Zuckerberg’s Anti-China Rhetoric Roils Facebook's Chinese Employees
theinformation.com
theinformation.com
Or, the press is out to make a mountain of a mole - most Chinese employees at Facebook are happy despite Zuks' tone against the govt.
[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvgn9q/do-not-discuss-the...
[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/facebook-employee-i-was-fire...
[3] https://digg.com/video/qin-chen-facebook-employee-suicide
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Ch...
As the US and China implement different tit for tat policies, relatives at home can be punished for the actions of relatives abroad.
Can you provide any evidence?
China detains relatives of U.S. reporters in apparent punishment for Xinjiang coverage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-detains-relatives...
While the specific context of this was related to journalists, I would certainly take pause with respect my actions at an employer likely to bump heads and attract the attention of that government. There is an escalation of tensions, with the US and China taking hard stances on vistor visas. It's not unreasonable to be concerned about other sanctions.
But the point you made is correct, activist's family could be punishment.
edit: punishment -> punished
You’re questioning, and implicitly criticizing, these workers for exercising their access to free speech, for complaining about an aspect of their employer’s position about their country of origin.
Such an implicit critique undermines the foundations on which free speech stands. Speech is free regardless of the benefits and privileges granted to those who would speak.
You're copiously misinterpreting my comment. Of course free speech is an inherent privilege, nay human right, that doesn't require granting from any entity/authority figure. I'm very much questioning the logic behind their angst against Zucks' opinions on China. If anything, the free flow of information, free speech without retaliation and the general upliftment by being at FB should convince them to argue FOR free speech in China. I was hoping they saw the clear correlation between freedoms, free-speech, etc as the foundation for equitable wealth creation and prosperity, which they very much have experienced at FB.
I'm guessing their reaction is more visceral/emotional than logical. Most people tend to love their motherland despite it's shortcomings.
Hm. I don’t think I misread or misinterpreted as much as your sparing comment leaves many lines to read between.
In any case, I my inference does not match your intended meaning and I appreciate your clarification.
Free speech should be an inherent right. I also LOVE the idea that such employees might use this as an opportunity to advocate for free speech in their hime countries.
I don’t however see such advocacy as a requirement to criticize Zuckerberg.
Why is this relevant? By that definition, any time you criticize anything someone says you are criticizing them for using free speech.
There is a big difference between “I disagree with what you’re saying” and “you shouldn’t be allowed to say it”. As far as I can tell, he isn’t even hinting at the latter.
The GGP is not merely saying "I disagree with what you're saying" but rather "I disagree with what you're saying because you are well-compensated (and allowed to speak freely)." (The last clause is a bizarre objection, but it is present in the GGP comment.)
This is problematic because in the US, where Facebook is concerned, free speech is not granted only to the poorly-compensated but to all residents. So pointing out how well-compensated the employees are as a way of criticizing them undermines their access to free speech. It is an attempt to silence them because they enjoy privileges such as good compensation and the ability to speak freely.
And to be clear: criticizing Chinese Facebook employees for complaining about the CEO's position to their country of origin because they are well-paid is an attempt to nullify their points because they are well-paid (and allowed to speak freely). The criticism doesn't address the root of the objection but instead attacks the employees (i.e. ad hominem).
You are not as immune as you think to government propaganda, it's just easier to spot when it's another country.
Not sure what kind of equivalency you are trying to make here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dx8rn0/absolutely...
What would you say is the American equivalent to that? And what would be the American equivalent to this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/d1rp31/are_we_rea...
And that is, all other actions considered, such a harmless and cute clip. Keeping it SFW.
https://www.facebook.com/MichaelYonFanPage/videos/9503534286...
How do you explain this?
> You are not as immune as you think
You don't know what I think. Personally, I'm not even American, and have criticized the US for the stuff you mention more harshly than the average American by orders of magnitude. That doesn't mean I don't see the infinite difference between the US government sometimes sucking, and the CCP (== no elections, no free press, torture camps, putting down protests over the law being broken with force, dictating to companies what they may post in Western countries, and so on). Yeah, Snowden had to run, but we can talk about Snowden. There's American books by American publishers about American war crimes, Noam Chomsky leads a full, critical life. There's a greater risk that the Chinese government might kidnap or assassinate him, just for saying something they don't like in passing, than the US govt laying hand on him. So to even mention the CCP and the US in one sentence... again, I'm not even American, and even I know all that and more.
