this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2025
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I'm not very caught up on the specifics but I do think it's funny that the same people who chortle about Tiananmen and Chinese censorship on DeepSeek have nothing to say about the results you get from Gemini or ChatGPT if you ask about American politics (elections/politicians) or misbehavior (Gaza/Israel/Palestine) or even ask them to write something violent or sexual...
Me asking about a current politician's achievements and got this.
All of the censorship is bad. This mem le/joke is funny because of the amount of effort the CCP puts into hiding its own history from its people.
Censorship is often necessary, and even beneficial, when the alternative is the mass distribution of misinformation or spam. If you had to parse every email your account received, rather than dedicating a big chunk of it to the "junk mail" folder, the service would lose much of its utility.
I would be curious to know the number of Chinese citizens who know about the Tienanmen protests relative to the number of Americans who know about the US sponsorship of Contra Rebels in Nicaragua or our CIA's admitted role in international cocaine trafficking.
Hell, consider that most Americans can't find Iran (or North Korea) on a map. This, despite Americans having an overwhelmingly negative view of our designated Foreign Enemies.
Americans fixate on Tienanmen precisely because its one of the only things they do learn about in public school. US/Chinese relations practically begin and end with Tienanmen Square. What Americans don't realize and won't accept is that this subject is discussed ad nauseum within the Chinese historical community, but traditionally from the basis of accounts provided by the Deng government.
This is in the same way that, say, US education on the Pearl Harbor bombing or the JFK Assassination or the 9/11 attacks are taught from the perspective of US state scholars and politicians.
The Tianmens square is most relevant in this thread because it is a meme thread about exactly that.
I would suggest that more Americans know about Wuhan's biolab and wet market than know about Tianmen square.
I am sorry for my bad spelling.
My junk folder is not really comparable to Governments censoring history.
What's funny is that rumors of a highly contagious flu-variant were springing up around the Ft Detrick biolab in Maryland months before the outbreak in Wuhan. This information has been entirely blotted out of US News services in large part because American counterintelligence flagged it as a means of propagating Chinese branded COVID Propaganda.
Libertarians keep telling me that America.gov is a problem but America.com is the solution.
Big "all lives matter" energy
They have lots to say about the big corpo us models. There's been 100s of articles on it.
Like what? What western atrocity is censored by western LLMs?
No, we're "chortling" about both. You just wont see people discussing US censorship in a thread about CCP censorship, unless some asshat brings up a what-aboutism.
I think that both topics are on point. It is about IA programmed censorship, after all.
People who complain about "whataboutism" usually dislike direct comparisons.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
If the crux of your argument is based on an ethical or moral judgement you open yourself to whataboutisms. Otherwise any time any one brings up hypocritical behavior it would be a fallacy.
On the other hand, if you simply observe a fact, like this censorship, people who bring up a whataboutism are actually engaging in strawmanning.
Tl;Dr whataboutisms are a disputed fallacy and it quite frankly probably depends on context and motivation for whether it counts
My personal guideline is when it's being used as a defense or excuse instead of a refutation of a claim (explicit or implicit) of moral or ethical superiority.
The fuck are you going on about? All I'm saying is is that the only reason you might hear about [topic x] in a thread about [topic y] is people deflecting.
Want to complain about American censorship? Make a new post. Plenty of things to complain about now. You'll see plenty of the same people,
The absolute state of reading comprehension in this country is shameful.
Right back at you. You wrote a whole essay because you misinterpreted my issue with people bringing up off topics.
Bro, it's five sentences. You're just lazy.
Nothing lazy about not wanting to debate a deflection or other fallacy. It keeps debates on-track.
Dumbass, lol.
That's fair; my interest is only passing and my experiences are limited.
Generally in Facebook comments really. But I did say that mine was a superficial observation...
Hi, I think it’s funny that people make assertions like yours hoping folks will just agree.
Propaganda is propaganda, state sanctioned and enforced censorship as en effort to try to erase history is wildly different.
Wataboutism is strong with this one. Quick better deflect more!
It is difficult to talk about the impact of censorship and propaganda within a forum that is thick in propaganda and routinely censored.
We just bitchin to bitch now eh