Summary

Many Americans joining China’s social media platform RedNote are encountering strict censorship uncommon in Western platforms.

One non-binary user had a post asking if the platform welcomed gay people removed within hours.

Posts on LGBTQ+ topics, fitness photos, and sensitive cultural content have been censored, frustrating users unfamiliar with China’s moderation rules.

RedNote is hiring English-language moderators to handle the influx. While some users enjoy cultural exchange, others criticize restrictions.

Analysts see RedNote’s growth among US users as a soft power win for China.

    • cm0002@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      Well the tankies seem to think that China is actually a Utopia that the western governments are hiding from us, so naturally there shouldn’t be any censorship issues lol

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        29 days ago

        People moving to Red Note aren’t tankies and I’ve only heard people who describe what tankies say that tankies think China is a utopia that our governments are hiding from us. Kinda like Ben Shapiro describing what “the left” people say or do.

    • KamikazeRusher@lemm.ee
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      29 days ago

      “I’m an American and have a right to free speech, no matter what country the service is hosted in!”

      • gidostro@lemmy.cafe
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        29 days ago

        But what if there is no country that “allows” the speech you want to say? I want to call for the beheading of billionaires. I assume you don’t think I should be able to do that?

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      29 days ago

      My question is how much of these articles are manufactured outrage. Like, I can’t imagine anybody expected anything different - especially since some of this stuff is censored already on American social media (especially LGBT related stuff), and the media has spent 50 years telling Americans how much censorship there is in China and the Great Firewall.

      • spicehoarder@lemm.ee
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        28 days ago

        Probably 90% from my personal experience, I see loads of LGBTQ posts on RedNote. I wonder if they’re being sensored or just waiting to go through the moderation queue.

        I could see English posts maybe accumulating negative sentiment scores or even just a lack of known words causing a post to end up in a moderation queue.

        For reference sentiment scores are basically a numeric way of scoring a post. Words like “hate” get -10 points neutral words get 1 point, and positive words like love and friendship get +10 points. At least when I was in college, this was a popular way for social media to determine if they should push your content or not.

        • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          28 days ago

          I said in another comment about what I learned from following a Chinese lesbian on Twitter is that with China it’s like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” - you can say and do things that you could or should get in trouble for, but as long as you do it the right way, it’ll be overlooked.

          There’s gay bars and a big lesbian scene in China, but there’s a common practice there, that used to happen in Europe and the US as well before the culture shifted, where lesbians get married to men - either gay guys or just a guy they have an arrangement with - to fulfill the cultural obligation expected of them to get married, and then they basically live their own separate lives.

          So most likely what’s happening is people who don’t know the cultural do’s and don’t’s are getting censored for stepping over the line.

          But LGBTQ stuff is censored all the time on other social media anyway, whenever they think they can get away with it, so it’s not like it’s all that surprising - especially when you add in China’s official stance on LGBTQ people.

          These feel like they’re freaking out about something that everybody already knew was gonna happen, and omitting the fact that it happens elsewhere as well to make it seem like a big deal.

      • gidostro@lemmy.cafe
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        29 days ago

        This is all just leading up to the TikTok savior Trump winning over the youth crowd. If you force them to a platform that is much worse, they will forget how controlling the previous platform was and just be happy to have it.

    • ZeroOne@lemmy.world
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      29 days ago

      You are assuming TikTokers have any intelligence, morals, principle or talent (or even humanity)

      • femtech@midwest.social
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        29 days ago

        Not equal, China is better at censorship, tracking, and social pressure. They own the corporations and businesses. Go to other countries to kidnap their citizens that talked bad about them.

        • ℍ𝕂-𝟞𝟝@sopuli.xyz
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          29 days ago

          US corps own the government, not seeing how that’s better. Also, the US does kidnap people who they don’t like internationally as well.

          What if we didn’t do oppression olympics and needless political division for 5 minutes. Every gov sucks in its own way, so do corps, but people, including Chinese people are awesome.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        29 days ago

        They suck and excel at different things. For example the US doesn’t have high speed rail while China doesn’t have military bases around the globe.

        • yeather@lemmy.ca
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          28 days ago

          Actually the Chinese high speed rail is littered with issues. Safety is obviously an issue, most stories that escape the bubble and make it west are about steel quality in the tracks causing cracking and closures.

          The other issue is economics. Sure, China has a lot of high speed rail, but a lot of it goes nowhere important, connecting small cities where a normal train line would have been more economical and practical for the sole reason of claiming more high speed rail than any ither country. This has lead to a huge expansion in the governments “hidden debt” to over 1 trillion usd from the rail line operator alone. This is only for laying the lines themselves does not even account for new trains or maitenance or stations and services.

          Also, if the recognized speed of high speed rail is 125mph like wikipedia says, America has a decent amount, it just so happens large cities are spread apart across the continent and flying is more economical than high speed rail.

          • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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            28 days ago

            Can’t say anything about quality issues.