The only data point you're offering for what you think about the subject at hand is this "mirror check". Those are a dime a dozen, people pretending to be objective or neutral, and calling it a mirror check -- when the whole point of the exercise them getting away from their own personal stance and responsibility, while creating straw men up about a generic other.
"Zuckerberg’s Anti-China Rhetoric Roils (Chinese) Facebook Employees"
At any rate, I applaud Zuckerberg for actually having a spine when it comes to China, unlike Tim Cook.
What spine? Facebook is blocked in China. It costs him nothing to take this stance. If Tim Cook tried the same, China could seize the factories and Apple would have no product to sell.
I'm sure in private Tim Cook would admit that Apple needs to diversify their manufacturing out of China as a hedge against the risk of a hostile government there. That is a process which cannot happen overnight, however, and so in the mean time it's best to tiptoe around the sleeping dragon.
This is exemplified in his address on free speech several weeks ago - trying to position Facebook as a defender of American values (free speech and human rights) versus big bad China.
Make no mistake, if Zuckerberg actually cared about the values of a free society he would fix his own platform. Don’t applaud him for throwing shade at an even more authoritarian regime.
The Chinese government was not elected by the Chinese, is not in any sense a legitimate representative of the Chinese, and has no more right to rule over China than I do. Conflating criticism of the CCP with criticism of the country that they illegitimately rule is CCP propaganda techniques 101.
You may think the Chinese people chose poorly, but I think it is clear that they definitely chose.
And to put this in some context, China has had an authoritarian government for the past 2000 years, so it's not like choosing an authoritarian regime is that much of a change. You might as well pick the authoritarians who are less corrupt. And post-Mao the CCP has been pretty effective in building the country.
[0] traditionally spelled "Kuomintang" but Wade-Giles is a horrible romanization. You think you know how to pronounce it after looking at it, but you're wrong; it's actually worse than just having a bunch of characters, because at least you know you don't know how to pronounce them.
IMO China is not ruled by a legitimate government, the Chinese government should not be granted the honor of national sovereignty any more than North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Venezuela, or the like. Geographic regions ruled by gangs and thugs should not considered legal states. (Just my opinion man, I know the law doesn't agree with me.)
A government's job is to serve as many of its people as much as possible for as long as possible, so playing devil's advocate, why isn't the legitimacy of a government judged by how good it's doing its job vs. how it came into power?
Historically speaking there have been plenty of prosperous societies that was ruled by "illegitimate" governments (and I'm not even saying China is one), and plenty of government that was put into power by the people (actually the original, populist CCP government is one example) that ended up being disastrous.
Even if we want to always put democracy on a pedestal, how do we qualify it? Does only direct democracy count? What about representative democracy? How "representative" can it be before it's no longer democratic, i,e electoral college? Do any of those actually matter?
Absolutely. But if you are referring to what's happening in HK, debate on evidence of concentration camp aside, lately many of the protestors have been anything but "peaceful".
That does tend to happen when peaceful protests get violently suppressed. It's extremely difficult to not defend yourself against violence.
There were no serf class, but of course there were peasants/farmers of course since someone had to grow food.
Within that definition there’s certainly some ambiguity as to what counts as a “good enough” election to confer legitimacy. Edge cases would be things like Singapore, Russia or Hitler’s Germany... but Communist China is not close to an edge case.
Says who? Is there an universal law declared by someone at the beginning of time saying that?
Trying hard to prop up the motherland in the public eye?
https://www.smh.com.au/technology/mark-zuckerberg-snapped-wi...
Zuckerberg is quite clearly being critical of the Chinese Communist Party, who by nature of being authoritarian, have no mandate from the people of the PRC. There is no bias against China as a country, or Chinese people. Zuck is merely judging an authoritarian government for it's own actions. Shame on those who would wish to conflate the two.
"People are tauhgt to think of themselves as completely the same as their government."
No seriously no. We aren't robots nor idiots.
"This of course allows the PRC to do whatever it wants without any complaints from the people because any thoughts against the PRC is tantamount to being anti-chinese. "
Even at the height of the Mao era there were still dissent even when it could cost you your life.
"Thus when chinese people see anything that goes against the PRC they take it as a personal insult to themselves."
