Censorship in the West: we don’t want that on our platform, person goes and finds a different platform.
Censorship under authoritarian governments: Criticize government? Straight to jail. Uncover wrongdoing by party official? Jail. Political opposition becoming more than controlled opposition? Believe it or not, jail.
Censorship in the West for minor criticisms isn’t overtly blocking in the information. Instead it is drowned out with the government’s narrative on all major platforms of discourse
There’s a difference between socially unacceptable and “straight to jail”.
You mean like Assange and Manning?
Manning not only released documents that were under her care as an intelligence officer, but also broke into other systems. Regardless of whether you support what she did, she did so knowing the consequences of breaking her oath. In doing so, she made public wrongdoing, but also exposed sources that the US had promised would be kept safe.
Assange… well, that feels more like a case of karma. The Obama/Biden administration declined to indict him in relation to the Manning leaks. He then screwed with the 2016 US elections, blatantly stoking conspiracy theories, laundering Russia’s hacks in service of Trump, and coordinating with the Trump campaign to time releases to blunt at least one scandal. In return, the Trump administration indicted him. I don’t fully understand the case, so I won’t comment on it.
Compare that to investigative journalism in general in the US. Journalists can publish pieces that are extremely critical of both the government and corporations. High up people regularly are dragged down from their perch by an enterprising reporter. Maybe newsrooms aren’t as well staffed as they used to be, but it’s not in the same league as countries like China, Russia, and Venezuela that lack anything resembling a free press.
There’s a difference between socially unacceptable and “straight to jail”.
So just a straw man then?
Compare that to investigative journalism in general in the US. Journalists can publish pieces that are extremely critical of both the government and corporations.
Journalists can’t question systemic problems in US. Entire books have been written on how journalism in US has been subverted. Read Inventing Reality and Manufacturing consent which both provide numerous case studies.
The fact that you genuinely believe that quality of journalism in China, Russia, or Venezuela is significantly worse than in the west is illustration of the effectiveness of propaganda in western media.
Assange did real journalism and he is being tortured for it right now. Instead of being outraged by the war crimes he exposed you choose to smear the man.
Also, I highly recommend that you read in this book detailing political repression in US. A few excerpts:
My view is that I have no idea what CCP is, but CPC doesn’t seem to be doing anything exceptional with regards to historical revisionism. Perhaps you can try to articulate the point you’re trying to make in more concrete terms.
Within China, censorship in recent weeks increased as the country prepared for the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprisings, a series of student protests that were violently suppressed by the army, leading to more than 10,000 civilian deaths, according to some estimates.
Prior to the anniversary, on June 4, Chinese internet users reported widespread censorship on social media websites. On popular messaging services such as Weibo and a streaming service run by the company YY Inc., users were prevented from entering search terms such as “Tiananmen incident,” “candlelight vigil,” “repression,” and “student movement.”
I don’t have anything against Venezuela per se. Maduro is a shitty leader who maintains his grip on power by giving oil money to the armed forces. He’s nothing but a military-backed dictator that is so shitty that he and Hugo Chavez provoked a massive migration crisis with 15% of the country leaving. Part of the way he maintains his grip besides bribing the armed forces is extermination of any free press.
Yeah no. For anyone just randomly complaining about the government, in order of frequency of “enforcement” used, frequency decreases exponentially: 1. No one cares and their post stays up forever; 2. The individual post gets removed or prevented from being posted; 3. Their account on that platform gets banned. The platforms in China like WeChat, the Chinese version of TikTok, etc are still private platforms by private companies btw.
It’s only when you go beyond just criticizing the government and into advocating for violence, civil disorder, and coup when you actually get into law enforcement response and potential jail time. Which, by the way, is absolutely also true for Western countries, go ahead and point to a single Western “free speech” country that doesn’t outlaw those in their legislation, I’ll wait. By the way, despite popular Western belief, there are no “illegal speech” crimes that are punishable by death in China. They have these nifty things called “maximum punishments allowed by statute” just like the West, and death is only on the table for the most serious crimes like murder, rape, etc, just like the West.
You can call for the overthrow of the US government. People do it all the time without consequence. More specific threats against particular targets might get a visit from the Secret Service.
It’s easy to find counterexamples of China having a go at journalists. For example, a journalist was sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, the CPC’s blanket crime for those who displease it. She had been doing unflattering reporting on the CPC’s handling of COVID-19.
death is only on the table for the most serious crimes like murder, rape, etc, just like the West.
Most of the West has abolished the death penalty. The US is an outlier here, and even in the US it is only for murder and many states have abolished it completely.
Censorship in the West: we don’t want that on our platform, person goes and finds a different platform.
