Does Meta's (or other similar actors') actions align with potential countries' geopolitical objectives?
Can we look both of them objectively and say both are bad (I think so), or is there us vs. them mentality?
China is quite good about filtering out which propaganda interests they want their citizens exposed to, and of course are more active in influencing operations globally as well.
We can argue if that model of propaganda and control is good or not, but regardless they are smart enough to know that they don’t want to open up their youth to US propaganda machines but are happy to have us open ourselves to their propaganda. It’s asymmetrical, and that causes a lot of consternation. It’s also risky.
The Chinese aren't just competing against the US for control of some islands and sea lanes here and there, they are putting their political system -- which is de facto a dictatorship selected periodically by a small ruling clique -- as an alternative model to democracy. One that can compete with and defeat democracy, in fact.
And to be blunt, it's not clear to me that they are losing. We in the US have put ourselves at a disadvantage w/r/t China over and over again, relying ostensibly on the magical power of democracy to always win the day. As far as I can tell, it's straight-up magical thinking.
If we do not take China seriously as a threat to democracy, not just internally to Asia but as an aspirational model of society and the basis for legitimate government, I think we risk losing.
Why we would allow a propaganda outlet of what is effectively an enemy state to operate in the US, and why we would allow technology transfers and other advantageous trade arrangements, is mind boggling to me. Sure, the 'marketplace of ideas' sounds great on paper, but not when the other people don't believe in the same things. That sort of treatment -- access to the US market, both economically and that of ideas -- should be reserved for polities that at least have signed-on to the basic concepts that the US is built on.
Then again, by the same token, why should the EU allow Meta to operate on its territory?
Yes, it is. By god, something needs to be done about the absolute stupidity that is making its way through American universities. This is tragic.
The extremes are closing in on the excluded middle which doesn’t have much of a voice at all as nonextremist views are attacked as supporting the other sides.
They are not always doing this in the same ways and in the same places, but there is a definite trend.
I’m not making excuses for one side by saying the other side is doing it, both threaten the republic and world peace.
China is not to be taken lightly. They are a legitimate threat and strategic competitor. But they also face enormous problems due to unfavorable geography, lack of key natural resources, corruption, malinvestment, and demographic collapse. These problems are not getting better, and I won't be surprised if there's a violent civil war in 30 years (as has happened many times over millennia of Chinese history).
If the model was so rotten to begin with, that is.
How many people did the west directly and indirectly kill in the 20th century?
As far as political systems go, the collapse of China seems to always be around the corner. But in reality, the U.S. seems to be much closer to civil war. No faction stormed the Capitol in Beijing when Xi was appointed. And even if our political system is not overthrown, it may die the death of 1000 cuts. How much can you honestly say Congress represents the People’s vs lobbyists (professional bribery) and PAC interests?
Yet that's exactly what you're doing.
"But they also face enormous problems due to unfavorable geography, lack of key natural resources, corruption, malinvestment, and demographic collapse."
None of these things are true. Stop consuming intellectual droppings from the likes of Peter Zeihan.
China has a monopoly on rare earths and more importantly, processing technologies, which are the key resources for a technological society. It's rapidly transitioning its grid and transportation systems to run on renewable power. Over the next decade it will do in hydrogen what it did in solar and wind. That will give it total self sufficiency in critical inputs like ammonia and synthetic fuels.
Corruption was an issue before Xi's anti-corruption drive. Corruption was wonderful when it served American interests, when the CIA was paying out the bribes. Now that the CIA networks have been torn up and the corrupt officials put behind bars and executed, the US cries that China is "increasingly authoritarian." Well, the louder the US cries, the more I know China is on the right path.
Malinvestment? That's rich coming from an OnlyFans economy like America. You people can't even make enough artillery shells to send to Ukraine. You're being outbuilt by an order of magnitude by Russia, a country you mock as having an economy the size of Texas. Your GDP is entirely hot air and all you make is noise.
