I’m finally making the switch from Reddit. The Voyager app seems like a pretty seamless transition, but I’d love to hear any tips about using this platform, or what quirks distinguish it from Reddit as a whole.

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    In the comment that got removed and got you temporarily banned, you just said “China is a place where human rights aren’t respected,” nothing about the Uyghur people or how the PRC treats them.

    Either way, I recommend you read the UN investigation report and China’s response, both linked here.

    As for spying on citizens, Western countries are just as, if not more guilty, of doing as such. Freedom of Speech doesn’t truly exist in the West either, when corporations dominate the media and the US State Department funds propaganda outlets like Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia in order to drum up hostility towards its geopolitical rivals. “Freedom of Speech” is more often a way to allow corporations unlimited control of speech through flooding the information space with information they want you to see. True Freedom of Speech would require placing restrictions on the power of lobbyists and corporations to dominate.

    There’s a lot that can be legitimately criticized about the PRC, of course, but a lot of the common “criticism” tends to be either distorted or exaggerated, or from holding China to a higher standard than other countries, which makes genuine debate more difficult to find.

    • azalty@jlai.lu
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      4 days ago

      I got temporarily banned for a month indeed, but what does that change? Not a lot in my opinion. I won’t be going back anyways.

      Why do I need to explain my reasoning when it’s pretty well known that China isn’t the best place to live for human rights? On the other hand, I get banned with no explanation, apart from a “Don’t be rude” rule, like what??

      Companies censoring speech isn’t the same as a country censoring speech. As far as I’m concerned we still have some sort of freedom of press. Btw, where did I say the USA was perfect? I would put it in the bad countries for human rights due to how they treat non-US people (you probably know the many wars/conflicts they’ve been into and how they feel like they have every rights on other territories like how Isreal was created, or that they can kill civilians in military operations).

      Surely the political opponents in Hong Kong are fine and not persecuted as well.

      From the little I’ve read about the report you sent, which I don’t have the time to read rn, but might later, I saw multiple things like acts of “disruption of social order” can be considered as terrorist activity. We know that in countries with strong control of the government like China, “terrorism” is often used to justify repression against political opponents. It’s even stated in the report (didn’t saw that it was as I was writing this)

      However, again, a number of the activities listed remain stated in vague and/or subjective terms without further clarification as to the content of what these may encompass, e.g., “disruption of social order and other serious social harm”.

      What I’m reading is a lot of bad things. The report is rather incriminating.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        It changes the nature of the ban, being given a slap on the wrist vs being permanently shut out, like I have been for calling out the Democrat’s complicity in the genocide of Palestinians on .world comms, or giving a nuanced take on what Socialism should be considered on a comm moderated by PugJesus.

        Either way, you need to explain because anti-China views are only really common in Europe and the US/Canada, Australia, and their allies like Japan. Pro-Chinese views, and views of a good nature on their Human Rights, are more common among people globally. Why does this discrepancy exist? Because western countries are not given free reign to plunder China economically like they do elsewhere, and thus manufacture outrage paid for by the US State Department.

        It isn’t about calling the US perfect, it’s about weighing problems in China specifically more than problems elsewhere. China is not perfect, but at the same time it is better than contemporary powers.

        As for speech censoring, the speech gets censored, why does it matter more to you that companies be able to do so?

        As for HK, about 3/4s of the population want integration with the PRC, with some wishing more autonomy but very few wanting a hard break.

        To return to the issue of Uyghur sepparatism, there is a well-documented history of violence in the region, such as the 2009 Urumqi Riots. There was factually a problem. We can critique the Chinese response, but this was a real problem China addressed with reeducation camps. Claims that these camps are for genocidal reasons aren’t backed up by UN investigation, though, such claims come exclusively from Christian Nationalist and US and UK government-funded propagandist Adrian Zenz, who believes China is the antichrist and it is his mission from God to condemn them.

        Again, we can absolutely have real critique of China, but blindly repeating claims with dubious origins and generally maintaining a distrust of the Chinese on the basis of having a strong Public Sector is not real critique, hence why I wanted you to look at the UN report. This is a similar situation to the Iraqi UN Weapons Inspectors, who never found WMD but the US lied and invaded anyways. Real events are distorted so the US can pressure into economic capitulation, and even justify invasion, and then apologize if ever called out later for it.