Censorship under authoritarian governments: Criticize government? Straight to jail. Uncover wrongdoing by party official? Jail. Political opposition becoming more than controlled opposition? Believe it or not, jail.
Censorship in the West for minor criticisms isn’t overtly blocking in the information. Instead it is drowned out with the government’s narrative on all major platforms of discourse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
You mean like Assange and Manning?
There’s a difference between socially unacceptable and “straight to jail”.
Manning not only released documents that were under her care as an intelligence officer, but also broke into other systems. Regardless of whether you support what she did, she did so knowing the consequences of breaking her oath. In doing so, she made public wrongdoing, but also exposed sources that the US had promised would be kept safe.
Assange… well, that feels more like a case of karma. The Obama/Biden administration declined to indict him in relation to the Manning leaks. He then screwed with the 2016 US elections, blatantly stoking conspiracy theories, laundering Russia’s hacks in service of Trump, and coordinating with the Trump campaign to time releases to blunt at least one scandal. In return, the Trump administration indicted him. I don’t fully understand the case, so I won’t comment on it.
Compare that to investigative journalism in general in the US. Journalists can publish pieces that are extremely critical of both the government and corporations. High up people regularly are dragged down from their perch by an enterprising reporter. Maybe newsrooms aren’t as well staffed as they used to be, but it’s not in the same league as countries like China, Russia, and Venezuela that lack anything resembling a free press.
So just a straw man then?
Journalists can’t question systemic problems in US. Entire books have been written on how journalism in US has been subverted. Read Inventing Reality and Manufacturing consent which both provide numerous case studies.
The fact that you genuinely believe that quality of journalism in China, Russia, or Venezuela is significantly worse than in the west is illustration of the effectiveness of propaganda in western media.
Assange did real journalism and he is being tortured for it right now. Instead of being outraged by the war crimes he exposed you choose to smear the man.
Also, I highly recommend that you read in this book detailing political repression in US. A few excerpts:
What do you think about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_nihilism
(I did not read the whole context but it is impossible to ignore this)
Doesn’t that describe exactly what western countries do? For example https://theconversation.com/school-curriculum-continues-to-whitewash-britains-imperial-past-53577
That was not what I asked. What is your view on China/CCP on historical nihilism in specific?
We can all agree about the factual bad things west does.
My view is that I have no idea what CCP is, but CPC doesn’t seem to be doing anything exceptional with regards to historical revisionism. Perhaps you can try to articulate the point you’re trying to make in more concrete terms.
I see. For a concrete example, does China/CPC censors or not Tiananmen Square events? Some context https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre#Censorship_in_China
What do you have against Venezuela?
are these they?
I don’t have anything against Venezuela per se. Maduro is a shitty leader who maintains his grip on power by giving oil money to the armed forces. He’s nothing but a military-backed dictator that is so shitty that he and Hugo Chavez provoked a massive migration crisis with 15% of the country leaving. Part of the way he maintains his grip besides bribing the armed forces is extermination of any free press.
Censorship under authoritarian governments:
https://lemmy.ml/post/552234
https://lemmy.ml/post/473162
https://lemmy.ml/post/87081
https://lemmy.ml/post/472853
https://lemmy.ml/post/367783
Just a small cross section
I’m assuming you’re talking about China in this.
Yeah no. For anyone just randomly complaining about the government, in order of frequency of “enforcement” used, frequency decreases exponentially: 1. No one cares and their post stays up forever; 2. The individual post gets removed or prevented from being posted; 3. Their account on that platform gets banned. The platforms in China like WeChat, the Chinese version of TikTok, etc are still private platforms by private companies btw.
Oh look! Some actual legislation on the subject! https://lemmy.ml/post/69688/comment/60571
It’s only when you go beyond just criticizing the government and into advocating for violence, civil disorder, and coup when you actually get into law enforcement response and potential jail time. Which, by the way, is absolutely also true for Western countries, go ahead and point to a single Western “free speech” country that doesn’t outlaw those in their legislation, I’ll wait. By the way, despite popular Western belief, there are no “illegal speech” crimes that are punishable by death in China. They have these nifty things called “maximum punishments allowed by statute” just like the West, and death is only on the table for the most serious crimes like murder, rape, etc, just like the West.
Massive economic crimes is also in, unlike the west.
Massive economic crime is a serious crime.
In the west it just goes in the portfolio.
You can call for the overthrow of the US government. People do it all the time without consequence. More specific threats against particular targets might get a visit from the Secret Service.
It’s easy to find counterexamples of China having a go at journalists. For example, a journalist was sentenced to four years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, the CPC’s blanket crime for those who displease it. She had been doing unflattering reporting on the CPC’s handling of COVID-19.
Most of the West has abolished the death penalty. The US is an outlier here, and even in the US it is only for murder and many states have abolished it completely.