Comment by torginus
9 hours ago
Man, the Chinese government must be a bunch of saints that you must go back 35 years to dig up something heinous that they did.
9 hours ago
Man, the Chinese government must be a bunch of saints that you must go back 35 years to dig up something heinous that they did.
This suggests that the Chinese government recognises that its legitimacy is conditional and potentially unstable. Consequently, the state treats uncontrolled public discourse as a direct threat. By contrast, countries such as the United States can tolerate the public exposure of war crimes, illegal actions or state violence, since such revelations rarely result in any significant consequences. While public outrage may influence narratives or elections to some extent, it does not fundamentally endanger the continuity of power.
I am not sure if one approach is necessarily worse than the other.
It's weird to see this naivete about the US system, as if US social media doesn't have its ways of dealing with wrongthink, or the once again naive assumption that the average Chinese methods of dealing with unpleasant stuff is that dissimilar from how the US deals with it.
I sometimes have the image that Americans think that if the all Chinese got to read Western produced pamphlet detailing the particulars of what happened in Tiananmen square, they would march en-masse on the CCP HQ, and by the next week they'd turn into a Western style democracy.
How you deal with unpleasant info is well established - you just remove it - then if they put it back, you point out the image has violent content and that is against the ToS, then if they put it back, you ban the account for moderation strikes, then if they evade that it gets mass-reported. You can't have upsetting content...
You can also analyze the stuff, you see they want you to believe a certain thing, but did you know (something unrelated), or they question your personal integrity or the validity of your claims.
All the while no politically motivated censorship is taking place, they're just keeping clean the platform of violent content, and some users are organically disagreeing with your point of view, or find what you post upsetting, and the company is focused on the best user experience possible, so they remove the upsetting content.
And if you do find some content that you do agree with, think it's truthful, but know it gets you into trouble - will you engage with it? After all, it goes on your permanent record, and something might happen some day, because of it. You have a good, prosperous life going, is it worth risking it?
> I sometimes have the image that Americans think that if the all Chinese got to read Western produced pamphlet detailing the particulars of what happened in Tiananmen square, they would march en-masse on the CCP HQ, and by the next week they'd turn into a Western style democracy.
I'm sure some (probably a lot of) people think that, but I hope it never happens. I'm not keen on 'Western democracy' either - that's why, in my second response, I said that I see elections in the US and basically all other countries as just a change of administrators rather than systemic change. All those countries still put up strong guidelines on who can be politically active in their system which automatically eliminates any disruptive parties anyway. / It's like choosing what flavour of ice cream you want when you're hungry. You can choose vanilla, chocolate or pistachio, but you can never just get a curry, even if you're craving something salty.
> It's weird to see this naivete about the US system, as if US social media doesn't have its ways of dealing with wrongthink, or the once again naive assumption that the average Chinese methods of dealing with unpleasant stuff is that dissimilar from how the US deals with it.
I do think they are different to the extent that I described. Western countries typically give you the illusion of choice, whereas China, Russia and some other countries simply don't give you any choice and manage narratives differently. I believe both approaches are detrimental to the majority of people in either bloc.
What a meaningless statement. If information can influence elections it can change who is in power. This isn’t possible in China.
I disagree. Elections do not offer systemic change. They offer a rotation of administrators. While rhetoric varies, the institutions, strategic priorities, and coercive capacities persist, and every viable candidate ends up defending them.
It can still influence what those people do, and the rules you have up live under. In particular, Covid restrictions in China were brought down because everyone was fed up with them. They didn't have to have an election to collectively decide on that, despite the government saying you must still social distance et Al, for safety reasons.
Are you actually defending the censorship of Tiananmen Square?
Perhaps they're pointing out the level of double standards in condemnation China gets compared to the US, lack of censorship notwithstanding.
Are you saying we cannot talk about the bad things the US has done?
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Are you actually claiming the US is not criticized here?
The US govt doesn't force censorship of its history, good or bad.
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You don't need to go that far back
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_internment_camps
1. Xinjiang detention and surveillance (2017-ongoing)
2. Hong Kong National Security Law (2020-ongoing)
3. COVID-19 lockdown policies (2020-2022)
4. Crackdown on journalists and dissidents (ongoing)
5. Tibet cultural suppression (ongoing)
6. Forced organ harvesting allegations (ongoing)
7. South China Sea militarization (ongoing)
8. Taiwan military intimidation (2020-ongoing)
9. Suppression of Inner Mongolia language rights (2020-ongoing)
10. Transnational repression (2020-ongoing)
Let's not forget about the smaller things like the disappearance of Peng Shuai[0] and the associated evasiveness of the Chinese authorities. It seems that, in the PRC, if you resist a member of the government, you just disappear.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Peng_Shuai
or Jack Ma
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ma?#During_tech_crackdown
The current heinous thing they do is censorship. Your comment would be relevant if the OP had to find an example of censorship from 35 years ago, but all he had to do today was to ask the model a question.
Which other party that is still ruling today (aka dictatorship) mass murdered a bunch of students within the past 35 years? Or equivalent.
What counts and what not? I'm sure the US has killed a lot more who could be reasonably considered civilians, deliberately in the same time frame, even if they were not US citizens. Sure it was not the current admin, but one of the 2 major parties were in charge. If we only count the same people, pretty likely all the bigwigs who were responsible in China back then are no longer in power.
Tiananmen Square is a simple test that most people recognize.
I'm sure the model will get cold feet talking about the Hong Kong protests and uyghur persecution as well.
Which has been shown time and time again, that Chinese LLMs instead of providing a blanket denial, they start the this is a complex topic spiel.
To my knowledge this model is not 35 years old.