It depends though, doesn't it? Are the charges being leveled fair within the context they're being viewed? Not everything in Western media is completely fair, reliable, etc. I mean, just read the articles written by the media when it comes to technology. They miss a lot of the nuances.
Is it really surprising that nationalism has an effect on people? You don't think Americans do that? Remember that fervent anti-French sentiment in some parts of the US when they criticized our invasion of Iraq? You don't think the fetishization of the military in US media is a form of propaganda? What about singing of the national anthem at NFL games? China does very similar things but perhaps more frequently. These pro-nationalist sentiments are fanned much more subtly than you've described it.
Is criticizing a government's actions tantamount to racism against the people under that government's rule, or is it not? Phrase the question around China or Israel, and you will get two different responses from many people.
how is it reasonable to take your anecdote as a decent reference point for somebody who has grown up in china, speaking mandarin, and learning about the world through CCP-funded public schooling?
I grew up in China, speak Mandarin and mostly learned about the world through CCP schools.
Most of the kids and their family (and even teachers) are critical of CCP.
Even in america, if you have a conversation with a chinese person about the PRC or even just economic conditions in china, that person will in any case, always defend the PRC under any condition, no matter what the PRC has done, even if they themselves are against the PRC and agree with what your saying.
If mainland Chinese people are mindless drones incapable of independent thought, why does the PRC need to invest billions of dollars every year in monitoring and policing what people say and think?
> defend the PRC under any condition[...] even if they agree with what your saying.
Then your argument likely heavy-handed or misses the nuance of the situation. Using the USA as an example, the impression a foreigner gets from looking at gun statistics is completely different from reality. So if a person from Europe starts to lecture you on guns in the USA, you're going to get a little defensive at their incorrect assumptions, even if you agree with their stance in general.
It's like hearing a person complain about a movie they've never seen, but they read the Wikipedia entry on it. They may understand the major plot lines, but you're not going to have an engaging discussion with them about the acting or cinematics.
That is very much unlike, say, "defending all American gun laws to a T, without mentioning at all what you actually think, because they made you do it for being unfair or mistaken about something". And where that is the case, how you say things doesn't really matter, you won't get anyhwere either way. So you might as well be blunt, and if they want to correct something, let them. If they want to make excuses about being offended and not correct anything, it stands as is.
I know, because I get that all the time, when Americans say "Germany doesn't have freedom of speech" or such, because glorifying Nazism is illegal. I don't start pretending Germany is perfect in response to that, I quote them some basics about freedom of speech, stuff about American law and whatnot, and try to explain how there is no "totally unrestricted" free speech anywhere there is a listener. Then they always (no exceptions so far, probably because intelligent Americans don't even say "there is no freedom of speech in Germany" to begin with) drift off into nonsense or fall silent, because their brain seems to be unable to process what I'm telling them.
I have good mainland Chinese friends who are members of the CCP. They don't believe in communism, they're members of the CCP because 'it looks good to have the CCP on your CV'. They know the government killed people in Tiananmen square.
They do link the CCP to the fact they're richer than their parents (I see this as the US deciding to 'open China' back in the 70s). And they value stability more than the individual.
Do people actually believe this? How could you possibly hope to put a billion people in such a tiny box?
If you have studied Chinese history you'd know the mandate does not come from it being democratically elected, but rather how good it's doing its job.
Democracy is not only a concept that's foreign to Chinese history, it's not even desired by that many people in China.
At some point you also have to make it about the people, too, after all the Chinese Communist Party is comprised of Chinese people.
It's hard to assume that the CCP doesn't have the mandate of the people. We just don't know one way or another since there are no free elections.
There is no evidence of Chinese people freely support CCP rule.
If you want to support an evidence gathering exercise, stand with Hong Kong.
Beijing's state policy is freedom from religion and that removes most of the mental failsafes preventing suicide.
My anti-suicide talk with some Chinese people has often been prefaced with "oh yeah our culture typically focuses on self preservation and avoidance of suicide, hope that clears things up for you" before explaining how that person's failure has other options. I wouldn't consider myself anti-suicide when it comes to other people's options, I would consider myself to have just strong self preservation skills and can perceive options for myself and other people that are considering an escape hatch.
So I think there is a cultural component to consider here, for western media wanting to cover this.