If you are printing a book in China, you will not be allowed to print a map that shows Taiwan captioned/titled in certain ways.
As in, the printer will not print and bind the books and deliver them to you. They won’t even start the process until the censors have looked at it.
The censorship mechanism is quick, usually less than 48 hours turnaround, but they will catch it and will give you a blurb and tell you what is acceptable verbiage.
Even if the book is in English and meant for a foreign market.
Have you ever actually looked into the history of the Taiwan and why they would officially call their region the Republic of China?
Apparently they had a civil war not too long ago. Internationally lots of territories were absorbed in weird ways in the last 100 years, amid post European colonialism and post WWII divvy up of territories among the allies. It sounds more similar to the way southerners like to print dixie flags and reference the confederate states, despite losing the civil war except the American Civil War ended 161 years ago, whereas the ROC fled to the island of Taiwan and were left alone, still claiming to be the national party of China despite losing their civil war 77 years ago.
Why not look into the actual history of the Republic of China? has it be suppressed where you live?
Others responding to my speech by exercising their own rights to free speech and free association as individuals does not violate my right to free speech. One can make an argument that corporations doing those things (e.g. your Play Store example) is sufficiently different in kind to individuals doing it -- and a lot of people would even agree with that argument! It does, however, run afoul of current first amendment jurisprudence.
Either way, this is categorically different from China's policies on e.g. Tibet, which is a centrally driven censorship decision whose goal is to suppress factual information.
I see you trying to equalize the arugment, but it sounds like you are conflating rules, regulations and rights versus actual censorship.
Generally the West, besides recent Trump admins, we aren't censored about talking about things. The right-leaning folks will talk about how they're getting cancelled, while cancelling journalists.
China has history thats not allowed to be taught or learned from. In America, we just sweep it under an already lumpy rug.
- Genocide of Native americans in Florida and resulting "Manifest Destiny" genocide on aboriginals people
- Slavery, and arguably the American South was entirely depedant on slave labour
- Internment camp for Japanses families during the second world war
- Students protesters shot and killed at Kent State by National Guards
>Private entities might have their own policies, but government censorship is fairly small.
It's a distinction without a difference when these "private" entities in the West are the actual power centers. Most regular people spend their waking days at work having to follow the rules of these entities, and these entities provide the basic necessities of life. What would happen if you got banned from all the grocery stores? Put on an unemployable list for having controversial outspoken opinions?
CBS News installed a new editor-in-chief following the above merge and lawsuit related settlement, and she has pulled segments from 60 Minutes which were critical of the administration: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-we... (the segment leaked via a foreign affiliate, and later was broadcast by CBS)
TikTok has been forced to sell to an ally of the current administration, who is now alleged to be censoring information critical of ICE (this last one is as of yet unproven, but the fact is they were forced to sell to someone politically aligned with the president, which doesn't say very good things about freedom of expression): https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a70144099/tiktok-ice-c...
Hard to agree. Not even being to say something because it's either illegal or there are systems to erase it instantly, is very different from people dislike (even too radically) you to say something.
If you are printing a book in China, you will not be allowed to print a map that shows Taiwan captioned/titled in certain ways.
As in, the printer will not print and bind the books and deliver them to you. They won’t even start the process until the censors have looked at it.
The censorship mechanism is quick, usually less than 48 hours turnaround, but they will catch it and will give you a blurb and tell you what is acceptable verbiage.
Even if the book is in English and meant for a foreign market.
So I think it’s a bit different…
Have you ever actually looked into the history of the Taiwan and why they would officially call their region the Republic of China?
Apparently they had a civil war not too long ago. Internationally lots of territories were absorbed in weird ways in the last 100 years, amid post European colonialism and post WWII divvy up of territories among the allies. It sounds more similar to the way southerners like to print dixie flags and reference the confederate states, despite losing the civil war except the American Civil War ended 161 years ago, whereas the ROC fled to the island of Taiwan and were left alone, still claiming to be the national party of China despite losing their civil war 77 years ago.
Why not look into the actual history of the Republic of China? has it be suppressed where you live?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)
nowhere near to China.
In US almost anything could be discussed - usually only unlawful things are censored by government.