As for demography, that's the last thin reed you have to hang all your ill wishes toward China on. Unfortunately for you, that's changing for the better. The Chinese government has shifted from an anti-natal/neutral policy to a pro-natal one and will introduce a raft of policies to boost birth rates. Before you even think that that never works, it does work. It worked in Hungary and it will work far better in China, where the Chinese government can pull many more levers than the Hungarian government can.
Incidentally, the biggest block to Chinese people marrying and having children is the high cost of housing. Guess what the deflating housing bubble is going to do for that.
"These problems are not getting better, and I won't be surprised if there's a violent civil war in 30 years"
I've just demonstrated that they either don't exist or they are getting much better. If you want to look for violent civil wars, look to the US. You won't have to wait 30 years.
"as has happened many times over millennia of Chinese history"
China has millennia of history. Let's see the US make it to 300 years.
If it's better then why shouldn't it win? Frankly the lines are blurred. So called liberty is not so clearly championed by the west any longer, and on top of that robber barons and corporations are running rampant through our societies and governments. There's no apparent upside for ordinary people to a Western victory any longer, or at least it's not clear cut.
After all if we're going to be ruled by elites, and be under a system which can compete with capitalist "democracy," might as well be ruled by elites who are ideologically aligned with the people's well-being.
Oh please. Just because you people in the west are stuck in the 20th century and have an unyielding urge to reformat other nations and instill a political system you're familiar with, doesn't mean anyone else cares for this kind of idiocy. Stop projecting.
You're just like USSR with its obsession with "global revolution" and counterproductive dichotomies. And just like it happened with USSR, everyone else is getting pretty pissed with all that zealous crap that doesn't amount to anything but guised political opportunism IRL.
It's not like your specific approach to governance looks any less shitty to other cultures. Grow up, embrace diversity, learn to play nice with others - yours is the last civilization that needs to take a long hard look at itself. Either naturally, or through some major political crisis, or, worst case scenario, everyone else will just gang up on you like Saudis, China, US, WEU and many others did on USSR, if god forbid all that global (outside NATO and its few aspirants) distaste for bullshit "holier than thou" attitude reaches a boiling point.
Srsly, grow up. Traveling and meeting new people is extremely helpful in that regard.
Queer folk
Women
Pro-Palestinian people
Maybe it’s time to question if your democracy is at a point to be exported to the rest of the world (?)
Let’s start from a point of common understanding: I agree that it is a bad thing to oppress minority groups.
Maybe let’s start with the basic one that’s abortion?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a5/Ab...
This is a map of democratic countries:
https://cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/18737.jpeg
You might notice a resemblance. Want to do gay rights next?
The USofA is labelled there as not very democratic, grouped as with "Flawed Democracies" and the premise put forward was that US Democracy was stripping rights (eg: abortion) and perhaps wasn't a great example of a good democracy.
Only if you really-really squint and look only at americas, while ignoring most of Eurasia and huge chunk of Africa where most of the world's population happens to live.
I hardly see much of a global correlation here.
Meta isn't banned in China. They just haven't developed a product that complies with Chinese law (in large part because US lawmakers warned them not to do this---so more like an export ban than an import ban).
Strictly speaking then, Meta is banned in China for not complying with Chinese law.
It's not about exposing the west to chinese propaganda (sure, they'll promote the CCP view of any global topic, but that's often the same as our governments) it's about brainwashing western kids so they grow up to be useless and not a threat.
Would you rather your youths learnt how to cook or do stupid 10s dances? Guess which content gets displayed in China vs the West.
Not to mention the instances of mental illness spreading through tik tok via emulation (eg DID)
False. It has already been banned in multiple jurisdictions, companies, and many government agencies.
We restrict foreign ownership of media properties to 25 percent (without review) [1]. Expanding that rule to social media would make sense.
Beijing requires TikTok run itself differently within China, after all [2]. That’s the difference in care that matters. (Facebook’s lack of care in Myanmar comes to mind as analogous [3].)
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/11/14...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/tech/tiktok-douyin-bytedance-...
