- Joined
- Oct 24, 2017
For background, I was stumbling through a subreddit dedicated to the sub-genre of video games called “visual novels”, when I found a post called “Anime Censorship hits Reddit”. The post pointed out the banning of a user who had posted an anime character in a swimsuit; something which has been a norm on subreddits such as r/anime, r/animemes, r/awwnime, and other communities based around the anime medium. It’s suggestive admittedly, but certainly not against any actual policies or laws. Looking through the thread, I saw a number of other users who appear to have been banned on February 8th as well — apparently for no real discernible reason, yet overlapping in the same form of posting history.
Interestingly enough, this comes the same day as an announcement that Tencent — and possibly other Chinese firms — have lead an investment round into the social media company. As expected, this was not met with the warmest of welcomes on the front page of the website, with the following being pushed to r/popular (and similar content pushed tor/all) following the reports going public.
In 2017, China officially endorsed the “Xi Jinping Doctrine” (also known as the “Xi Jinping Thought”, depending on both translation and reporting source; this is similar to and intersects with, but not to be confused with the “Confidence Doctrine”.), a political theory which does two things; first off, elevate Xi Jinping to a status similar to Mao, and secondly, bring Xi’s political ideology not just into the mainstream of Chinese politics, but create an environment in which his policy/philosophy would be actively spread and promoted. Note that this does not just mean domestically; China has a long history of active foreign promotion of Chinese ideals and propaganda. What’s more is that Xi Jinping himself has laid out a plan to make China a “lead, global influence” over the next few decades by encroaching on both the economic and cultural dependencies of the rest of the world.
The irony in all of this? Most of this is barely being covered by western media, while as you’ll see below, Chinese investment firms are slowly eating up the major players of Big Tech themselves. At the same time, we here in the US complain about the violations done to us by our own natively housed companies, who seem to have developed a sudden censorship-happy streak as well.
This is where we get into the true meat of things. Essentially, there’s been an oddly increasing number of incidents related to so-called “problematic content” being stripped from or outright barred from a number of sites. However, when looking into it deeper, there seems to be a simple, central trait shared by all of these incidents; Chinese Investment, or entrance into the Chinese Market. All of this also corresponds to reports that cross-border investment from China is reaching new levels, as there is proof of China actively attempting to move their money overseas. What’s terrifying about this revelation is, as you’ll see, the issue with censorship does not come simply from Chinese companies buying out firms so they can censor them; it comes, sometimes, from companies simply wanting to expand into the Chinese market themselves, and be compliant in doing so.
https://medium.com/@jbonesy/hang-on-whats-going-on-with-china-big-tech-61bd99716f68
Interestingly enough, this comes the same day as an announcement that Tencent — and possibly other Chinese firms — have lead an investment round into the social media company. As expected, this was not met with the warmest of welcomes on the front page of the website, with the following being pushed to r/popular (and similar content pushed tor/all) following the reports going public.
In 2017, China officially endorsed the “Xi Jinping Doctrine” (also known as the “Xi Jinping Thought”, depending on both translation and reporting source; this is similar to and intersects with, but not to be confused with the “Confidence Doctrine”.), a political theory which does two things; first off, elevate Xi Jinping to a status similar to Mao, and secondly, bring Xi’s political ideology not just into the mainstream of Chinese politics, but create an environment in which his policy/philosophy would be actively spread and promoted. Note that this does not just mean domestically; China has a long history of active foreign promotion of Chinese ideals and propaganda. What’s more is that Xi Jinping himself has laid out a plan to make China a “lead, global influence” over the next few decades by encroaching on both the economic and cultural dependencies of the rest of the world.
The irony in all of this? Most of this is barely being covered by western media, while as you’ll see below, Chinese investment firms are slowly eating up the major players of Big Tech themselves. At the same time, we here in the US complain about the violations done to us by our own natively housed companies, who seem to have developed a sudden censorship-happy streak as well.
This is where we get into the true meat of things. Essentially, there’s been an oddly increasing number of incidents related to so-called “problematic content” being stripped from or outright barred from a number of sites. However, when looking into it deeper, there seems to be a simple, central trait shared by all of these incidents; Chinese Investment, or entrance into the Chinese Market. All of this also corresponds to reports that cross-border investment from China is reaching new levels, as there is proof of China actively attempting to move their money overseas. What’s terrifying about this revelation is, as you’ll see, the issue with censorship does not come simply from Chinese companies buying out firms so they can censor them; it comes, sometimes, from companies simply wanting to expand into the Chinese market themselves, and be compliant in doing so.
https://medium.com/@jbonesy/hang-on-whats-going-on-with-china-big-tech-61bd99716f68
