariffs and saw it analyzed in CCTV also when revisiting earlier this year. CGTNs quality of analysis is way higher and objective than other (state) media.
What are topics that didn't make it past the censors in your opinion?
I'm not questioning that censorship is happening, it's just happening differently than in western societies. Classifying it as "way worse" is just your subjective experience
You're kinda fucking stupid as shit if you don't understand propaganda in the west is orders of magnitude worse than in China based solely on the dollar amount spent on it
propaganda while related to censorship, is not the same thing as censorship. You are putting 2 different terms as equivalent. And it's no surprise the west's budget on that would be larger in dollars, the pay by exchange rate is higher in the west for those positions, and china is one country, the west is dozens of countries.
Thank you for explaining to everyone that propaganda and censorship are related but not identical terms. I'm sure the time spent reading it was just as valuable as the time spent writing it. And now it's gone.
And while your point is kind of dumb in that it assumes every society is exactly the same and that differences in how they spend money is explainable by scale of the economy, it's extra dumb because by that mechanism you're conceding the main point of contention that the west controls the thought and discourse in its empire more than China does.
Literally, no, I'm not conceding that point. Their dollar does not give the same value. There is substantially less control of media and internet in the west as compared to china.
I wouldn't've had to explain it if you knew the difference in the first place
"it doesn't count as being controlled by the government because the guy who owns the government controls it directly"
There is no argument that you can make that isn't stupid because you are wrong.
You're a fuckin moron man. You can easily find any of the so called "censored items" with mainstream search engines like google or even just on Facebook or reddit. What are these so called banned topics that you say exist anyways?
I honestly can't tell if you're just too prideful to admit you're wrong. I don't believe any present minded, awake person could be naive to the concept of a discovery algorithm. So you setting the bar at 'you can literally find it if you know what you're looking for and try' for government control of thought and discourse seems genuinely in bad faith.
Give an example. Russian news outlets and far left ideology are both too unpopular to be common even without suppression. They're not examples of censorship.
Come back to your own comment and read it again. Do you understand why it's a stupid point?
You don't have to suppress smallpox. It's nowhere to be found!
Its pretty trivial to get a vpn, or just download an esim in alipay. Esims automatically go around the Great Fire Wall.
its literally really common in china for people to use VPNs to get around the blocks.
i suggest you read some leftist theory despite the propaganda your country does to make you hate it, you don't seem to know you are missing it dearly in the US.
Buddy, I lived there for years. My sources are the hundreds of Chinese people I spoke to in their native tongue for years. Not the propaganda from my country. True, SOME Chinese people have VPNs. Most do not.
And I think the more poignant question is this. Why do they need a VPN to access the wider internet in the first place?
what? i never claimed they needed VPN access. i claimed that most of them used it when they wanted to get around blocks. if i remember correctly, a good chunk (like almost a fourth of people) have used it before.
the real question is why would the average chinese need to use western social media? are they like, livid they don't get to be lied to by the us government?
Stop with the pedantic BS. MOST do not use VPNs to get around censorship because MOST do not have a VPN. So again, why do the Chinese need a VPN to access the wider internet?
And there's more to the internet to social media.
i literally didn't say MOST people used it. just that it is common. and it is, i'm not the one being pedantic here.
Again, why would they need to access the western* internet?
I said this to someone else in this thread, but encouraging access to fascist propaganda can't be equated to freedom.
Not all internet outside of China is Western. I'll give you an example. My wife was a cross cultural communications teacher in China. She had her students pick countries outside of Asia to do a cultural report on. One student picked Poland for whatever reason. The Chinese internet, other than here is Poland on a map, it has this many people, and it's capital is Warsaw, had no other information, Literally nothing else.
So when you ask why they would need access it's because they deserve to be informed about the world around them. There is waayyyyyyy more to the internet than "fascist propaganda".
They also can't access the absolutely braindead remarks you're saying right now. Isn't that a travesty?
I quick and dirty looked poland up on baidu and got hits in mandarin about its history, culture and more. i also found lots of pictures, news articles, and silly clickbaity videos about it. i could probably find english results on chinese google.
now you are just being silly. when did i claim the entirety of the internet is fascism? all you have been doing is strawmanning with things i didn't say or mean for the last couple of posts.
because you disagree a lot of people use vpns in china? it sounds like you are angry so i will just wish you a nice day and go talk to someone else.
And you searched this inside China did you? What are you not getting? Even Chinese search engines inside China show different information then Chinese search engines outside china. It's a walled garden. You are out of your depth here. Go to bed.
Were you an English teacher?
Dude. They literally started the first comment with "I lived in China for 4 years". When you start trying to "um actually" people with years of first-hand experience, it might be time to reflect on your own biases
just pointing out some hypocrisy. letting fascism fester in social media because some vague idea of "freedom" is no true freedom. motherfuckers in china can and do use VPNs when they want to.
ill have to reinforce my suggestion to expose yourself to politics beyond us propaganda.
What hypocrisy?
Living in China doesn't make you an expert.
Tons of people who hate China live in China as "English teachers" because it's "easy" and stay within their own "expat" bubble.