this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2026
401 points (97.2% liked)
Technology
85355 readers
3361 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I never thought I'd see the day when China started to look more inclined to allow free speech than the US. Yet, here we are.
You never thought the country which bombs other countries and kidnaps their presidents would become more restrictive/authoritarian than the one which generally doesn't?
Seems pretty predictable to me idk. People are so steeped in American exceptionalism mythology.
I know, what China did to Tibet was so wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gedhun_Choekyi_Nyima
Edit: oh you were talking about the US. Yes they have also kidnapped leaders and attacked other nations just like China has.
You had to reach back to 1995.
I can reach back to last week.
The point stands, sorry Sinophobe.
China has killed more of it own citizens than the US, please keep apologizing for China.
At least we can both agree the US sucks.
Edit: calling me a sinophobe about a fact just shows you act like a fucking asshole btw.
I have had many candid interactions with real Chinese citizens.
A lot of them have a deep understand of the blood that has been shed and the ethics required to maintain a functioning society. And it's this ethical and historical understand that leads their quality of life advancements.
Current day China is objectively better than current day US.
Oh so they are proud their government murdered a bunch of citizens and then killed millions more through bad policies and they openly talk about this in their schools and personal life?
I am being facetious so don't bother answering.
Currently China is pumping out more billionaires than the US, they are also openly selling arms to war torn countries. They are imperialist through and through.
What part of China is better? Because peasants probably aren't happy with billionaires polluting their environment and the two-tired society they have developed.
You are clearly not objective.
They're humans, you arrogant prick. Calling people you don't like peasants certainly proves your point. Way to beat the racism allegations.
Oh damn, does the realization that there are 300 million rural migrant laborers who don't get access to the money or healthcare like the privileged urban population does make you angry?
Just kidding, you don't give a fuck about them.
[citation needed], don't forget to include the Civil War in the US's figures. Let's also go "per capita" to make it fair.
It wasn't "about a fact", it was about your framing of the fact. "Yeah China did this 30 fucking years ago while America has never stopped doing this over the last 30 years, these two entities are equivalent!"
I'm not pro-CCP for the record. I'm just realistic about my criticisms, like their restrictive social measures. There is zero doubt they are vastly less of an international menace than the United States.
No citation needed, it is common knowledge how many people died not only from their violent revolution but also policies that led to the great famine. To think all those people died fighting "fascists" just to turn around and embrace fascism is a very sad story.
China is the fourth largest producer of arms. They are actively selling weapons to war torn nations. You are clearly carrying water here.
The US is by far the most destructive nation in the history of the world. No debate from me here.
Don't bother, he likes to eat his propaganda by the spoonful. China kills 100000000000000000000000000x 10*9 yogurts every minute, etc. Every accusation is an admission of guilt, what they blame China is exactly what the USA has done, still does, and will do
Man you pro-chinese losers are weird and misinformed.
Sure thing buddy, keep coping, this century is Chinese
We are already beyond countries, maybe someday you will catch up.
All I see is their sacrifice paying up, their standards of living increasing and they haven't invaded any country on almost half a century
I really appreciate how they raised close to a billion people out of extreme poverty giving them access to clean water and electricity. It was a tremendous achievement.
I can definitely see the good and the bad.
I'm not saying there is no bad, I am not stupid. But the information we receive in the west is so one sided that I have to question everything they say about China. For example, the "social credit" is something that doesn't exist in China, yet we saw endless news articles in the west about it, made me question what else are they lying about, as it turns out, a lot
We are not even close
Debatable. The UK is already there, followed very closely by Australia, and then the US.
I can't find it now but a while ago I read a very interesting article about a guy who worked for the Chinese censorship service, tried to blow the whistle on them violating their own laws and eventually fled the country.
I also read about the wallbleed hack that exposed the sort of data China gathers from internet users as well as how their DNS interception system works to stop users from accessing forbidden domain names.
I think there are definitely many in the UK who WANT China's level of censorship. But even as the situation in the UK is becoming dire, the scale of internet policing, scope of topics that are censored by the government, and the severity of punishment dealt out are still well behind that of China.
(I remember the guy who fled China being at risk of a 15+ year sentence, for example. Worst I have seen in UK is 4 years... Which is still insane enough to start a riot, but not equal to China).
I agree that the punishment for people breaking those laws in China are way beyond anything in the UK, and probably most other countries. The thing is that it's happening, that is the problem. Free speech, privacy, the right to disagree and be vocal about it, it's all being removed, at an alarming speed, and it's only accelerating.
This is from 'democratic' countries, countries that love using the word freedom. We have become so hypnotized with the bullshit on the internet and all the comforts in our lives that we lost sight of what is important. Now the rich and powerful, politicians or corporate, have taken advantage of that willful ignorance, and I say willful because we chose to take the breadcrumbs they gave us in exchange of our freedom and dignity, and now, if we don't do something fast, the only way to regain any fraction of that will be by swimming on rivers of blood.
That is what I'm concerned about. I'm 51 years old, so I certainly already lived over half of my life. However, younger folks, I think 30 or less today, will have to live most of their lives without any real freedom, just going through their lives existing under the oppression of these governments and the mega-rich corporate owners and executives. Having to take whatever they want to give them, and not being able to dissent without certain repercussions, and repercussions that we don't yet know how hard and bad.
I honestly hope it doesn't come to that, but go do some research, things all over the world are unhinged right bow, and we're all living mostly on the decisions of a select few, however they see fit.
It's grim, but we need to stop trying to cover the sun with one finger and risk being called lunatics when we bring this shit up. I see things happening that I've been telling people about for over 10 years, only worse than I thought they would be, and some people are finally starting to see it, however still choose to do nothing about it. Still using windows, Facebook, X, iPhones, buying Samsung phones. It's wild how we've become numb to our own demise.
To keep it short, I agree, I just dont like to see people trying to trick teenagers on here that China isnt worse than the west is right now.
I'm not trying to trick anyone into anything. I'm just following the facts, and the fact is that the western civilization is not too far from becoming China.
I guess we're of the same mind. China, barring China, Russia and any other openly authoritarian country, are the worst right now. Now, the 'democratic' countries some (most?) of us live in right now are quickly approaching the same levels of constraint and subjection of those same countries we so regularly call out for the exact same behavior of their governments.
Chinese governments like speech that is friendly to China. US governments like speech that is friendly to the US.
We call it censorship when a government censors self-criticism, but a big part of that calculation hinges on how much criticism a government is subjected to at any given moment.
If you're seeing a lot of Chinese criticism - and a lot of second-order "China is censoring the criticism!" stories - that's more often the result of a national media push to divorce the US public and economy from China. If you're seeing a lot of US self-criticism and resulting domestic government backlash, that's more often the result of a divided US populace that's lost sight of it's Overseas Enemy Cold War fixation.
The day Trump leaves office, you're going to see a tidal wave of "China Bad!" articles slam into your news feed, like the Red Sea after Moses squeezes it shut again. Then we won't see "US censorship!" hand-wringing until the political scene starts polarizing again.