It’s been nice to see ordinary Americans open up to life in China but everyone is acting blind to their censorship. Makes me thankful for the fediverse and being able to self host my own instance.
China is pretty sensitive about depictions of Mao, so it doesn’t surprise me.
This is it. Self hosting, federation, not for profit is the way. We need an internet that is made by just regular people for no better reason than it’s fun. Not just social media either. We need an entire open internet, free and clear of all ulterior motives (or more likely still having bad actors mixed in, but at least they’re not pulling any strings at the upper levels).
I don’t know how possible that is, but I know we need it.
Fully agree! Thanks for putting my thought into much better words.
The only issue I see now is how to surpass bad mods and admins? The balance between filtering off topic or bad content versus anything goes but then nazis come out seems to be a challenge plus power tripping.
I just don’t understand why it’s a problem that the nazis come out. Would we not rather they utter their opinions in the open so they can be refuted? That way people can also just ignore that user if they don’t like viewing what he has to say.
It’s not like they don’t exist just because we ban them here… They’ll go somewhere to discuss where only other people who agree with them is allowed to be.
Unless we’re talking direct threats or doxing I’m always an advocate for free speech online.
I used to think this way, but no. Nazis should be shunned and banned and feel unwelcome everywhere. No one should ever think their rhetoric is harmless or ignorable. Those who tolerate Nazis enable them.
And yeah, folks can wring their hands about slippery slopes and where we draw lines, but the beauty of federation is that if someone is too loose or too draconian, we can go somewhere with more agreeable policies. We can decide as a society where the line is drawn, and it’ll be fuzzy but as speech gets closer to Naziism, it will be rejected more and more places, as it should be.
Would we not rather they utter their opinions in the open so they can be refuted?
It’s far easier to lie than it is to correct a lie. When the Nazis come out into the open they spew a stream of lies in minutes that can take months to refute, leaving the field to the lies to spread and fester.
And that’s even assuming you think refutation works at all. (Protip: it works so rarely that you can treat instances where it did as statistical aberration.)
Posting anything about any Chinese leader is verboten.
Weird. Weird how I post about Chinese leadership quite often on Weibo and haven’t been canned.
Here’s a thought: maybe it’s how you go about it that counts?
Criticism of Mao in particular is perfectly cromulent here. The Party itself criticizes Mao, especially for the Cultural Revolution, with some fairly harsh language.
But if you don’t know how to do it or when, then … ah … yeah, you’re going to get people pissed off at you.
One of the most cringe things I’ve ever read.
You should move to China and stop posting in English comms if you feel this way.
Well yeah, Mao Zedong is kinda like Chinese Muhammad or Chinese Charlemagne (not supporting the guy, but still). Were you not expecting to catch some passionate attention? I mean, I’d also ask that of everyone; China is kind of known for censoring things, like Italians and cheese or Icelanders and their elves, so it’s weird to see people think the equivalent of “I’m going to a flock of crows dressed up as an owl because it’s exercising freeeeeeeedom!”
I don’t “support” that from a Chinese government perspective, as their journey for power and reach, like a lot of territorial groups, involved lots of death and domination over things that couldn’t “ethically” be owned, but from a service owner’s perspective, I mean, if it’s rightfully the child of your own two hands, it’s just your right to ban as you wish.
