For instance, they own something like 40% of Epic Games, who is currently throwing large envelopes of cash around to secure a strong position in video game distribution.
If there is cause to be concerned about China applying soft power to sway western opinions, then there is cause to be concerned about Tencent.
[1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/12/27/fortnite-de...
Don't just blow this off as "oh but they aren't using it" (to GP, not parent). If you're going to gather data, there needs to be a reason. Hoarding it can be dangerous.
China blocked Google/Twitter/Facebook with the the same logic.
Google/Facebook/Twitter are pretty darn conservative about what they censor. "Hate speech is bad" is technically a cultural statement, I guess, but one I feel wholly comfortable spreading everywhere.
I was also under the impression that impression takedowns were not automatically applied worldwide, although I could be wrong. I know I can often view Youtube videos that were taken down for copyright by connecting to a Russian VPN.
From the Chinese perspective I don't think it makes much difference whether something they perceive to be threatening originates somewhere in the soup of the internet and then makes its way into China or is a concerted effort by a foreign government.
I think the same would be true in reverse, when the Chinese internet would collectively promote material running counter to US interests, say for patriotic reasons, it'd be subject to scrutiny just the same. (In fact historically that did sort of happen to say, pro Soviet American citizens)
- 10000 who were killed in 1989
- parents whose baby who were poisoned by melanine-tainted milk
- people who were forced out of their homes by corrupt local officials and property developers
- human rights lawyers locked up without due process even by the standards of the Chinese written laws
The US has its fair share of misdeeds, but it does not blatantly censor the Internet and public discourse.
Don't conflate Chinese people with CPC.
But blocking GitHub has proven to be very costly so they're often forced to revert the decision. That's why GitHub appear to be the perfect place to host and promote truthful content (e.g. wiki articles about tiananmen massacre, xijiang concentration camps, etc) along with detailed instructions to bypass censorship. Right now it appear that at best China can prevent a specific URL from being shared on weixin/weibo/etc but can't stop people from opening the repo if they find a creative way to share it after (e.g. put the link in an image and modify the image slightly to change its hash before sharing it).
Thing number one is preventing their own citizens from communicating and organizing among themselves. Thing number two is the international soft-power push, mostly aimed at muddying the waters of public discourse enough that they are no longer the unquestionable bad guy (the goal here is simply to damp down international criticism). Preventing the spread of "Western democratic values" and "universal human rights" in China is a concern, but probably doesn't make third place, or even fourth.
> Reddit confirms $300M Series D led by China’s Tencent at $3B value