            I can say a few things about the economics. It doesn’t matter whether some or all of this rail is economical or not. Countless infrastructure projects around the world are built without them being economical. The half-a-trillion US interstate highway network was likely not economical either. Infrastructure like that has two important purposes. One’s to support future use. Given the speed with which cities have appeared and filled with people in China, or expanded in the US, a rail line or a large highway corridor support this urbanization. Urbanization creates significant economic growth. The other purpose is finding work for people who then spend their wages in the rest of the economy. So long as there isn’t shortage in real resources - people, concrete, iron, etc. - spending money for this increases domestic consumption and therefore economic growth. Functionally doesn’t matter if the money was created via debt or printed. You can cancel or pay that debt by printing the amount. The debt is typically created out of thin air anyways. Western counties used to this too prior to the neoliberal era when there was slack in the economy. These days we have a lot of bullshit jobs that serve a similar purpose. I think both things considered, HSR buildout in China is solid long term planning, despite of its growing pains.

            On what’s high speed rail, I’m thinking ETR500/1000 like the Frecciarossa 1000 in Italy. Those regularly go at 300kph. Looking at Amtrak’s wiki:

            Amtrak’s network includes over 500 stations along 21,400 miles (34,000 km) of track. It directly owns approximately 623 miles (1,003 km) of this track and operates an additional 132 miles of track; the remaining mileage is over rail lines owned by other railroad companies. While most track speeds are limited to 79 mph (127 km/h) or less, several lines have been upgraded to support top speeds of 110 mph (180 km/h), and parts of the Northeast Corridor support top speeds of 160 mph (260 km/h).

            It seems only parts of the Northeast Corridor get close to that. There’s plenty of geographic high speed rail opportunity in the US that would eliminate short haul flights which have the worst carbon footprint of all flights. There’s no public investment appetite for it. There’s barely enough public funding to maintain the existing roadway infrastructure. Plus I’m sure airlines donate good money to government officials to ensure HSR isn’t a threat to their profits.

      • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        This is consistent. Anything that makes the racists, fascists, incels, tech bros, and billionaires uncomfortable is blocked.

          • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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            28 days ago

            Did mentions of Tiananmen Square make China uncomfortable before 1989 or did that change? Did mentions of Winnie the Pooh make China uncomfortable before 2017 or did that change?

            I’m not sure what point you were trying to make.

              • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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                28 days ago

                That was only two representative examples. Do you actually want me to make an exhaustive list of all of the changes that have happened over time to the Chinese censorship regime?

            • doomcanoe@sh.itjust.works
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              28 days ago

              The point was obvious…

              Chinese censorship is planned and targeted, with the intent to control and suppress dissent. It works hard to maintain a narrative and prevent excessive and rapid shifts so as to achieve a long term goal of control.

              The billionaires running American social media (with a special shout to Musk) are mercurial and subject to the petty whims and feelings of the owner.

              So while yes, obviously both change and the heads of the CCP are also occasionally subject to emotional responses, the differences between the two are stark and obvious. So no, “everything technically changes” is not a valid counter to the significant differences in intent and volatility.

              Claiming you don’t understand the point they were making is just being intentionally obtuse.

              • Maple Engineer@lemmy.world
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                28 days ago

                I’m sure your point was very clear in your head but it may not be obvious to you that other people can’t read your mind. Suggesting that anyone who doesn’t get your opaque point is being obtuse is arrogant and childish.

                Do better.

    • Shacktastic@lemy.lol
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      28 days ago

      China censors all literature, film, music, and internet discourse employing advanced technologies and multiple tens of thousands of people while also running the world’s largest prison for journalist. VPNs are blocked. Apps like Signal are blocked. Online gaming for minors is limited to 3 hours per day on weekends and holidays only. People get harassed by police for what they post online. Many go to jail for criticizing the government, spreading pornography or health related sexual content (including anything LGBT), supporting Taiwanese independence, or casting doubt on Chinese folk legends. Then, in addition to that (which I have not even begun to do justice to), all media companies run their own internal censorship regimes so as not to get in trouble with the authorities. And this rolls downhill: you the individual self-censor to not get in trouble with your boss or worse.

      • kuato@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        Yeah… I don’t think you’re the expert on China censorship you present yourself as.

        I think you just regurgitated every piece of Cold War propaganda & every rumor about Chinese censorship that you’ve ever heard.

        • Shacktastic@lemy.lol
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          28 days ago

          Which of my statements do you disagree with? How would you characterize the state of freedom of speech in the PRC?

        • Semjaza@lemmynsfw.com
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          26 days ago

          I mean, all the Chengdu '89 mums get rounded up at the end of May each year still.

          You can’t even talk about the Cultural Revolution these days.

          Even stating the fact that the RoC still exists will get your WeChat account closed.

          I’m not sure what you think PRC censorship is like.

    • mlg@lemmy.world
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      28 days ago

      Lol I’m almost permanently shadow banned from youtube for the same reason, only rarely do my comments actually show up, and I can’t even reply to my own comment. The funny thing is I made just one comment to trip their alarm, because everything else I write comments about are usually memes and YTP.

      I also saw a fairly well liked reddit mod get banned by the site admins for stating Israel is an ethnostate.