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Comment by auganov | Hacker News Reader

> Most of my friends back in China, especially devs, use VPN daily

This is such a tired argument. You've got a tiny percent of the population with the ability to proxy out of China. You cannot easily share the information you find with non-VPN friends. Not even with VPN-enabled friends. Sharing any politically sensitive info under your identity is a big no-no.

I once did an experiment on Weibo and posted screenshots of an article about Xinjiang concentration camps. The original English version stayed up for quite a while. Then posted a google translated Chinese version and it was quickly taken down. After posting it again my account was banned.

That individuals can obtain certain information isn't a big threat to the government if you cannot effectively disseminate it in the general population and organize around it.

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>You've got a tiny percent of the population with the ability to proxy out of China.

do you have data to back your claim up?

>You cannot easily share the information you find with non-VPN friends.

We talk in person, during lunch or on dinner tables, in office. When we talk politics online we invent new words to avoid auto detection. The recent hot topic is this: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/hp8z29/%E7%8E%8B...

basically some guy got detained because he whistleblowed something food safety related. We talk politics, in ways you normally wont imagine. But not the politics you expect.

>Xinjiang concentration camps. That's an interesting topic because most Chinese dont care when you shove it into their throats in one way or another. If you used Weibo, I wonder do you have Chinese friends? Have you asked their opinion about those camps?

According to this ZDNet article [0] 14% of Chinese internet users use a VPN daily. If you do the math that's roughly 7% of the Chinese population.

> We talk in person, during lunch or on dinner tables, in office. When we talk politics online we invent new words to avoid auto detection. The recent hot topic is this: ... basically some guy got detained because he whistleblowed something food safety related. We talk politics, in ways you normally wont imagine. But not the politics you expect.

Right, so even to discuss local drama that doesn't even involve big politics you still have to use coded language and can get detained for it. That's not exactly an environment that fosters free spread of information.

> That's an interesting topic because most Chinese dont care

And that's the sad part. Chinese citizens are being detained often for years without any due process and people don't care. That's exactly what decades of government propaganda do to people. Not even going to mention the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners which gets somewhat censored even in the Western media too. Most people in China (and the West) are simply unaware of it[1].

[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/vpns-can-still-be-used-in-chin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

Please dont break my sentence half way. Western media has been doing that and they wonder why the Chinese ppl are not receptive of their messages or ideas. I feel it's too impolite so I will not follow up on the rest. Sorry.

I don't think any re-wording of your statement was intended by breaking up your sentence, it is pretty common to abbreviate when quoting, even mid-sentence. At least I hope it was not intended... I can see that the quoted part makes it into a different statement.

Personally I appreciate your insight on this topic, I feel it is difficult to have a good discussion on these sorts of topics with all the misinformation going around.

Thanks. I'll try give more info on the parent comment then. First 7% of the Chinese population is like 100 million people... Considering most of them cluster in tier 1 cities (beijing, shanghai, shenzhen)[1], I'd say there's density for certain things to happen if they want.

and I wont call food safety issues local drama. Now that people noticed the air quality is improving[2], food safety is probably the no.1 issue Chinese people care. Especially milk products for babies. Many chinese emigrated for food safety as one of the important reason and most chinese buy foreign milk for their babies. Shoot me email if you'd like to talk more :)

1. China's wealth distribution is really not great. We got tier1 cities like developped countries. then there's tier2, tier3, then east rural areas, and west rural areas.

2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-pollutuion-beijing/...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/beijing-ai...

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