Private entities might have their own policies, but government censorship is fairly small.
In the US, yes, by the law, in principle.
In practice, you will have loss of clients, of investors, of opportunities (banned from Play Store, etc).
In Europe, on top of that, you will get fines, loss of freedom, etc.
Others responding to my speech by exercising their own rights to free speech and free association as individuals does not violate my right to free speech. One can make an argument that corporations doing those things (e.g. your Play Store example) is sufficiently different in kind to individuals doing it -- and a lot of people would even agree with that argument! It does, however, run afoul of current first amendment jurisprudence.
Either way, this is categorically different from China's policies on e.g. Tibet, which is a centrally driven censorship decision whose goal is to suppress factual information.
1 reply →
I see you trying to equalize the arugment, but it sounds like you are conflating rules, regulations and rights versus actual censorship.
Generally the West, besides recent Trump admins, we aren't censored about talking about things. The right-leaning folks will talk about how they're getting cancelled, while cancelling journalists.
China has history thats not allowed to be taught or learned from. In America, we just sweep it under an already lumpy rug.
- Genocide of Native americans in Florida and resulting "Manifest Destiny" genocide on aboriginals people - Slavery, and arguably the American South was entirely depedant on slave labour - Internment camp for Japanses families during the second world war - Students protesters shot and killed at Kent State by National Guards
> In Europe, on top of that, you will get fines, loss of freedom, etc.
What are you talking about?
3 replies →
This assumes zero unknown unknowns, as in things that would be kept from your awareness through processes also kept from your awareness.
This might be a good year to revisit this assumption.
[dead]
>Private entities might have their own policies, but government censorship is fairly small.
It's a distinction without a difference when these "private" entities in the West are the actual power centers. Most regular people spend their waking days at work having to follow the rules of these entities, and these entities provide the basic necessities of life. What would happen if you got banned from all the grocery stores? Put on an unemployable list for having controversial outspoken opinions?
A man was just shot in the street by the US government for filming them, while he happened to be carrying a legally owned gun. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/man-shot-and-killed-by-f...
Earlier they broke down the door of a US citizen and arrested him in his underwear without a warrant. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/a-u-s-citizen-says-ice-f...
Stephen Colbert has been fired for being critical of the president, after pressure from the federal government threatening to stop a merger. https://freespeechproject.georgetown.edu/tracker-entries/ste...
CBS News installed a new editor-in-chief following the above merge and lawsuit related settlement, and she has pulled segments from 60 Minutes which were critical of the administration: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/22/g-s1-103282/cbs-chief-bari-we... (the segment leaked via a foreign affiliate, and later was broadcast by CBS)
Students have been arrested for writing op-eds critical of Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_R%C3%BCmeysa_%C3%...
TikTok has been forced to sell to an ally of the current administration, who is now alleged to be censoring information critical of ICE (this last one is as of yet unproven, but the fact is they were forced to sell to someone politically aligned with the president, which doesn't say very good things about freedom of expression): https://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a70144099/tiktok-ice-c...
Apple and Google have banned apps tracking ICE from their app stores, upon demand from the government: https://www.npr.org/2025/10/03/nx-s1-5561999/apple-google-ic...
And the government is planning on requiring ESTA visitors to install a mobile app, submit biometric data, and submit 5 years of social media data to travel to the US: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-12-10/pdf/2025-2...
We no longer have a functioning bill of rights in this country. Have you been asleep for the past year?
The censorship is not as pervasive as in China, yet. But it's getting there fast.
Oh yes it is. Anything sexual is heavily censored in the west. In particular the US.
Funnily enough, in Europe it's the opposite: news, facts and opinions tend to be censored but porn is wide open (as long as you give your ID card)
Did we all forget about the censorship around "misinformation" during COVID and "stolen elections" already?
Hard to agree. Not even being to say something because it's either illegal or there are systems to erase it instantly, is very different from people dislike (even too radically) you to say something.
yeah, censorship in the west should give them carte blanche, difficult to blame them, what a fool
What prompt should I run to detect western censorship from a LLM?
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMw_c2a3bc32-23a4-41a1-a2ae-8d...
It is in fact not difficult to blame them.