• Empathy [he/him]@beehaw.org
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    8 months ago

    I’m a bit worried about the amount of people I see making this argument whenever I see posts about a TikTok ban/acquisition.

    I’m getting the impression that, either:

    1. People don’t believe there’s (significant) Chinese propaganda on TikTok.
    2. People believe there would be (significant) US propaganda on TikTok following an acquisition.
    3. Given the choice, people would rather see Chinese propaganda than US propaganda.

    Am I correct? Is there a nuance I’m missing?

    I can understand concerns over point #2 here, but #1 and #3 seem wild to me.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Given the choice, people would rather see Chinese propaganda than US propaganda.

      Well since I see US propaganda literally everywhere else it’s nice to get some counter-programming.

    • brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I can understand concerns over point #2 here, but #1 and #3 seem wild to me.

      Seems fairly arrogant for you to declare that these positions are ‘wild’ and then expect other people to explain why they’re not. Seems like you should be able to justify why those positions are “wild”, because they seem perfectly reasonable to me.

    • mub@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Yli.think you make a reasonable point, but it feels like choosing between getting stabbed in the left leg vs the right leg.

      • Empathy [he/him]@beehaw.org
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        8 months ago

        If it were the US vs another democratic country, I would feel like that too.

        I’m particularly concerned with China (and Russia) because:

        • They are not a democratic country.
        • They do not have freedom of speech like most countries
        • As far as I perceive, they are generally enemies of well-intentioned countries.

        I might have a different perspective though. I’m a fairly recent US immigrant from Canada.

        Edit: I’d like to add, my tone may come across wrong over written text, I’m just trying to understand people’s overall perspective and whether mine is different, I’m not trying to argue and I’m not upset at you nor any of the commenters I’ve seen on similar posts.

        • brain_in_a_box@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          Seems like you’re just coming from a position of pure western chauvinism, starting with the premise that the West is the ‘good guys’ and their enemies are the ‘bad guys’ and working backwards from it. That’s the only way you could arrive at this idea that there’s some binary “democrat/not democrat” standard. In truth its not really clear how you could say that China is any less democratic than the USA, let alone “not a democrat country” (implying the USA is).

          Even more clearly chauvinistic is your third bullet point. How in the world are you determining which countries are “well intentioned?” Is Israel will intentioned? Is Saudi Arabia? Is the USA? How are you determining that China and the many African countries it’s friends with are not “well intentioned”? Seems like you’re just appealing to orientalist stereotypes about non Westerners being conniving and duplicitous.

          • Empathy [he/him]@beehaw.org
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            8 months ago

            I was wondering whether what felt like common sense to me was the same as what felt like common sense for others, and I see that between us it’s not.

            I’m not gonna bother trying to argue with you, I doubt it would be productive in any way, I’m not gonna change your mind. Additionally, you’ve put a lot of words into my mouth and inferred that I believe a lot of things that I really don’t believe, which is a bit upsetting.

        • tiredturtle@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          You’re getting hit by a some bad faith willful misunderstander comments

          It’s true that Russia or China aren’t well-intentioned nor democracies AND the USA belongs to that same group.

        • davel@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          They are not a democratic country.

          Why would you say that? Meanwhile, Princeton University Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Which isn’t surprising since capitalist democracy is a sham democracy.

          They do not have freedom of speech like most countries

          I can only say that they are freer than Anglosphere propaganda claim. Meanwhile Julian Assange has been a political prisoner for 12 years and counting, despite even the major Global North corporate media pleading for his exoneration.

          As far as I perceive, they are generally enemies of well-intentioned countries.

          I’m not sure which countries you’re referring to, but maybe you mean the other imperial core countries. As neocolonizers, they are no more well-intentioned than the US is, from the perspective of the periphery countries they plunder.