[3] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
Other countries should logically do the same. If Burma/Myanmar doesn't like what Facebook is doing there, they have demonstrated the capability to shut it down on multiple occasions. Setting aside that their government is a basically-illegitimate military junta, if I was them, I sure as fuck wouldn't let a US tech company operate within my country without a significant local presence that I could exert influence on.
No, in fact, many international newspapers, particularly those in Europe, report more honestly on the US than outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post. El Pais has far more integrity than either of those and it’s owned by a Spanish media conglomerate.
Yes and no. They report with different biases. It’s interesting to read. But they sometimes make comically elementary errors regarding our politics.
I would describe the political coverage of both of the US papers I mentioned in much the same terms.
I wouldn’t. Most plainly, because they’re read (and responded to) by policymakers.
What are you basing this on? From the people I know in federal and state government, this is totally backwards.
> than anything to do with the accuracy of their reporting or integrity
Sure, whatever. The point is is there signal in the noise. And for those publications, there is. In part because they create the signal.
That said, they’re written for decision makers and the civically and commercially engaged. For casual readers, a less-frequent and more-entertaining format is probably a better fit.
If you read the Times, you'll notice that for the first week the mostly print the establishment view (america war good) but then after that, they start publishing the more critical articles.
Experts who read the NY Times know how to read through the intentional narrative/propaganda (which is mainly meant to capture the hearts and minds of the young and naive) to understand the underlying reality.
The parent already cited the Iraq War coverage, in which they incited the country to violence with known lies, leading to hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian deaths. If this isn’t enough to swear you off their coverage, I honestly don’t know what else would.
But to your point, the NY Times has millions of readers and this is a very small subsection of their audience. Which do you think is a more important function of journalism: lying to the masses in a way that is understood to be propaganda by your so-called “experts” or telling the majority of people the truth in the first place?
Not only has the PRC never done this, they take the public stance that they have absolutely no interest in this, and publicly espouse the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries. The only obvious Chinese global objective is a world where they exist as a non-ideological economic partner willing to profit from trade without strings attached, like America's enforced austerity and privatization "reforms".
Presumably because Palestine is one salient issue, being moderated at a time of extreme engagement, while the linked article asserts a pattern of such moderation across the site.
It's the difference between "This subreddit doesn't allow political discussion" and "conservative topics are banned on Reddit".
China is a geopolitical enemy ruled by a communist dictatorship that wants to diminish America's power, standing, and influence in the world to advance their own. American power and the mere threat of bringing it to bear on our adversaries is what enabled the past three decades of peace, prosperity and progress throughout the world, and China is actively working to undermine and diminish it in favor of their own.
Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose.
I wouldn't choose China over the US any day of the week, but over the last 3 decades they've objectively been more pacifist and prosperous than most US client states. Please tone down the jingo.
Exactly. Godspeed to China and I hope it stomps the US into the dirt.
"Asking for some kind of balance or symmetry here is like saying it's unfair that fighter jets drop bombs on the enemy and not their own side. Yes, that's the whole point. We win, they lose."
Except it's the other way around. China wins and you lose. Again and again and again.
Also, the fact that Meta employs lots of spooks is commonly perceived as "Meta is accountable to the US government", which is no less reductionist.
> In China there is no strong separation between corporations and government.
Is there even a country where that's actually a thing? It's definitely the opposite of "strong separation" in the US, just look at the lobbying institution.
> Can we look both of them objectively and say both are bad (I think so), or is there us vs. them mentality?
Yes. That doesn’t preclude classifying how they are bad, both commonly and uniquely.
So, I just wanted to ask and learn.
This is rude. You’re implicitly valuing everyone else’s time less than yours. (Not bad. Just rude.)
If I didn't value your time or anyone else's, I can write short/snarky answers and/or leave you hanging.
Lastly, insinuating that someone didn't read the article is also rude, and against the guidelines, too.
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
Have a nice day, and a nice year.
This nonsense was created as fodder for incompetent and dishonest politicians.
You’ll now hear the least competent ones exclaim things like “a rutgers study says China bad, China spy, China control of social media not same as US government control of social media ugg ugg fire fire”.